Russia is more likely to strike one or more European NATO countries if the Defense Alliance appears to be weakened and divided. Especially if the Kremlin estimates that the United States will not support its allies in NATO.
That conclusion draws Denmark’s military intelligence service FE in an updated threat assessment, reports Danish TV2.
Three war scenario
FE paints three different future scenarios on what Russia is capable of in Europe. They assume that the war in Ukraine is frozen or ends, and that the United States will not come to the rescue.
• In about six months, Russia will be able to “fight a local war in a country bordering Russia”
• In about two years, Russia will “pose a real threat to one or more NATO countries and thus be ready for a regional war against several countries in the Baltic Sea region”
• In about five years, Russia will be ready for a “large -scale war on the European continent, which the United States does not interfere
The time horizons also assume that NATO does not renounce at the same rate as Russia.
Johan Norberg, FOI.
Johan Norberg, FOI.
Photo: Henrik Montgomery / TT
Want the capacity to war
FE released its annual intelligence report in December, but it did not contain as concrete schedule as in the updated document.
-This is an in-depth of the image we are constantly following, and it has been raised by the focus of the US administration on peace measures in Ukraine, says Anja Dalgaard-Nielsen, head of the intelligence service at FE, to Jutland Post.
According to FE, Russia is now implementing an intensified structure of the military with the goal of fighting a war against NATO.
FE emphasizes that it does not mean that Russia has made a decision to start such a war, but that it wants the capacity to do so.
Trump sow doubt about NATO
US new entry President Donald Trump has previously sustained doubts about whether the United States will help its NATOallied in an attack. In recent weeks he has also expressed his willingness to take over Greenland from Natoland Denmark.
Johan Norberg, military analyst at FOI, describes it as “very seriously” if NATO would be politically divided. He believes that the Defense Alliance during the war in Ukraine emerged as united and thus worked deterrent to Russia.
– If NATO should not hold together, it is a very big problem for Europe in the future, he says.
He emphasizes that FE’s scenarios are assessments, rather than predictions about what will happen. When it comes to, for example, the military structure, the Western countries have the power to influence the future themselves.
– What the West does, and does not do, is of great importance. If we stop renovating our defense and relaxes because the war is over, then Russia will see it as a sign of weakness.