Archived link (removepaywall.com)
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The Danish Defence Intelligence Service said on Thursday that there was a “low but growing risk” that Russia could move a small number of troops, possibly without insignia, into a neighbouring country or use long-range weapons on infrastructure used to support Ukraine.
“It could involve the deployment of military forces into a limited area inside Nato countries bordering Russia — for instance, under the pretext of protecting local Russian minorities,” Thomas Ahrenkiel, the head of the DDIS, told a news conference. “The aim would be to divide the alliance.”
The Danish statement is the most explicit warning yet about Russia’s plans following a number of “hybrid” attacks, including a foiled drone strike on Leipzig airport in Germany and a Russian ship firing flares at a Danish helicopter over the Baltic Sea.
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Danish intelligence said that Russia was under more pressure than at any other time since it launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The intelligence service added that there was “no prospect” of Russia making a major breakthrough in the next six months.
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Russia would intensify its hybrid attacks against European countries with “greater consequences” for those targeted, the Danes warned, including “destructive cyber attacks that cripple societal functions as well as sabotage attacks that carry a high risk of casualties”.
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Danish intelligence said on Thursday that it still believed it would take Russia six months to wage a local war against a neighbouring country that belongs to Nato, two years to pose a credible threat of a regional war and five years to launch a large-scale war in Europe.
But it added that it now thought that Russia could escalate against the west through increased hybrid attacks or a limited military attack in the coming months “even if the war in Ukraine continues”.
Hahah, honestly, I don’t think a flip like that is the most unrealistic thing I’ve ever heard. A US that wants to reassert Europe as its vassal, in a world where they are no longer the ultimate hegemons across the entire globe, and Moscow almost certainly realising that Russia would need such a level of reinforcement, to be able to face a significant portion of Europe head on, their interests could perhaps align enough for alliances to shift.
The American-European alliance has been wearing thin in recent years, especially during Trump’s terms, while Russia and Putin have been increasingly rehabilitated among large parts of American political circles, especially the GOP, while there seems to be a certain amount of cooperation/collusion/corruption going on between the political elites of the US and Russia (the level of which is by nature difficult to impossible to ascertain).
I’m not saying it’s likely, and I doubt it would take the shape of an all out war, involving the US, Russia and large parts of Europe all at once, World War-style, but I think it’s absolute folly to rule out the chance of a of realignment that could see the US and Russia partner up in bullying and disrupting Europe. Not necessarily conducted by Trump, or even whatever heir might take over from him - but the ideas, motives and modus operandi of Trump and MAGA aren’t contained to just those people/that movement/ideology. They are establishing a lot of new norms, and a new political mainstream. We already saw Biden only slightly rephrase, but then adopt quite a lot of policy that had been grown in the MAGA backyard. I don’t think it’s far fetched to imagine that US foreign affairs, which has long been overwhelmingly dominated by realist family doctrine, could come to accept this sort of “mask off” style of foreign policy that Trump seems to be an exponent of, as its new normal. It worries me to say that I wouldn’t even find that to be out of the ordinary, as it is in many ways just a return to the norms as they were before the UN, or perhaps before the League of Nations.
Whatever the case, our world is more unpredictable and uncertain than ever. The unlikely, or rather, the unthinkable, tends to have a much greater chance of becoming reality, whenever that’s the case.