Russia, Europe and the Danger of Strategic Reassurance

European debates about Russia’s threat perception are often framed as a binary choice. On one side, alarmist voices warn of an imminent military danger requiring rapid mobilisation. On the other, reassurance narratives point to Russia’s economic weakness, demographic decline and military shortcomings

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Russia, Europe and the Danger of Strategic Reassurance

Introduction – Beyond Reassurance and Alarmism

European debates about Russia’s threat perception are often framed as a binary choice. On one side, alarmist voices warn of an imminent military danger requiring rapid mobilisation. On the other, reassurance narratives point to Russia’s economic weakness, demographic decline and military shortcomings in Ukraine, concluding that European fears are overstated.

Both positions are analytically insufficient, but for different reasons. Alarmism miscommunicates real threats; reassurance misdiagnoses them entirely. Alarmist assessments are not necessarily wrong in their basic diagnosis that Russia constitutes a strategic threat. Their weakness lies in the way that threat is communicated and framed. Excessive dramatization risks strategic overreaction at the policy level and, just as importantly, risks missing the mark at the societal level. In European societies marked by political fatigue and limited tolerance for mobilisation, alarmist messaging can undermine the very resilience it seeks to generate.

Reassurance narratives fail for a different, more fundamental reason. By downplaying or denying the existence of a strategic threat, they misdiagnose the nature of the confrontation itself. In doing so, they encourage complacency and delay the kind of sober, sustained preparation that prolonged strategic competition requires. What Europe needs, therefore, is neither alarmism nor reassurance, but conceptual clarity about the confrontation it is already facing.

This commentary argues that Russia does not pose a classical, short-term invasion threat to Europe. It does, however, represent a structural strategic challenge that cannot be understood through static metrics or linear threat models. Understanding that challenge requires moving beyond reassuring comparisons and reassessing how power, risk and endurance function in contemporary conflict.

Static Metrics in a Non-Linear Conflict

Comparisons of GDP, defence budgets and population size dominate many assessments of Russia’s military threat. On paper, Europe appears overwhelmingly superior: larger, wealthier and collectively spending far more on defence. From this perspective, the idea of a Russian attack on Europe seems implausible.

The issue is not that these figures are wrong, but that they rest on a linear conception of power. In that conception, strategic capability is treated as an additive function: more resources equal more power, and therefore greater security.

In reality, strategic power functions as a multiplication, not an addition. It emerges from the interaction of material resources with political intent, societal cohesion, escalation readiness and the ability to absorb costs over time. Where one of these factors is absent or underestimated, impressive aggregate figures lose much of their explanatory value.

Security is therefore not determined by averages, but by asymmetric risks. A state does not need to match its opponent economically in order to be strategically disruptive. History shows that actors in relative decline are often willing to take risks that rational cost-benefit models fail to anticipate.

Russia does not need to defeat Europe militarily in order to challenge it strategically.

Ukraine Is Not Europe: Two Theatres, One Confrontation

A common reassurance argument holds that Russia’s inability to subdue Ukraine after several years of war demonstrates its incapacity to threaten Europe. The reasoning is intuitive—and misleading.

Ukraine is the theatre of a long war of attrition. Europe finds itself in a different phase of the same confrontation: a cold conflict characterised by deterrence, pressure, sabotage, intimidation and strategic ambiguity. Projecting a conventional conquest scenario onto Europe misunderstands how Russia conceptualises its confrontation with the West.

Russian strategic discourse explicitly distinguishes between these theatres. Influential voices describe the war in Ukraine as one front in a broader, long-term struggle with the West, in which Europe is primarily subjected to political, psychological and societal pressure rather than prepared for immediate invasion.

At the same time, this ambiguity is periodically and deliberately disrupted. Public speculation about nuclear strikes against European targets—often dismissed as theatrical—forms part of a broader normalisation of escalation rhetoric in Russian political communication and state media. These statements are not operational military plans. They are strategic signals, designed to condition Western audiences to uncertainty, blur escalation thresholds and complicate decision-making.

This form of escalation rhetoric should neither be read literally nor dismissed outright. Its function lies in shaping perception rather than announcing intent. By repeatedly introducing nuclear scenarios into public discourse, Russian elites seek to normalise uncertainty and radicalise deterrence. The objective is not imminent escalation, but the erosion of confidence in escalation control. This form of signalling operates precisely below the threshold of open conflict, unsettling rather than clarifying.

Escalation rhetoric is therefore not an anomaly, but an integral component of a broader strategy of pressure. It aims to influence risk calculations, fragment consensus and constrain political choice in Europe without crossing the threshold of war. Assessing Russia solely through its conventional battlefield performance in Ukraine therefore misses the broader strategic environment in which Europe already operates.

Societal Mobilisation and Strategic Endurance

What is often overlooked in European assessments is that this confrontation does not remain rhetorical within Russia. It is actively translated into societal mobilisation.

Since 2022, mandatory educational programmes have framed the war as a defensive struggle against existential Western hostility. School curricula and youth initiatives increasingly normalise themes of sacrifice, historical grievance and confrontation from an early age.

This systematic socialisation matters. Strategic confrontations are not decided by military capabilities alone, but by societies’ ability to endure pressure over time. Russia is actively preparing its population—psychologically, ideologically and socially—for a prolonged confrontation.

This stands in sharp contrast to Europe, where the confrontation with Russia remains largely confined to political and strategic elites. Discussions about voluntary forms of national service do not fundamentally alter this asymmetry. Such initiatives remain limited, voluntary and politically contested, and are not comparable to compulsory, ideologically charged socialisation from early childhood.

The difference is not normative, but structural—and it has strategic consequences.

The Underestimated Factor: Pain Absorption

One of the most persistent blind spots in European strategic thinking is the assumption that high losses automatically produce restraint. Russia’s experience in Ukraine challenges this assumption.

Despite severe casualties and economic costs, Russia has sustained its war effort. Losses do not function as an immediate constraint, but as an integrated element of political power. Suffering is not denied; it is absorbed, reframed and normalised.

This does not mean that Russia is strong in a conventional sense. It does mean that European reasoning, rooted in low tolerance for loss, risks systematic miscalculation. Assuming that military failure inevitably leads to strategic withdrawal projects Western expectations onto a system that operates differently.

Endurance matters—and it cannot be measured in the number of tanks, defence spending figures or GDP.

Conclusion – Strategic Clarity Without Hysteria

Europe’s central vulnerability today is not Russian military superiority, but strategic complacency: the belief that because war seems unlikely, preparation is unnecessary; that because escalation is dangerous, naming risk is irresponsible; that because statistics reassure, strategic imagination is optional.

Russia does not need to invade Europe to confront it strategically. Pressure, ambiguity, societal friction and endurance are sufficient to shape long-term outcomes. Preparing for such a confrontation is not an act of escalation, but of responsibility.

Strategic maturity lies in holding two ideas simultaneously: avoiding panic, while refusing reassurance. Europe’s task is not to dramatise the Russian threat, but to understand it clearly—and to prepare seriously. Coming to terms with this reality constitutes one of the key strategic shocks Europe must now absorb.

Dr. Joris Van Bladel is a Senior Associate Fellow in the Europe in the World programme at the Egmont Institute. He has worked extensively on Russian military culture, civil-military relations, strategy, and security policy, with more than 30 years of experience in research and analysis.

(Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons)