Europe is at war: let’s call it by its name

As EU leaders gather in Brussels this week to discuss the use of frozen Russian assets to fund continued support for Ukraine, their positions will be shaped by domestic considerations and geopolitical orientations that vary widely across the Union, with different assessments of both the Russian threat and the acceptable price of action.

While national economic and political fortunes play an essential role in this differentiated geography, another element is equally crucial: the narrative one. Recognising the capacity of hostile actors to manipulate information in our societies, we need to develop that same appreciation of the power of our own discourse. Admitting that Russia is at war with Europe is not about fear — it is about resilience.

"Since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Europe has faced at least 110 acts of sabotage and foiled attacks linked to Moscow"

Political leaders regularly use the term ‘hybrid warfare’ to refer to hostile acts ranging from drone incursions into EU airspace, sabotage of critical infrastructure, to targeted strategies of disinformation. Since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Europe has faced over 200 attacks, with at least 110 confirmed acts of sabotage and attempted attacks linked to Moscow across the continent, and NATO-related reporting noting around 150 such incidents on alliance territory.

By its textbook definition, hybrid warfare is characterized by a wide variety of spaces and actors of intervention, the presence of military and non-military means and, importantly, plausible deniability since both the actors and effects of ‘hybrid’ means of war are hard to identify. Nevertheless, in strategic-military understanding, hybrid war is war. 

Not so, however, in the way in which this term has entered political discourse in Europe. And that is a big problem. It is a problem because calling forms of aggressive incursion into EU territory, air, maritime and digital spaces anything less than ‘war’ masks the real extent of the reach of hostile intervention within our societies. 

Yes, the nature of warfare has changed. The threshold between war and peace is much more labile: now considered a competition and conflict continuum rather than a neat line that marks the threshold of violence separating a state of war from a state of peace. Today, the waging of war relies on a variety of tools and actors, operating across a range of physical and digital spaces to achieve gradual but cumulative effects. 

"Calling Russia’s acts of war against Europe ‘merely’ hybrid warfare mis-recognizes their real dangers – and brings very real political and geopolitical effects"

Calling Russia’s acts of war against Europe ‘merely’ hybrid warfare mis-recognizes their real dangers — and brings very real political and geopolitical effects. On the domestic level, it serves to reassure citizens as well as economic actors that their states are not ‘really’ at war. At the European level, this ambiguity permits national leaders to avoid responsibility for a ‘real’ war that is elsewhere. This absolves them from employing instruments that would be consented by a formal state of war. The brief readiness to invoke Article 122 TFEU to freeze Russian assets showed what was possible — but the rapid retreat on how to use those assets also exposed the limits of leaders´ political will. Finally, at the geopolitical level, it gravely limits the EU’s ability to act.

The concept of hybrid war reflects a Western analytical and political construct rather than the strategic logic of the hostile actors. Russia does not operate on the basis of the notion of ‘hybrid warfare’. For Moscow (just as for Beijing), all of the above-listed activities are warfare, integrated into a comprehensive approach to competition and conflict.
 
The effects of ongoing Russian attacks may be largely invisible to the EU population since fragmented in space and time. They add up, however, to a growing state of insecurity. Disinformation campaigns shape public opinion regarding physical attacks, such as drone incursions or GPS jamming. The manipulation of energy supplies and financial markets amplifies public anxiety, undermining trust in governments’ ability to protect citizens.

"It is misleading to assume that war only exists when tanks roll through the streets or bombs fall on our heads"

Let us finally start calling these acts what they actually are: acts of war. It is misleading to assume that war exists only when tanks roll through the streets or bombs fall overhead. War is also waged when societies are systematically destabilised and their very economic as well as political bases threatened. This is the Europe we are currently in.

Only by recognizing—first in words, then in deeds—that we are at war, EU states can develop effective deterrence, defence, and resilience strategies. A whole-of-society approach is essential, for we need to ensure not just the security of national economic flows and critical resources, but also the daily economic and societal protection of our populations. We need to invest money not only in military equipment but also in the well-being of our societies. Believing that we reassure EU citizens by not calling war by its proper name is not only dishonest. It is a narrative strategy that is doomed to failure, and we cannot afford to fail in this moment.