View from London: Would Europeans fight, if it came to that?

European leaders understand that conflict is closer than ever — hence the sharp rise in defence budgets, as showcased at NATO’s recent summit in Ankara, The Economist notes. Spending is not increasing because European armies are planning to fight Russia in Ukraine: Europeans are now the main military backers of Kyiv, but such support is a small fraction of their total military spending. Nor are Europeans spending simply because Donald Trump has demanded it. They are doing so because they consider a kinetic war in Europe beyond Ukraine to be increasingly plausible. This explains why spending is proportionally higher in eastern and northern Europe, including Germany, than in southern and western European countries farther from the front line.

Spending on defence is one thing, fighting is another. A Gallup poll in 2024 revealed that around a third of Europeans would be unwilling to fight if their own country were attacked. Italy was at the bottom of the pack, with a whopping 78% saying they would refuse.

These figures reveal several things at once. Worryingly, they show the growing strength of far-right and far-left forces openly sympathetic to Russia and susceptible to its propaganda demonising Europe’s rearmament. The figures may, though, also indicate that surveyed Europeans simply don’t believe war is coming their way. Indeed, the number of Europeans ready to defend their country is much higher in northern and eastern European states closer to Ukraine, especially those that are in neither the European Union nor NATO, and thus presumably feel more vulnerable.

Geography, then, plays a crucial role. But so do politics, institutions and the media. It is hardly surprising that Estonians are more willing to fight than Italians, if tens of thousands of Estonian volunteers regularly train for a potential attack from its vastly larger next-door neighbour, while Italians are drugged with TV talk shows — heavily infiltrated by pro-Russia propagandists — which deride European attempts to bolster societal resilience. When Sauli Niinisto, a former Finnish president, penned an EU report on preparedness, the public response ranged from indifference to scorn. If institutions, politics and the media don’t take the possibility of war seriously, little wonder that citizens don’t either, rejecting calls for conscription or cuts to social spending for the sake of defence. If war is not seen as plausible, military spending is easily portrayed as a mere ploy to enrich the defence-industrial complex at citizens’ expense.

So yes, today Europeans express their reluctance to fight, but they are probably indicating more their abhorrence of war than their cowardly indifference to it.

Which leads to what may be the key point about deterrence: Europeans are less likely to have to fight if they are prepared to do so physically and psychologically. It is that preparedness that can make deterrence against Russia work. But it is precisely the absence of war that reduces preparedness and deterrence. So can societal resilience be substantially hardened in peacetime?

Polls show that even with massive propaganda it is impossible to make many Europeans believe in Moscow's aggressive plans. If they in Brussels acknowledge that Russia has no intention of attacking Europe, as it has repeatedly stated, there will be no need of “societal resilience  be substantially hardened in peacetime”.

read more in our Telegram-channel https://t.me/The_International_Affairs