By Ivana Kottasová, CNN
(CNN) — When a group of defense insiders gathered in Whitehall, the home of the British government, last month to discuss how prepared the United Kingdom and its allies were for a war they believe could come in the next few years, their verdict was pretty grim: They are not.
The people gathered at the conference, hosted by the London-based think tank the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), were not warmongers; they were people in the know. Current and former members of the armed forces, government and NATO officials, researchers and defense industry professionals whose thinking is based on the widely accepted intelligence assessment that Russia is preparing for the possibility of a direct conflict with Europe.
The only way to prevent that from happening, they say, is to make sure that if a war were to break out, Europe would win.
More investment into chronically underfunded European defense is key, but security experts are increasingly warning that a big shift in mindset is needed across the board too. It is time, they say, for European governments to get their citizens on board and make it clear that the time when Europe was able to ignore the threat of war is over.
“I think that there is an indication that societies are willing to have this conversation, but I think that we are also seeing governments that are still not quite confident enough to have that conversation with their publics,” said Sam Greene, a professor of Russian politics at King’s College London and an expert in democratic resilience.
There is a growing consensus among experts that Russia is already waging a hybrid war on the West by conducting sabotage operations and injecting chaos and disinformation into domestic political discussions. They point to the overwhelming evidence, including repeated incursions into NATO airspace by Russian planes and drones and GPS jamming in the Baltics, to disinformation campaigns, and sabotage attacks against critical infrastructure in multiple countries that have been traced back to Russian secret services. Russia has consistently denied involvement.
Greene said that these attacks have already shifted the views of many in Europe, even if some politicians remain unwilling to name them outright as hybrid warfare.
“I think that people are spooked, particularly as this becomes more visible,” he said. “We see drones outside airports, and I think that there is a growing sense that it is probably (only) a matter of time before one of these drones brings down an airliner.”
Baltic fears
While Moscow has not carried out any direct attacks against NATO allies in Europe – experts say this is partly because Russia knows it couldn’t defeat the alliance with its current capabilities – there are increasing signs that this could change in the future.
NATO’s Secretary General Mark Rutte warned earlier this year that Russia could be ready to use military force against NATO within five years. German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul echoed that warning in a speech last month, saying that German intelligence services believe that Moscow is “at least keeping open the option of war against NATO by 2029 at the latest.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin said in early December that while Russia is not planning to go to war with Europe, “if Europe suddenly wants to go to war with us and starts, we are ready right now.”
The consensus among Baltic countries