No fanfare, no heroic romanticism. Europe is doing what any mature organism does when a hard wind hits: it moves quietly, methodically and, increasingly, with a haste that forces systemic decisions. NATO’s posture is shifting, national parliaments are rewriting budget rules, defense firms are retooling supply chains, and grid operators on the eastern flank are fitting transformer substations with concrete “armor” and anti-drone systems. There is nothing poetic about it — only long, cold calculations of risk that treat Russia as a strategic adversary for years to come.
A new baseline for defense spending
The turning point is a reset in military spending benchmarks. Once the “2% of GDP” target stopped matching the moment, NATO leaders in 2025 agreed on a two-tier framework: by the middle of the next decade, member states should raise their “base” defense outlays toward roughly 3.5% of GDP, while combined defense-and-security budgets — covering dual-use infrastructure, critical technologies and resilience measures — should approach about 5% of GDP. Lawyers and economists debated the wording; in substance there was no ambiguity: the bar has been raised, and the bill will be large.
Politics behind the numbers
The political subtext is unmistakable. President Donald Trump has publicly said that, with European backing, Ukraine could recover all its territory, while Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has translated diplomatic optimism into plain language: the moment also signals a reduction of direct U.S. involvement and a transfer of responsibility to Europe. “Truth is better than illusion,” he said. In European terms, that means reliance on one’s own forces is no longer a slogan — it is a new baseline.
From policy to procurement: the industrial pivot
Economics follows policy. Brussels has constructed a unified industrial security policy: after the 2024 European Defence Industrial Strategy, 2025 brought the practical phase — pooled acquisitions, prioritization of European supply chains and an aggressive scale-up of artillery and propellant production. The objective is blunt and unforgiving: by the end of 2025, build ammunition production capacity that outpaces current rates of frontline expenditure and creates a reserve. Rheinmetall is bringing new lines online in Germany and the Baltics; Eurenco is restarting nitrocellulose plants; Nordic suppliers in consortium with Nammo are locking in large framework contracts. These are no longer plans on paper — these are contracts, construction sites and active factories.
A shifted map of deterrence
The geography of defense is changing. For the first time since World War II, Germany is stationing a permanent heavy brigade in Lithuania. By 2027 that brigade is meant to be fully combat-ready and serve as the backbone of NATO’s defense between Riga and Warsaw. Similar multinational formations now stand in eight eastern flank countries. The logic is simple: buy hours and days in the opening weeks of any hypothetical strike, while heavier formations move in from deeper in the continent.
Critical chokepoints and hardening the grid
The land map is merciless. The Suwałki Gap — that narrow bottleneck between Belarus and Kaliningrad — is vulnerable in peace and in “grey” war alike. Sever it, and the Baltics are reliant on sea and air supply. It is no coincidence that critical-infrastructure protection projects have intensified around this corridor: from armoring substations and network nodes to emergency stockpiling of rare transformers. Lessons from Ukraine are being internalized literally; energy engineers and militaries are drafting new standards for physical protection.
An invisible, maritime front
The invisible front runs under the sea. After a string of damage to gas and fiber-optic lines from the Baltic to the North Sea, NATO is setting up permanent coordination to protect subsea infrastructure: patrols, sensors, intelligence-sharing and the integration of civil maritime services into the military picture. In an era when a cable beneath the Baltic is as legitimate a target as an airfield, this is no longer exotic; it is routine security work.
Grey-zone pressure and the drone problem
The air — too — belongs increasingly to the grey zone. Autumn 2025 brought a series of incidents: the Alliance declared operations to protect airspace after drone incursions and provocative flights near borders; several countries logged “unidentified” UAVs near airports. Air defenses shot down drones and scrambled fighters, but the conversation in capitals has shifted from isolated events to a durable pattern of hybrid pressure.
Drones have forced a rethink of air defense economics. NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte put the problem plainly: you cannot keep intercepting $1,000–$2,000 drones with missiles that cost half a million to a million each. Europe is rapidly adopting lessons from Ukraine — cheap interceptors, autonomous “drone-on-drone” systems, predictive radars and directed-energy options. The EU is discussing a layered “anti-drone wall” — not concrete, but a mesh of sensors, electronic-warfare systems and interceptors along the eastern approaches. This is engineering reality, not a metaphor.
Where the rubber meets the factory floor
The specifics live in workshops and lines. Rheinmetall is expanding 155 mm production; Diehl Defence is doubling IRIS-T output and investing in air-defense missile capacity; MBDA is integrating European component assembly for ground-to-air systems, increasing output multiples over 2023 levels. The old chemistry is returning: nitrocellulose and propellants — without them, a million shells remain wishful thinking. Contract awards are turning into numbers: multi-billion ammunition deals in the Nordics, accelerated small-arms and barrel lines in Poland, long production runs for the French navy and air force.
People, mobilization and the return of conscription debate
The arithmetic of land forces is people. In the north the picture is clear: Finland retains conscription, has a mobilization system “on wheels” and one of Europe’s largest reserves; Sweden is increasing draft quotas; Norway has long practiced gender-neutral service. In Central Europe Poland has expanded territorial defense and is building a vast reserve of dozens of battalions in a kind of “digital rear.” The Baltics are re-introducing conscription and treating territorial defense as a civic discipline. Germany in 2025 put a hybrid model on the table — questionnaires for all 18-year-olds and selective drafts for shortage specialties. This is not militarization of daily life; it is an effort to minimize the time from peace to mobilization.
Medical logistics as strategic readiness
Perhaps the most prosaic topic — military medicine — has become central. The Bundeswehr is modeling how to receive up to 1,000 wounded per day in a major war, mobilizing as many as 15,000 civilian hospital beds and retraining care for the injury profile of the drone age: burns, multiple shrapnel trauma and prolonged stabilization at forward positions. Hospital trains are returning — not as a nostalgic relic but as a logistics answer to adversaries that can threaten roads with EW and reconnaissance. It is a sign of sober planning: textbook chapters that used to be skimmed in peacetime are now being rewritten into operational doctrine.
Europe is not dramatizing a distant apocalypse. It is, quietly and resolutely, converting strategy into hardware, budgets into factories, and plans into human systems — because the new baseline of security is no longer about heroic rhetoric, but about whether the continent can hold the line when the first hours matter most.
The Nuclear Shadow Over Europe
Hovering over all of this is the nuclear shadow. Europe’s own strategic forces belong to Britain and France; the U.S. stations B61 tactical bombs at bases in five countries; and Russia, while modernizing its strategic triad, has also moved part of its tactical arsenal into Belarus. The joint “tactical nuclear” exercises of 2025 cemented a new normal: everyone talks about deterrence but practices readiness. The decision threshold in a crisis is lowering — not out of recklessness, but because tactical nuclear weapons are now woven into daily rhetoric and planning. Europe’s countermeasure is to tie nuclear risk explicitly to any major escalation, reinforce “extended deterrence,” and refine signaling to make accidental escalation as unlikely as possible.
Building the Pre-Battle Architecture
At the conventional level, Europe is finally doing what strategists have been demanding for years: building pre-war architecture. NATO’s regional defense plans, approved after the Vilnius summit, ended the era of abstract defense — each national army now has its own sector, its own math of bridges, railroads, ports and bottlenecks. In 2024–2025, the Alliance ran the largest drills since the Cold War — not parades, but logistics. Columns rolled from Portugal and Germany to the north and east, testing rail junctions, convoy dispersal, port transfers and airfield throughput. Around those blueprints, battalion and brigade groups are now taking shape along the eastern flank.
Preparing for the 2030s Window
Does this look like Europe gearing up for war tomorrow? Not quite. The sober view: Russia is bogged down in Ukraine, and a “second front” without time to rearm and rebuild manpower isn’t realistic. When NATO officials and national capitals mention timelines “after 2029,” they’re not predicting an attack date but referring to the window when defense investments, fleet refurbishments, factory expansions, trained reserves, deployed brigades, and air defenses all mature simultaneously. Most current planning documents are written for that window.
Hybrid War as the New Normal
The hybrid dimension isn’t going anywhere. Damage to subsea infrastructure, drones over airports, “accidental” reconnaissance flights near borders, communication satellites being blinded, high-profile cyberattacks on energy networks — this gray zone is the daily war. Europe is countering it systematically: undersea surveillance and protection missions, airspace patrols with integrated air-defense nodes, “drone walls” on land, and new data protocols linking civilian and military controllers. This isn’t offensive action; it’s a preventive safety cordon — a security quarantine Europe is mapping out now so it won’t have to explain later why substations are burning and the internet has gone dark.
The Money Talks
Money is the dry essence of it all. Poland is driving defense spending to 5% of GDP and rewriting its fiscal rules to make that possible. Germany is easing its “debt brake” and funding the long, costly deployment of its brigade in Lithuania. Britain has locked in a roadmap to 2.5% by decade’s end, with ambitions to reach 3% in the next Parliament. France is cementing €413 billion in a multi-year arms program through 2030. These aren’t headline numbers — they’re structural budget decisions that will determine the size of armies, the number of shells on hand, and the density of air defenses over ports.
The Logistics Front: Fuel, Powder, and Pipes
Supply-chain geopolitics has become a front of its own. Europe’s shortage of nitrocellulose exposed a structural weakness — hence the revival of continental chemical production. Civilian chemistry is being converted to wartime standards; logistics are being redesigned for combat conditions. Poland is investing billions to connect into NATO’s pipeline network, so that in a crisis, fuel for jets and convoys flows through pipes, not hoses. In the war equation, victory goes to those with fuel and powder in reserve — and to those whose nodes are fortified and wired into one resilient grid.
The Nuclear Question and Deterrence Logic
The nuclear escalation question remains the heaviest of all, yet it’s gradually being built into planning. Tactical nukes are mentioned more often in public discourse, but that also reinforces Europe’s deterrent threshold: the clearer societies understand the nuclear linkage to conventional war, the higher the political cost of any escalation. NATO continues to rely on allied nuclear forces and maintains its regime of “extended deterrence” for non-nuclear members.
What “Preparing for a Major War” Really Means
What does the phrase “Europe has begun preparing for a possible major war” really signify? Not a mobilization rush to the barricades — but a discipline of resources, where what matters is not loud declarations but the ability, two or three years from now, to point to actual factories, brigades, reserves, air defenses, and medical units. It doesn’t guarantee peace, but it dramatically raises the price of aggression — which, in strategic terms, is deterrence.
In the 21st century, deterrence isn’t measured by the number of parades — but by the thickness of concrete over a transformer, the depth of ammunition depots, the speed at which a radar can locate and cheaply neutralize an enemy drone, and how fast a brigade from Germany can show up under the skies of Kaunas.
Where Europe Falters
The weak spots are where the defense industry spent two decades in peacetime mode and is now outrunning itself: chemical bottlenecks, shortages of machinists, competition for electronic components, procurement bureaucracy, export regulations. Even the U.S., by 2025, was lagging behind its own production goals for 155 mm shells — and that’s with American scale. Europe, fragmented by national standards, is hitting even tighter bottlenecks. Hence the political push for accelerated production lines, EU-only preferences, “green lanes” for defense contracts, and a quasi-sovereign defense policy once deemed too costly.
Where Europe Holds Its Ground
The strengths lie where Europe has always excelled: aviation, medium-range air defense, surface-to-surface missiles, radar systems, electronic warfare, cybersecurity — and, unexpectedly, infrastructure defense. It’s not glamorous, but it’s the stuff that turns “an attack on a substation” into “an alarm and some dust on the concrete.” It’s what lets ports receive ships under air-defense cover, and airfields stay operational even when one runway is compromised. These aren’t bronze statues — they’re the engineering of a continent that doesn’t want to test itself in a great war.
The Long Horizon
When European politicians and generals talk about “a few years,” they mean the time both adversaries and Europeans themselves need — for NATO’s plans to become a stable grid of forces and assets; for the “drone wall” to turn from a headline into a real belt of sensors, jammers and interceptors; for the brigade in Lithuania to exist not in speeches but in steel; for the Baltic seabed to host not just tankers and ferries but a swarm of sonar and unmanned defense systems; for hospitals and railways to have staff who, grimly but calmly, know how to handle the logistics of “heavy medicine.”
In essence, Europe is not drafting a war plan — it’s constructing a peace plan through deterrence. Costly, unglamorous, and absolutely essential.
Europe Rearms in Earnest
The notion of “military readiness” in Europe is no longer hypothetical. Over the past two years, the continent has moved from shock and paralysis to building a structural defense base reminiscent of the 1980s — with one crucial difference: this time, Europe is no longer relying on Washington. It is striving for strategic autonomy, even if within NATO.
At the start of 2025, during a meeting of the EU Defense Council, Josep Borrell declared, “If we can’t protect ourselves, no one will. America can help, but it’s not obliged. We must become a continent of security in our own right.”
That sentence became the symbol of a new European mindset — and the numbers back it up. In 2025, EU defense budgets hit an all-time high: €381 billion, with over €130 billion flowing directly into the defense industry. For the first time since the fall of the Warsaw Pact, Europe isn’t just buying weapons — it’s building the factories that make them.
Poland: The New “War Economy” of Europe
Poland today stands as NATO’s forward fortress on the eastern flank — and, effectively, the locomotive of Europe’s rearmament. Warsaw became the first EU state to surpass 3.8% of GDP in defense spending in 2024 — more than any country except the United States.
The Polish Armed Forces count about 215,000 active personnel, and with reservists and the Territorial Defense Force included, that number approaches 450,000. The target by 2028: 600,000.
Since 2022, Poland has gone on one of the most aggressive procurement sprees in modern European history:
• 180 K2 Black Panther tanks and 212 K9 self-propelled howitzers from South Korea
• 32 F-35 fighter jets from the United States
• 500 HIMARS and Chunmoo multiple launch systems
• And joint contracts with Germany and Sweden for production of Narew air-defense systems
In 2025, construction began on two of Eastern Europe’s largest ammunition plants — in Puławy and Radom — built jointly with South Korea’s Hanwha and Germany’s Rheinmetall. Once operational, they’re expected to produce up to 300,000 artillery shells annually.
But the real shift is conceptual: Poland has officially enshrined the term “war economy” in its strategic doctrine — a policy that prioritizes defense spending and mobilizes industry in times of threat. Prime Minister Donald Tusk put it bluntly: “We live in a pre-war economy. The goal is not to wait for the strike, but to prepare the answer.”
Germany: The Return of the Bundeswehr
Long seen as the symbol of European pacifism, Germany is undergoing a historic about-face. The Zeitenwende — the “turning point” announced by Olaf Scholz back in 2022 — is now entering full implementation.
In 2025, Berlin allocated €100 billion to a special defense fund, while its overall military budget exceeded 2.2% of GDP — higher than at any point since the Cold War. The mission is clear: rebuild the Bundeswehr into a 21st-century army.
By 2027, Germany is set to acquire:
• 35 F-35 fighter jets
• 200 Puma armored vehicles
• Over 1,000 next-generation reconnaissance drones
Military medicine and logistics have become strategic priorities. Germany is developing a nationwide medical evacuation system capable of handling up to 1,000 wounded per day, tapping both military and civilian hospitals, and building a fleet of hospital trains and mobile medical units.
Berlin is also focusing on protecting energy infrastructure: the Bundeswehr is forming cyber-defense units to guard gas pipelines and undersea cables — both of which have become prime targets in recent hybrid attacks.
The United Kingdom: Betting on High Mobility
Post-Brexit Britain is determined to prove it remains a pillar of European security. In January 2025, Parliament approved the new Strategic Defense Review (SDR-2025), setting a course to raise defense spending to 3% of GDP by 2030.
The British Army is shrinking in size but increasing in capability. Out of 148,000 troops, nearly half now serve in rapid-deployment units that can move to allied territory within 72 hours.
The Royal Navy remains London’s crown jewel — the only European fleet capable of global operations, with two aircraft carriers (HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales) and five Astute-class nuclear submarines.
In 2025, Britain and Poland signed an agreement to establish a joint rapid-reaction headquarters in Kraków, staffed by about 2,000 British officers and communications specialists — a tangible expression of the new trans-European defense axis.
France: The Army as an Instrument of Sovereignty
France continues to chart its own strategic course — not just as a NATO member, but as an independent military power with nuclear weapons and a full-spectrum defense industry.
The Loi de Programmation Militaire 2030 (LPM-2030), passed in 2023, commits €413 billion to defense over seven years. In 2025 alone, Paris is spending €69 billion — about 2.4% of GDP.
Top priorities include expanding drone forces, upgrading Leclerc tanks, and producing new FDI Belh@rra frigates and Rafale F5 multirole fighters.
France is also rebuilding its reserve system. Since 2024, the Service National Universel has introduced basic military training for all 16–18-year-olds, with a goal of reaching 350,000 reservists by 2032.
Northern Europe: The Mobilization Benchmark
Finland and Sweden — NATO’s newest members — have become models of mobilization efficiency.
Finland, with a population of 5.6 million, maintains 870,000 reservists and can mobilize 280,000 troops within a week — the most effective system in the world. In 2025, Helsinki sealed its 1,300-kilometer border with Russia, deploying 40,000 troops and installing continuous electronic surveillance.
Sweden, having reinstated mandatory service in 2024, now fields a 100,000-strong reserve. In Malmö and Karlskrona, new ships are being built for NATO’s Baltic fleet, while underground shelters for 100,000 people — the largest civil-defense complex in Europe after Switzerland — are under construction in central Sweden.
The Baltics: NATO’s Frontline Trench
Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania have become the Alliance’s “forward trench.” Their defense doctrines are built on the principle of total defense.
Lithuania is creating a new territorial defense corps of 40,000 troops and purchasing German Leopard 2 tanks and IRIS-T air-defense systems.
Estonia and Latvia are jointly constructing a 600-kilometer “Baltic Wall” — a fortified line of bunkers, anti-tank obstacles, surveillance systems, and underground depots.
The region is also reviving domestic munitions production: in 2025, the first Latvian-Lithuanian powder plant opened in Jelgava, with an annual capacity of 15,000 tons.
The Nordic Cluster: The New Chemistry of War
Scandinavian countries are emerging as the new hub of Europe’s explosives and propellant industry — the foundation of modern artillery.
Norway is expanding its Nammo facilities to reach an annual output of one million artillery shells by 2026. Sweden’s Swebal is building a high-energy explosives plant capable of producing 4,000 tons per year. Denmark is launching a new chemical cluster in Odense, co-funded by the European Defence Fund.
From Finland’s ports of Kotka and Turku to Norway’s Narvik, Northern Europe is transforming into NATO’s logistical backbone — a supply corridor designed for the rapid movement of troops and armor.
A New Balance of Power: Cold War Without Illusions
For the first time since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Europe has rebuilt a structure of confrontation that experts call one of “symmetrical tension.” In other words: neither Russia nor NATO plans for open war — but both sides are preparing for it as a plausible scenario.
NATO is reverting to the operational posture of the 1980s: constant exercises on the eastern flank, quick-reaction air wings, layered air defenses, fortified bases, and deep reserves of fuel and food.
Between 2023 and 2025, the number of NATO exercises rose by 37%. In 2025 alone, roughly 280 maneuvers of varying scale took place — including Steadfast Defender, the largest drills in decades, involving 90,000 troops from 31 nations.
Across the Baltics, Poland, and Romania, multinational NATO battlegroups — about 10,000 troops in total — are permanently deployed. Their purpose is more political than military: to signal that any attack on these states would immediately trigger the full weight of the Alliance.
Intelligence and Threat Assessment
According to a May 2025 report from the European External Action Service (EEAS), Russia is “gradually converting its economy into a long-term war footing.” Ammunition production has surged to 4.5 million shells a year, while drone manufacturing has grown nearly tenfold since 2021.
Western analysts, however, point to a cost that’s becoming impossible to ignore: systemic decay in Russia’s civilian sector. By mid-2025, military spending accounted for 9.8% of Russia’s GDP, and mobilized resources topped seven trillion rubles.
The Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) summed it up starkly: “Russia shows resilience — but not infinite resilience. Its economy is turning into a single-purpose military machine, incapable of long-term balance.”
Still, NATO’s approach is guided by one principle: prepare for the worst. That principle became formal policy at the start of 2025. Speaking at the alliance summit in Denmark, Secretary-General Mark Rutte said plainly:
“We must not assume that Russia will attack — only that it can. And that means we must be ready.”
The Economics of War: Cold Numbers, No Drama
Europe’s defense economy still trails Russia’s pace — but its structure is changing fast. In 2022, the continent produced barely 300,000 artillery shells a year. By mid-2025, that figure had climbed to 1.6 million, and the target for 2026 is 2.5 million.
Defense contractors are booming:
• Rheinmetall’s profits jumped 62% in 2025
• BAE Systems’ rose 47%
• Thales Group’s increased 38%
• MBDA booked a record €14 billion in new orders
To coordinate this surge, the European Defense Industrial Council has been established — a permanent body that manages contracts and distributes orders among EU states.
A crucial step is now underway: integrating defense logistics with Europe’s energy and transport grids. Germany, the Netherlands, and the Czech Republic are creating a network of “military corridors” — high-speed routes for moving equipment, fuel, and personnel.
One such corridor, the Baltic Express, links the ports of Rostock, Gdańsk, and Klaipėda. Already in use for NATO transport, it can carry up to 2,000 armored vehicles per week — a scale of logistics Europe hasn’t seen since the Cold War.
The Return of Mobilization Logic
Alongside the industrial push, Europe is quietly rebuilding its entire mobilization system — the registry, reserves, and call-up framework that many thought gone for good.
In 2025, fourteen NATO countries reinstated some form of compulsory service. Even traditionally pacifist nations — the Netherlands and the Czech Republic among them — have joined the list.
In schools across Finland, Poland, Lithuania, and France, “civil defense” and first-aid courses have become part of the standard curriculum. Universities in Germany and Italy now run technical military training programs. France has revived national service, while Sweden and Norway require reservists to report for mandatory drills every two years.
It’s a return to Cold War logic, but adapted to 21st-century realities. The focus is no longer on sheer manpower but on speed — the ability to transition from peacetime to a full defense posture within seventy-two hours.
The Tech War: Artificial Intelligence and Drones
If Russia is betting on quantity — cheap, mass-produced drones — Europe is going all in on quality: the technology race.
In 2025, the European Commission approved AI4Defense, a continent-wide program uniting 27 universities and 40 companies into a single hub for military AI development. The mission: create systems capable of analyzing the battlefield in real time, directing artillery and air defenses, and autonomously assigning targets.
Germany and France are already testing neural-network-controlled reconnaissance drones. The U.K. has announced the formation of the world’s first squadron of unmanned interceptor aircraft — Ghost Hawk — built to hunt and destroy enemy FPV drones.
The new NATO mantra is simple: smart defense over mass defense. Europe’s answer to the industrial war is a technological one — and this time, the battlefield will be coded in algorithms as much as in steel.
Psychological and Media Readiness
Europe has finally grasped that 21st-century wars don’t start with tanks — they start with signals: from networks, airwaves, and screens. One of the key pillars of Europe’s new defense strategy is information warfare preparedness. After a wave of cyberattacks, underwater cable sabotage, and mass disinformation campaigns in 2023–2024, the EU established the Hybrid Threats Response Cell — a hub that brings together intelligence agencies, media outlets, and think tanks. Its mission is blunt and unromantic: to detect, neutralize, and block hostile information operations before they reach the public.
In 2025 alone, the system prevented more than 70 major cyberattacks on Europe’s energy and transportation networks. Meanwhile, several countries have tightened their legal frameworks: Germany, Lithuania, and the Czech Republic passed laws equating the deliberate spread of pro-Russian narratives with a threat to national security.
In effect, Europe has entered a phase of ideological mobilization — not through propaganda, but through structure. The continent is building not just armies and factories, but a defense architecture of meaning, where the media space itself has become a frontline. Europe is preparing for a long confrontation, one where words can wound as sharply as weapons.
Russia and the West: A Strategy of Mutual Deterrence
The current balance looks like a finely tuned equation: Russia holds the edge in mobilization speed and ammunition output, while NATO dominates in technology, logistics, and industrial capacity.
In 2025, total NATO defense spending surpassed $1.36 trillion, with Europe funding more than half for the first time. The United States still accounts for about a third, but Europe has emerged as the alliance’s industrial and financial backbone.
According to SIPRI, for every ruble Russia spends on defense, NATO spends about seven euros. That gap isn’t something Moscow can close through mobilization or stockpiles alone. Hence the prevailing assessment among Western analysts: a direct Russian invasion of Europe remains unlikely over the next three to four years. Moscow simply lacks the capacity to fight two full-scale wars at once. But the broader picture is more ominous — the standoff is becoming chronic, and both sides are bracing for an endless winter rather than a quick firestorm.
A New Cold War: No Front Lines, But Trillions in Motion
The European Central Bank projects that by 2026, defense and security spending will become the EU’s second-largest economic sector, right after energy. That’s not a policy tweak — it’s a structural transformation. Europe is reengineering nearly everything — logistics, education, industry, budgets, even social norms — for survival in an age of uncertainty.
Though no formal war has begun, the continent now lives by rules of mobilization:
– building strategic food reserves,
– redesigning transport corridors,
– stockpiling fuel and rare-earth metals.
Since 2025, Sweden has run a nationwide public program titled “If War Comes Tomorrow,” which teaches citizens how to act during communication blackouts, shelling, or power outages. Similar efforts are underway in Finland, Poland, Latvia, and Estonia. Europe is learning to live with a new idea — that peace is temporary, not eternal.
Forecast for 2026–2028
According to NATO intelligence estimates, the likelihood of a full-scale war with Russia within the next three years remains around 15% — but the trend is upward. The reasons are clear: Russia’s internal volatility, the uncertain outcome of the war in Ukraine, and a global rearmament race that keeps pushing military thresholds higher.
What has truly changed is the perception of threat. Five years ago, talking about war in Europe sounded alarmist. Today, it’s routine strategic planning.
– 2014 marked the point of no return.
– 2022 was the point of explosion.
– 2025 has become the point of mobilization.
Europe doesn’t want a war. But it’s preparing for one — with the same discipline and precision with which it once prepared for peace. And in that cold pragmatism lies the new formula for Europe’s survival.