‘The last peaceful summer’: Chilling war prediction leaves entire continent on edge
Germany’s defence minister has issued a chilling warning about the future of the world, and it has the entire planet on alert.
Saboteurs disguised as cigarette smugglers. Seaside holiday-makers blowing up gas pipelines. Tourists flying drones in airport flight paths.
Is this what the prelude to modern war looks like?
“We may have already lived through the last peaceful summer,” Germany’s Defence Minister Boris Pistorius told Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) earlier this week.
His comments came as Europe recoiled over the weekend bombing of a Polish railway.
Warsaw authorities say military-grade C-4 explosive was used in what they assess to have been two unsuccessful attempts to derail passenger trains and film the resulting bloodbath for distribution on social media. They have identified two Russian-speaking Ukrainians, from the contested Donbas region, as having fled across the border to Belarus immediately after the bombing.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk called the bombings an “unprecedented act of sabotage”.
The Kremlin has dismissed the accusations.
Russia’s Chargé d’Affaires in Poland said there would be no official comment on “the various absurd statements made by the Polish authorities, whose aim is to stoke Russophobia and war hysteria within Polish society”.
But similar acts of borderline-aggression are happening across Europe.
This includes incursions by combat aircraft, cyberattacks, drone disruptions and incitement operations.
“This is a very dangerous phase of escalation and we should address it really seriously because we are minutes from big casualties here,” Lithuania’s Foreign Minister Kęstutis Budrys said ahead of a Friday meeting of European foreign ministers.
“We are reaching the hot phases of escalation.”
The actions speak for themselves.
“Severed cables. Disrupted aviation. Arson. Sabotage. Assassination. Infiltration. Attacks designed to distract, to confuse, and to dismay an adversary – but not to provoke a response,” argues Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) fellow and King’s College London professor of Russian Politics, Sam Greene.
“Such is shadow warfare, causing damage and costing lives but operating below the traditional threshold of war.“
Europe holds its breath
“(This is) perhaps the most serious national security situation in Poland since the outbreak of the full-scale war in Ukraine, “ Poland’s Prime Minister Tusk told parliament Wednesday.
“The head of the Internal Security Agency and the interior minister have requested that I introduce the third threat level, Charlie, due to terrorist threats.”
Both bombings affected a major rail route linking Europe to Ukraine through Poland.
Railway tracks were damaged by an explosion near the village of Mika, about 100km southeast of Warsaw. Power lines were felled onto the track near Pulawy about 50km further down the line.
“The identified perpetrators are two Ukrainian citizens who have been co-operating with Russian intelligence services for a long time. Their identities are known,” Mr Tusk told parliament.
Polish Armed Forces Chief of General Staff Wiesław Kukuła described the crisis as “a pre-war situation – or what we refer to as hybrid warfare.”
“The enemy has begun preparing for war,” he said in a statement. “They are building an environment intended to create conditions favourable for potential aggression against Polish territory.”
Lithuania reportedly presented the European Foreign Affairs Council on Friday (Australian time) with evidence that Belarus-based cigarette smuggling networks are being used to distribute Kremlin saboteurs throughout Europe.
And more attacks are to be expected.
“If it (the railway bombings) had been successful, these operations, this sabotage that was conducted in Poland, we would be talking in a different environment, with dead people as a consequence,” Lithuania’s Mr Budrys told the Politico news service.
And European Commission foreign affairs chief Kaja Kallas warned the Kremlin is testing the West’s resolve: “We have to have a strong response because what Russia is trying to do is two things. On one hand to test us, to see how far they can go … And next they also try to sow fear within our society,”
But Ms Kallas warned that Europe’s reaction had to be firm but measured: “They want to sow fear inside our societies … if our response is too strong then the fear increases, which is what Russia wants. So we really have to have a balanced approach.”
Moments of transition
“We always assumed that a Russian attack on NATO could happen in 2029,” Germany’s Defence Minister Pistorius said. “But now we’re hearing assessments pointing to possible escalation as early as 2028. Some military historians even believe we may have already lived through the last peaceful summer.”
Putin is desperate.
His three-day annexation of Ukraine has turned into four years of grinding slaughter.
And despite some recent territorial gains, the Russian army’s chances of a meaningful victory remain slim.
Putin needs victory. Or anything he can imply to be a win.
“While front lines progress or fail, and bombs hit or miss their targets, shadow warfare operations succeed when they disrupt,” argues Professor Greene.
“They succeed when they’re exposed, and they succeed when they fail.”
It’s a risky strategy.
It’s totally dependent on fear. And on opponents backing down.
“This is an approach to warfare that generates escalation not by mistake, but by design,” Prof Greene adds.
“Unless Europe can impose discipline on the Russian shadow-warfare machine through clear deterrence, the likelihood of full-scale war between Russia and NATO will only increase.“
Determining what that deterrence looks like is the test facing Europe.
“It is extraordinary that we are in this grey zone warfare now. I mean, effectively we are at war with Russia,” Admiral Lord West told the British House of Lords podcast on Monday.
“It’s quite difficult to see how one’s going to get out of this because one doesn’t want a full war between NATO and Russia. They would lose it,” the former First Sea Lord of the Royal Navy and sitting Labor member of the House of Lords said.
“And the danger with them losing it is would they then make that stupid mistake of going nuclear?”
Moments of revelation
“We are under attack and the hybrid bombs continue to fall: The time to act is now,” Italian Defence Minister Guido Crosetto warned in a 125-page report released Wednesday.
“We need to mature, with clear tools and rapid timeframes, a capacity for predictive and adaptive action aimed at preventing, deterring and absorbing hybrid attacks.”
The problem, Prof Greene warns, is assuming the Kremlin is run by rational actors.
“While shadow warfare is central to Russian statecraft, there is no Russian theory of shadow warfare that would determine what constitutes a successful attack, and what constitutes failure,” he argues.
“The need to be seen to act outweighs the need to succeed, as loyalty trumps efficacy. In Russian shadow warfare, then, escalation is not a choice made by the chain of command: it is the natural result of the system’s own internal logic.”
President Putin has attempted to blame NATO for his 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
He now regards Europe’s ongoing support for Kyiv’s resistance as open hostility.
And to secure some semblance of credibility amid ceasefire talks with US President Donald Trump, Putin needs to send a signal of strength.
Prof Greene, writing for the launch of a CEPA report into the Kremlin’s shadow warfare tactics, says Putin has trapped himself in a feedback loop.
He is the one ordering his FSB and GRU secret services to engage in espionage.
And this is in an environment where all failures are part of a plot, any disagreement is subversion, all opposition is an attack, and all foreign actions an attempt at regime change.
“The Kremlin’s overriding concern is not Russian national security, but the survival and continuation of the current regime — or, rather, the Kremlin’s worldview is incapable of distinguishing between the two,” warns Prof Greene.
“The greatest danger to Europe, then, is not that Russia will hit a target of particular value, but that it can and inevitably will escalate without needing to explain even to itself why it is escalating.”
That escalation is now underway.
The clouds of war are once again gathering above Europe.
It must navigate a path between appeasement and compromise, confrontation and intimidation, chaos and war …
“Be calm, cool and collected. Be prepared,” Finnish President Alexander Stubb advised earlier this week.
“And in instances which you cannot defend, repair. Don’t overreact and use ‘sisu’, which means resilience, grit and perseverance. This is the new normal.”
Jamie Seidel is a freelance writer
Originally published as ‘The last peaceful summer’: Chilling war prediction leaves entire continent on edge
