Europe is playing a dangerous game with Russia

Europe has no illusions about the possibility of an easy military victory over Russia. But Moscow should not overestimate the EU elites’ instinct for self-preservation History doesn’t repeat itself, not even as farce, and thus the latest chapter in the centuries-long confrontation between Russia and Europe will look different from those that came before it. Today, the German authorities are closing Russian cultural and diplomatic institutions on flimsy pretexts and Norway is seizing Russian research vessels – and while the methods are new, the underlying impulse is familiar. Europe has sought to constrain Russia’s independence since at least the late 15th century.

For now, however, European governments aren’t seeking direct military confrontation, but this should not be mistaken for pacifism in Berlin, Brussels, Paris, or London – nor should we take seriously their ritual declarations about dialogue and a new regional security architecture, given there are more practical reasons for their restraint. First, Western Europe’s largest states lack the human and material resources for a war with Russia, and although their position is somewhat better when it comes to weapons, much of that capacity is already being directed toward Ukraine, whose population is being asked to make enormous sacrifices in pursuit of European objectives. However, the European people show little appetite for these sacrifices, mainly because living standards haven’t deteriorated nearly enough to persuade ordinary Germans, Italians, French, and British people to march into a conflict with Russia. Nor should anyone place much faith in Poland or the rest of Eastern Europe because Warsaw’s increasingly belligerent rhetoric disguises a much weaker willingness to actually fight. The F-35 was supposed to…