The Ice: The Confrontation That Cannot Thaw

The Fire, the Ice, and the Fog: A Sublimation of the Russian Threat

Europe’s debate over Russia is sharply divided along ideological, epistemological, and geographical lines, crystallised by Fiona Hill’s June 2025 warning that “Russia is at war with Britain.” While sceptics downplay the threat and frame Western policy as the driver of Russian behaviour, others emphasise Russia’s capabilities and ambitions yet struggle to reconcile its simultaneous weakness and aggression. Van Bladel resolves this through the fragile-state paradigm, where capacity limits foster risk-taking coercion rather than restraint. This brief (Part II in a three-part series) systematically assesses Russia’s layered challenge: battle-hardened forces, grey-zone campaigns, conventional build-up in key regions, nuclear signalling, and adaptive but inconsistent execution. Democracies must prepare for rare but catastrophic “fat-tail” risks, emphasising endurance over spectacle—munitions stockpiles over prestige platforms, redundancy over efficiency, rehearsed decision-making over rhetorical unity—ensuring a measured response compatible with liberal democracy.

This is Part II: The Ice, focusing on Russia’s long confrontation with NATO and Europe’s security order—below, at, and occasionally across the threshold of armed conflict.

Part I: The Fire focused on Russia’s war against Ukraine. One further Policy Brief will follow, covering Russia’s internal struggle.

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