Europe Warned of Wider War as Russia’s Hybrid Campaign Escalates and Defense Delays Stretch to 7 Years
www.kyivpost.com
Speakers in Kyiv warn that Europe’s reliance on the US, slow defense production and political divisions could leave it vulnerable to a wider conflict.

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The conference “A Vision of a United Europe: Shared Defense, Diplomacy, and Geopolitical Agency” was held in Kyiv on Sept. 18, bringing together Ukrainian and European politicians, diplomats, researchers and security experts to discuss Europe’s ability to respond to Russia’s war against Ukraine and growing geopolitical challenges.

A recurring message throughout the conference was that Europe cannot continue relying on assumptions that a major war is impossible on the continent.

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Several speakers argued that Russia’s war in Ukraine should be viewed as part of a broader confrontation with the European security order, while others warned that Europe is already losing, or has nearly lost, the hybrid conflict being waged against it.

The conference is set to continue in Vienna from Oct. 2-4, when a Paneuropa Congress will take place. A draft Vienna Declaration has already been prepared and is expected to be presented after the two events.

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Reinhard Kloucek, president of Paneuropa Austria, said a generation of European politicians had grown up believing that war was something that happened elsewhere rather than on the continent.

“That makes you lazy,” he said.

Kloucek argued that the international order is already changing and that Europe needs to become an independent geopolitical actor rather than remaining dependent on the US, China or Russia.

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Kloucek also added that Ukraine is central to Europe’s ability to develop such a geopolitical role.

“The clear point is if we, as Europe, want to play a geo-political role, we need Ukraine,” he said, adding that Russia’s success in conquering Ukraine would demonstrate its ability to divide Europe despite the continent’s greater economic potential.

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Valeriy Pekar, chairman of the board of the NGO Decolonization, offered one of the conference’s most detailed scenarios for how a wider European conflict could begin.

He argued that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 should not necessarily be viewed as the model for future Russian military action. Instead, he pointed to what he described as Russia’s concept of “liminal war” – a conflict designed to create uncertainty over whether and how an adversary should respond.

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Pekar said a future confrontation could begin with a combination of missile and drone strikes, sabotage, cyberattacks, disinformation, political influence operations and covert activity, potentially without the immediate deployment of ground forces.

He used Poland as a hypothetical example, saying a combination of attacks and infrastructure disruption could create a refugee crisis and undermine European decision-making.

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      • DdCno1 ( DdCno1@beehaw.org ) English
        4·
        29 days ago

        This has been going on for at least 20 years in its current form (and in some ways, it’s a continuation of Soviet tactics from the Cold War).

        Russian bots started invading comment sections on German websites pretty much exactly 20 years ago. It wasn’t just a trickle, it was a flood from day one, completely drowning out any kind of civilized discourse on major websites. Articles that would normally get four or five comments suddenly had dozens. Every topic where they saw an avenue for incitement, misinformation, hate speech and/or division was being brigaded to death.

        They were also nasty from day one, aggressive in tone, immediately trying to offend as much as possible, often starting fights, sometimes even playing both sides in an argument, but intentionally badly. Moderators had no chance to keep up with this. Some sites even shut down their comment sections entirely for years, but when they reopened, the same thing happened again, just this time a tiny bit more subtly, trying to not get sock puppets banned immediately.

        There should have been an immediate reaction to this, but policy makers pretended nothing was happening and left sites alone in this fight in order to not endanger the sweet flow of cheap Russian gas into Europe. Hell, this was seven years before Angela Merkel called the Internet “Neuland für uns alle” (“uncharted territory for us all”), for which she was widely ridiculed. Most politicians were likely neither aware nor cared, still living entirely in the world of print media and TV. This same generation of politicians is still in charge today, even if Merkel herself has retired. German secret services might only got the legal right to hack foreign attackers back this year, at least two decades too late.

      • distal ( distal@lemmy.ml ) English
        1·
        29 days ago

        This can be said about Ukraine since Ukraine does not have nuclear weapons. USA and Iran has a similar dynamic with empty threats. The “Western” block of Europe has two states armed with nukes however and NATO which has the US as a member. This is a significant qualitative difference. So either it’s: Russia won’t actually attack because MAD is recognised or Putin is a madman.

        The middle of the road approach would be to understand the very real danger of military escalation and threat of nuclear war and then demilitarise to lower the explosiveness of inevitable infractions during periods of heightened tensions.

        The insane approach would be to increase militarism. Major military spending is perversely useful though because it caulks over crisis by stimulating the economy without redistributing wealth or creating level playing fields as would be the case with educational spending. Russia itself is a good example of this. By doing things this way you are signalling to your opponent (Russia in the case of the EU) that the game is on.