TALLINN, Estonia - Russian President
Vladimir Putin
once proclaimed the dissolution of the Soviet empire "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century."
At the time, in 2005, few expected him to do anything about it.
But then came Russia's occupation of Georgia's
Abkhazia and South Ossetia
in 2008, its support for Ukrainian separatists and
annexation of Crimea
in 2014 and, most famously, the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Now, with the rise of former US President
Donald Trump
, who has in the past vowed to leave NATO and recently threatened never to come to the aid of his alliance allies, concern is growing among European nations that Putin could invade a nation in the next decade and that they will have to face their forces
without the support of the United States.
Trump reshaped Republican foreign policy with his "America First" doctrine, his skepticism of NATO and his appreciation of autocrats.
But the Russian invasion of Ukraine – and the West's united response to it – is emerging as a sudden test of that philosophy.
(AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall, File)
That could happen in as little as five years after the conclusion of the war in Ukraine, according to some officials and experts who believe that would be enough time for Russia to
rebuild and rearm
its military.
"We have always suspected that this is the only existential threat we have," Maj. Gen. Veiko-Vello Palm, commander of the Estonian military's main ground combat division, said of a
possible Russian invasion.
"The last few years have also made it very, very clear that NATO as a military alliance, many countries,
are not prepared
to carry out large-scale operations, which means, in plain human language, that many NATO armies are not prepared to fight Russia," Palm said during an interview in December.
"So it's not very comforting."
Anxiety over what experts describe as Putin's
imperial ambitions
has long been part of the psyche of states that border Russia or are uncomfortably close.
"I think in the case of Estonia, it was 1991" when alarm bells started ringing in his country, Palm said wryly, referring to the year Estonia declared its independence from the crumbling Soviet Union.
Denied
Just as Putin downplayed warnings from the Biden administration that it planned to invade Ukraine, Moscow has dismissed concerns that Russia is planning to attack NATO.
The head of Russia's foreign intelligence service,
Sergei Naryshkin
, said in an interview last week with state news agency
RIA Novosti
that they are part of a Western disinformation campaign to stoke discontent against Moscow.
Europe's concern has been stoked in recent months by Putin's militarization of the Russian economy and the
huge increase in spending on its military
and arms industry, while at the same time some Republicans in Congress seek to limit American aid to Ukraine.
"If anyone thinks it's just about Ukraine, they are very wrong," Ukrainian President
Volodymyr Zelensky
warned at the World Economic Forum this month.
"The possible directions and even timing of new Russian aggression beyond Ukraine are becoming increasingly evident."
NATO maintains it is prepared to defend the borders of its 31 member states, which have collectively increased national defense spending by an estimated $190 billion since 2014, when Russia first invaded Ukraine.
But that was the beginning of rebuilding what had become a hollow military network across Europe in the decades after the Cold War, a process that could still take years, analysts say.
That "peace dividend," as the change was called, diverted
trillions of dollars
from military budgets to increase spending on health care, education and housing.
The European defense industry also contracted as demand for battle tanks, fighter jets and submarines plummeted.
In 2006, concerned that they were not prepared for conflict, the top defense officials of each NATO country agreed to spend at least 2% of their annual national output on their militaries.
But it was not a requirement, and when military spending hit its lowest point in 2014, only three of NATO's 28 member nations at the time met the benchmark.
Last year, only 11 countries had reached the 2% threshold, although a Western diplomat said last week that about 20 member states are expected to meet it this year.
Exercise
The Alliance will test its readiness in a month-long military exercise involving 90,000 troops that began last week, in what officials say is the largest drill NATO has conducted since the end of the Cold War. .
The fact that the exercise is a test of how NATO forces would respond to a Russian invasion has frayed nerves in bordering states, especially the Baltic and Nordic countries.
"I'm not saying it's going to go wrong tomorrow, but we have to realize that it's not certain that we'll be at peace," Admiral Rob Bauer of the Netherlands, chairman of the Military Committee of the United Nations, told reporters on January 18. NATO.
Referring to NATO's plans to respond to its two main threats, he added:
"That's why we are preparing for a conflict with Russia," as well as for what NATO considers its other main threat: terrorism.
The NATO exercise, known as Steadfast Defender 2024, is just one reason allies are approaching a "fever peak" of concern that Russia could invade sooner rather than later, according to Christopher Skaluba, director of the Transatlantic Security Initiative at the Atlantic Council in Washington.
He said Russia's resistance to last summer's Western-equipped Ukrainian counteroffensive had shown that Putin was in it
"for the long haul
" and could reorient its economy and population to reconstitute the military within three to five years.
"Just because they've destroyed everything in Ukraine doesn't mean they'll be out of the game for a decade or more," Skaluba said.
And the prospect of Trump returning to the White House has forced Europeans to reckon with the possibility that US support for Ukraine, or even its leadership role in NATO, could be sharply reduced as early as next year. Skaluba said.
Taken together, "that's overloading these broader concerns about Russia," Skaluba said.
"It's just this unique mix of factors that is combining to make this long-standing fear about Russian reconstitution, or a Russian attack on NATO, a little more tense than it has been in the last two years." .
Concern has increased in recent weeks.
In an interview on January 21, General
Eirik Kristoffersen
, Norway's top military chief, warned that "we have little time left" to build defenses against an unpredictable Russia.
"Now there is a window that lasts maybe one, two, maybe three years, in which we will have to invest even more in a secure defense," Kristoffersen said.
On the same day, Finnish President
Sauli Niinistö
sought to calm concerns raised by reports that a Steadfast Defender scenario would test how NATO would respond to a Russian invasion of Finland.
"None of the war games that have been carried out for decades have been developed in real terms, and I would not exaggerate in this case," Niinistö declared on a national radio program.
This month, General Micael Byden, Sweden's top military chief, and Civil Defense Minister Carl-Oskar Bohlin warned that Sweden must be
prepared for war.
Scenarios
"Let me say it with the power of office" and "with unvarnished clarity: There may be war in Sweden," Bohlin said at a security conference.
The warnings sparked a firestorm of criticism from Sweden's opposition party and experts, who called the statements alarmist and hyperbolic.
"Swedes are wondering what the government knows that they don't know," wrote Magdalena Andersson, head of the opposition Social Democrats, in a later op-ed.
"Scaring the population will not make Sweden safer."
However, Sweden is about to join NATO, following Finland's accession last year, as both countries put aside years of military non-alignment due to nervousness about Russian aggression.
And although he called the commotion "exaggerated," Swedish Prime Minister
Ulf Kristersson
made it clear that Russia remains a major threat.
"There is nothing to suggest that war is on the doorstep now, but it is clear that the risk of war has
increased significantly
," Kristersson said in an interview with Sveriges Radio.
It is not lost on the Estonian government that the landmass Russia seized in the early days of its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 - before it was pushed back to the current front lines in eastern Ukraine- is approximately the size of the Baltic States.
"Their ambition is to restore their power," said Col.
Mati Tikerpuu
, commander of the Estonian 2nd Infantry Brigade, which is based about 30 kilometers (18 miles) from the Russian border.
"We don't think the question is whether Russia will try to invade us or not," Tikerpuu said last month from his command headquarters at the Taara military base.
For many Estonians, he said, "it's just a question of when."
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