Europe risks a self-fulfilling prophecy of war with Russia

War drums not heard in half a century are beating across Europe. Nato Secretary General Mark Rutte has warned that Europe “must be prepared for the scale of war our grandparents and great grandparents endured”. British and French defence chiefs have urged their respective nations to be ready to lose children in the fight against Russia. Britain’s foreign intelligence agency MI6 warns of a “grey zone” between war and peace, citing threats from Moscow. Russian President Vladimir Putin accuses Europe of being the aggressor and Nato of preparing to attack Russia. Both sides share an assumption that, as one TV analysis unreflectively concluded, the best way to avert war is to prepare for it. History suggests otherwise: war preparations often make conflict a self-fulfilling prophecy. From the building of China’s Great Wall to the Anglo-German naval arms race and Imperial Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbour to the Six Day War, readying for conflict can fuel a chain of suspicion that brings about the very strike it was supposed to deter. The classical warning comes from Thucydides, who traced the Peloponnesian War to the rise of Athenian power and the fear this struck in Sparta. This historical example was elevated into a geopolitical theory called the “Thucydides Trap”, popularised by US political scientist Graham Allison. It says that geopolitical change will lock rival states into defensive military alliances and strategic manoeuvres to deter war. However, such policies risk increasing suspicion and normalising the prospect of conflict, mutating deterrent into a self-fulfilling prophecy of war. Allison popularised the term through its application to US-China relations. However, it also captures the situation in Europe: concern about an aggressive Russia has sparked fear in Europe, resulting in militarisation and attempts to ready the population for conflict. This rhetoric has further alarmed Moscow, which has begun to suspect that an attack is imminent, a response which further alarms Europe. Deterrence has intensified suspicion, and the remote prospect of war has become an increasingly normalised reality. We must never forget Thucydides’ central message: war is an avoidable tragedy. His history of the Peloponnesian War is a narrative of how compounded fear and hardened hearts, normalised to the prospect of conflict, create a tide of war. Amid this narrative are the many moments where individuals, if given an opportunity to apply sober judgment and reason, could have found a peaceful path, but they were ultimately swept away by this tide. Before Europe is swept away by the beating of war drums, we should pause to reflect. Europeans fear that US President Donald Trump would abandon the transatlantic alliance and let Russia “do whatever the hell they want” to European members of Nato, clearing the way for a Russian attack. In reality, this is highly improbable. First, walking away from Nato would fatally damage the image of a tough and respected world leader that Trump has attempted to cultivate. He has claimed that Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine was evidence of a lack of international respect for his predecessor Joe Biden, something that never would have happened if he were president. A Russian attack on a European Nato member would punch a hole in this claim and Trump’s projection of strength. Failing to respond to Russian aggression would further compound it, positioning Trump as one of the most impotent presidents of the post-war era. There is no realistic scenario where he would allow this. Second, defending Nato members in Europe helps secure US interests instead of contradicting Trump’s “America first” ethos. His infamous threat to walk away from Europe could be seen as an effort to get Nato members to increase their defence spending. In that light, it has been a clear success. Spending has surged especially among nations most vulnerable to Russian attack. The Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania have committed to spending 5 per cent of their GDP on defence by 2026, while Norway, Sweden and Finland have authorised historic defence budget increases. Poland now leads Nato in dedicating 4.7 per cent of its GDP to defence, a rate higher than even the United States. Crucially for Trump and his business interests, rearmament has created a lucrative market. Estonia has increased its spending limit for US weapons from US$500 million to US$4.7 billion. Poland alone holds US$60 billion in active military contracts. Abandoning these states would undermine Trump’s foreign policy successes and – perhaps more importantly – cost the US an important market. Putin is far from an irrational actor. He is likely to understand that both Trump’s ego and entrenched US financial interests are the ultimate stabilisers in the European security dilemma, making a direct assault on a Nato member a gamble without acceptable odds. There is a fine line: defence spending that secures Trump’s favour could risk simultaneously alarming Putin. Therefore, framing is important. To frame defence spending as preparation for war with a malevolent Moscow is to risk walking into the Thucydides Trap. Claims that peace requires a readiness to sacrifice Europe’s children are dangerously alarmist; they risk hardening hearts, shutting diplomatic doors and fuelling a self-fulfilling prophecy of war. A more stable reality exists, one where parents do not have to ponder their child’s death. Europe can secure its future through fair contributions to Nato and a lucrative transatlantic defence market. If peace is to hold, the war drums must cease, allowing the numbers to be heard.

Europe risks a self-fulfilling prophecy of war with Russia

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}The EU should secure its future through fair contributions to Nato and a lucrative transatlantic defence market, not conflict with Moscow

The EU should secure its future through fair contributions to Nato and a lucrative transatlantic defence market, not conflict with Moscow