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Source: Lithuianian Armed Forces Lithuania’s security environment has fundamentally changed over the past decade. Public and institutional thinking, however, has not fully adapted. Lithuania is no longer operating in peacetime. Alongside sustained Russian rhetoric about a future conventional invasion, Lithuania is already facing an ongoing hostile campaign below the threshold of open conflict, eroding the distinction between peace and war. Those actions go beyond traditional

The Kremlin’s on-again-off-again campaign to intimidate and disorientate European allies is picking up once more. Galati, Romania / Source: Digi24 Russia’s shadow war against NATO allies has moved southwards, with three drone breaches of Romanian airspace in as many days, and a surge of other incursions in recent weeks. Together with another attack on Poland, where a Russian cruise missile struck 100 km (62 miles) from the country’s eastern border on July 30, the incidents su

By Alexandr Popadin / Unsplash Life Inside the Fortress: Everyday Reality Challenges Kremlin Narratives in Kaliningrad In official discourse, Kaliningrad is increasingly portrayed as Russia’s western fortress: resilient, patriotic, and under constant external pressure. Yet propaganda must also compete with people’s everyday experience. Rising prices, logistical disruption, security alerts and the militarisation of public life shape how residents perceive the consequences of R

Source: 427th Separate Regiment of Unmanned Systems "RAROG" When NATO leaders gathered in Ankara on July 7–8, they made counterdrone defense the summit’s signature industrial commitment, pledging more than forty billion dollars over five years, a new NATO counterdrone marketplace, and a fivefold increase in drone-operator training by the end of 2027. The commitment is driven by a growing sense of urgency in a Europe that has discovered that the simplest and cheapest weapons c

Photo: Ruslan Mingazhov / Unsplash From bridge to fortress: How the Kremlin is recasting Kaliningrad Kaliningrad Oblast is a Russian semi-exclave on the Baltic Sea, separated from mainland Russia and located between Lithuania and Poland – both members of the EU and NATO. The region itself was created after the Second World War from the northern part of former East Prussia, transferred to the USSR under the Potsdam agreements in 1945. This makes Kaliningrad simultaneously a Ru

Source: T.C. Millî Savunma Bakanlığı Digital-age warfare has already started In 2020, Azerbaijani forces completed the recapture of Nagorno-Karabakh in a war that lasted just forty-four days. Opposing positions, however well-fortified, operated with an industrial-age mindset, and thus were spotted, tracked, and obliterated before defenders could understand and react. The weapon responsible was not an F-35 or a cruise missile, but a drone, as analysts at Defense One were among

NATO’s fragmented responses to Russia’s “accidental” border incursions are enabling Moscow’s shadow war. Galati, Romania / Source: Digi24 On the night of May 29, two Russian drones crossed into Romanian airspace, flew roughly 18km (11 miles) into NATO territory, and struck a residential building in the city of Galați. Two people were injured, and a large fire swept through the neighborhood. The incident was reported as an accident, an unintended consequence of Russian strikes

The war’s end will mark the start of a race to secure the peace and make the continent the author of its future. When G7 leaders gather in Évian on June 17, where they will be joined by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, they will confront a strategic backdrop profoundly different from a year ago. In mid-2025, the transatlantic consensus was gripped by a grim, deterministic idea: that Russia was locked into a sustainable war of attrition where time and mass inherently favored th

Drones are powerful — and can cause chaos. Remedies are urgent to deploy them safely. Source: Jessica Tisemann / Neue Deister-Zeitung A busy commercial airport cancels all flights twice in quick succession. The trigger? Small, remote-controlled, low-flying objects. Safety concerns over drone activity and the defensive measures in place to deal with drones caused chaos this year at El Paso’s international airport. Cheap, expendable drones also dominate modern battlefields. Th

An exercise testing NATO responses to hybrid attacks revealed a need for the West to be more nimble, and willing to mimic enemy tactics to defend itself. Source: NATO Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) At Lithuania’s Šiauliai International Airport, a delegation receives reports of sudden signal degradation and communications disruption across Ukraine. The news is an early indicator of spillover from an enhanced Russian jamming operation and raises serious quest

For decades, Western defense strategy assumed that technological superiority ensured victory. That assumption proves false in modern conflict. Source: General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Conflict is being shaped less by the performance of advanced systems than by the ability to produce, sustain, and regenerate them at scale. Mass is the new buzzword, along with non-admiring references to “exquisite” high-end systems There is now a realization of a growing gap between

Bottom lines up front Europe is entering a period of strategic indecision: some capitals are doubling down on deterrence and defense, while others are reviving calls for engagement with Moscow. Renewed appeals to re-engage Russia do not reflect improved strategic conditions but uncertainty over how to respond to Russian aggression and the breakdown of the rules-based order. Containment remains the only viable European approach to Russia, but it must be updated to reflect the

The pace of technological change on the Ukrainian front lines is now exceptionally fast. Could Western armies adapt as quickly? As the worst winter in many years settled across Ukraine late last year, the 600,000-strong Russian invasion force innovated to embrace the cold — and briefly gained a tactical edge all along the 700-mile front line. The Ukrainians innovated right back, ultimately blunting that edge. That dance — measure versus countermeasure — should reassure frie

The aircraft have a near-unique ability to hit Russian targets but only if Europe provides them with the right munitions. Ukrainian F-16 with GBU-39 aerial bomb, November 2025. Photo credits: martes1k ( t.me/maratix1 ) In a virtuoso display of air-defense prowess unimaginable for any European member of NATO, Ukrainian forces shot down 34 out of 35 cruise missiles on December 22. It was even more notable given Ukraine’s defenders were also warding off another 638 Russian rocke

F-16 fighter jets patrolling over Greenland. Photo: The Danish Armed Forces Bottom lines up front: In responding to recent rhetoric from the White House about “taking” Greenland, European leaders need to look beyond the legal infeasibility. The White House is correct that Greenland and the waters around it are a strategic asset—one that Europe has failed to recognize in recent years. If Europe wants to ensure that no outside power can exercise control over Greenland, then it

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Kremlin has increasingly militarized the Black Sea region, presenting a threat to both NATO and its littoral partners, especially Ukraine and Moldova. Indeed, the region has become a testing ground for Russian hybrid warfare operations. These operations, which engage adversaries below the threshold of war, often seek to undermine civil society with tactics such as assaults on the integrity of elections, attacks on infrastruct

Photo: Sergey Okunev / NV Ukraine is currently at the epicenter of radical changes taking place in the way modern wars are fought. However, much of the world is still busy preparing for the wars of yesterday. European armies are only combat-ready on paper, while the invincibility of the United States military is based largely on past victories. The current state of affairs is far from unprecedented. In early 1940, Polish officers tried to warn their French counterparts about

Russia’s Geran attack drones have morphed from crude versions of Iranian Shahed UAVs into an affordable and flexible strike system, with deadly results. Russia’s Geran 2 attack drone / Source Sergej Flesh Facebook page Moscow’s forces have launched nearly 50,000 Geran/Shahed drones into Ukraine since the full-scale invasion of 2022 and shifted to a near-continuous rhythm of strikes that have overwhelmed defenses, disabled infrastructure, and killed families in their homes.

The new US National Security Strategy is surprising only for those determined to ignore reality. By Edward Lucas In an ideal, imagined world, the US is a wise, friendly, and eternal mentor to its European allies. It uncomplainingly shoulders the burden of military and diplomatic leadership. It does not push its own interests too hard, whatever American voters may want. Against the background of such wholly unrealistic assumptions, the new US National Security Strategy inde

Is the Baltic now a NATO lake? Changing strategic geography, and the accession of Sweden and Finland to alliance membership might make it seem so, but the reality is more fraught. NATO exercise in the Baltic Sea / Source U.S. Navy Eight of the Baltic Sea states are now in NATO, and just one littoral country, Russia, is not. That might seem a mismatch of force — the so-called NATO lake — but appearances can be deceptive, and no one should underestimate the ability of Moscow’