Despite the rise of China and an emerging multipolar international system, U.S.-Russia dynamics, continue to be most relevant relationship for European security. Military threats to European territory emanating from China seem far-fetched. Europe’s security is coupled to that of the United States. For that reason, Europe—understood as the European NATO members, member states of the European Union as well as Switzerland—does not only have to manage its own bilateral relationship(s) with Russia. Coupling indeed has implications for Europe: while it gains in security thanks to security guarantees by United States, it is also part of the global U.S.-Russian security dilemma without having much influence on either actor’s behavior. The question that consequently arises is how “Europe” (to the extent there is such an actor) and European states should deal with that situation. Is there a way out of this security dilemma? If so, what are Europe’s options?

In line with defensive realism, this chapter argues that Europeans first and foremost need to re-learn to incorporate the system level into their thinking. Many aspects of the security dynamics between the United States, the West, and Russia originate at the system level, rather than at the regional sub-system levels currently at the center of attention, such as the Baltic Sea Region or the Arctic.

These rather theoretical considerations have very concrete policy implications. They are at least indirectly reflected in current policy debates. For example, French President Emmanuel Macron’s initiatives on European security—though not framed that way in French discourse—may be interpreted as an attempt to isolate the European sub-system from the overall international system and thus also the U.S.-Russian security dilemma: by, first, attaining (relative) European strategic autonomy, Europe would no longer be (almost entirely) dependent on United States security guarantees and thus escape American security dilemmas. By, second, improving its relations with Russia, Europe would eliminate the greatest systemic risk factor for its security. Negative responses to French ideas, in turn, clearly reflect fears of decoupling European security from the United States.

In a first section, the present chapter intends to identify the elements by which Europe’s security is coupled to that of the United States. After a discussion of the U.S.-Russian security dilemma in section two, it moves on to analyzing why and how Europe is entangled in that security dilemma in a third section. A fourth section asks whether “decoupling” European from U.S. security could lead the way out this entanglement, dismissing that option. The fifth section therefore discusses how Europeans can contribute to at least better management of the U.S.-Russian security dilemma. The sixth and final section identifies reintroducing system variables into European security analyses as a prerequisite for such a European contribution.

Europe’s Security Is Coupled to U.S. Security

The promises of “cooperative security,” as for instance enshrined in the 1990 Charter of Paris, and the subsequent creation of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe never materialized (Hill, 2018). Instead, post-Cold War Euro-Atlantic security is characterized by a remarkable degree of institutional continuity. On the Western side, NATO not only continued to exist but grew to thirty members. U.S. security guarantees, as notably set forth in Article 5 of the Washington Treaty, consequently not only remained in place but came to cover a greater territorial scope. The United States therefore continues to be the single most important actor in ensuring (Western) European security, also in light of European states’ military weakness. On the Eastern side, Russia may have lost its influence over what used to be the Warsaw Pact countries. Yet, Russia undoubtedly continues to be the single most important factor in many European capitals’ security considerations. Since its annexation of Crimea in 2014, it has become evident that Moscow does not consider the European security order settled. As of 2021, Russia’s behavior as a revisionist state is again a concern for NATO and its members and a key factor in defining the Alliance’s policies and strategies.

While warnings against “decoupling” European security from the United States abound in current defense debates, the exact elements by which U.S. and European security is coupled are more complicated to assess. Contemporary literature on the matter is hard to find. Yet, it seems to be fair to assume that “coupling” is primarily based on political mechanisms, underpinned by military commitments, which in turn are based on military capabilities.

During the Cold war, these military commitments were said to rest on two legs. The first—and more important one—was the United States’ nuclear guarantees for Western Europe. Second, forward-based U.S. capabilities in Europe served the role of reassuring allies (Pierre, 1973). Under current circumstances, both aspects continue to matter. U.S. nuclear guarantees, however defined in concrete terms and debates surrounding their credibility notwithstanding, continue to be the backbone of U.S.-European security coupling. This also includes nuclear sharing agreements,1 despite the military significance of forward-based tactical nuclear weapons being negligible. Similarly, U.S. troops posted in Europe mostly serve a symbolic role. Reminiscent of the Cold War, American soldiers (e.g., those present in Poland) primarily play the role of a “tripwire,” guaranteeing U.S. involvement in any conflict on European territory and hence fundamentally altering the deterrence equation. The actual forces stationed in Europe do not guarantee Europe’s defense per se in that they would be able to counter an invasion. Rather, they make sure that Washington will have to care enough to send reinforcement. In that sense, the political dimension of coupling may be considered more relevant than the actual military presence of the United States in Europe. Military planning for the engagement of U.S. land combat forces with those from Russia belongs to the past. Put bluntly, the United States simply does not need to be physically present in Europe with “boots on the ground” in order to attack Russian territory. Given the capabilities associated with U.S. air and sea power, it can do so from many locations around the world that Russia is unable to affect. U.S. security guarantees are therefore not necessarily contingent on troops stationed in Europe.

Military might not being the issue, the key factor determining the credibility of Washington’s security guarantees for its European Allies is thus its political will to follow through. In that sense, the United States’ and Europe’s coupled security is still mostly a political matter. At its heart remains Article 5 of the Washington Treaty. This article enshrines the principle of collective defense and stipulates that “[t]he Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defense recognized by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force […]” (NATO, 1949).

Finally, the coupling of European and United States security is not a multilateral matter only. Beyond NATO, the United States is engaged in sometimes very close military cooperation with individual European states. This includes countries that are not members of NATO. For example, non-aligned Sweden and Finland both cooperate bilaterally with the United States in a number of defense-related areas, as well as in trilateral formats (Mehta, 2018).

The U.S.-Russian Security Dilemma

Once thick layers of political rhetoric about “systemic competition” with China and the like are removed, it is clear that “big picture”—nuclear—security considerations in both Russia and the United States still mostly focus on the respective other. In that sense, bipolarity is still very much the system configuration to be used as a starting point for analysis, even though China may evolve to become an ever more important factor. U.S.-Russian relations are mostly to be looked at the system level. Strategic stability is affected by capabilities with global reach. Europe is merely one theater (or regional sub-system) where these dynamics play out.

Within that context, the relationship between the United States and Russia is by and large best characterized as a security dilemma. In the words of John Herz, who coined the term in the 1950s, a security dilemma is defined as:

A structural notion in which the self-help attempts of states to look after their security needs tend, regardless of intention, to lead to rising insecurity for others as each interprets its own measures as defensive and measures of others as potentially threatening. (Herz, 1950: 157)

Shiping Tang considers the idea of the security dilemma “the theoretical linchpin of defensive realism” (Tang, 2009: 588). According to realist theory of International Relations, states seek survival under conditions of anarchy. The security dilemma arises from the fact that they possess offensive capabilities that allow them to hurt other states while no state can be sure of other’s intentions. Tang yet regrets that the notion has often been defined in loose terms. His attempt at a more rigorous definition reads as follows, firmly based on defensive realist core tenets:

Under a condition of anarchy, two states are defensive realist states—that is, they do not intend to threaten each other’s security. The two states, however, cannot be sure of each other’s present or future intentions. As a result, each tends to fear that the other may be or may become a predator. Because both believe that power is a means toward security, both seek to accumulate more and more power. Because even primarily defensive capability will inevitably contain some offensive capability, many of the measures adopted by one side for its own security can often threaten, or be perceived as threatening, the security of the other side even if both sides merely want to defend their security. Consequently, the other side is likely to take countermeasures against those defensive measures. The interaction of these measures and countermeasures tends to reinforce their fears and uncertainties about each other’s intentions, leading to a vicious cycle in which each accumulates more power without necessarily making itself more secure, through a self-reinforcing or positive feedback mechanism. This vicious cycle can also lead to unnecessary thus tragic conflicts—threats of war or war. The severity of the security dilemma can be regulated by both material factors and psychological factors. (Tang, 2009: 594)

Although some portions of the U.S.-Russian relationship may simply be described as conflicts of interest that do not fit the characteristics of Tang’s definition (notably at regional levels, for instance concerning Kosovo or Syria), large portions of it are arguably captured by the notion of security dilemma as defined above. In particular, Moscow’s and Washington’s “systemic” relationship pertaining to global strategic stability and ensuring the respective state’s very survival may be characterized in those terms.

A number of material factors and political developments as well as perceptions thereof, or, in Tang’s terminology, material and psychological regulators, fuel this U.S.-Russia security dilemma (Tang, 2009: 596). Exploring all of its details is way beyond the scope of this chapter (Ziegler, 2020). A key element is obviously the military dimension, in particular with respect to weapon systems that affect the strategic balance and the respective state’s chances of survival. Both Russia and the United States can credibly threaten to annihilate the other, based on their respective nuclear arsenals. Although the current situation is not comparable to the Cold War, any analysis that assumes that these factors changed for the better after 1990/1991 is simply wrong. The truth is that the situation is more complex today, notably because of progress in military technology which inter alia leads to blurred lines between the nuclear and conventional fields, as well as the collapse of arms control regimes (Council on Foreign Relations, 2021). Both the United States and Russia own and continue to develop weapons systems that can hold an increasing number of military and civilian targets and critical infrastructure at risk, at ever further ranges away from their borders. The technological advances of both countries may adversely affect stability in a manner not yet technically assessed, and relatedly, adequately appreciated.

The emerging multipolar international system and consequently the need to, e.g., incorporate more actors into meaningful future arms control regimes further complicate matters. At the nuclear level however, bipolarity is still very much a reality under present circumstances. The United States and Russia remain the two leading nuclear powers based on the number of warheads. More than 90% of all nuclear warheads are in the hands of either Washington or Moscow. With an estimated 4,315 warheads deployed or in reserve in Russia and 3,800 in the United States, those two countries greatly exceed China's stockpile, estimated to be the third largest in the world at merely 320 warheads (Arms Control Association, 2020).

The U.S.-Russian security relationship is nevertheless not only a matter of nuclear warheads. Rather, non-nuclear military capabilities are also part of the picture as they directly impact strategic stability. This in particular pertains to both sides’ long-range precision conventional cruise missiles, which may be capable of destroying nuclear infrastructure. Moreover, Russia is concerned about U.S. technological superiority and frequently cites the United States’ deployment of strategic missile defense as a major issue since, arguing that it undermines Russia’s second-strike capability and hence alters the nuclear equilibrium between the two countries (Ivanov, 2000; Putin, 2015).2 In the American discourse, in turn, strategic missile defense is primarily intended to protect U.S. territory against missile attacks from so-called rogue states (such as North Korea and Iran), while protection against attacks from China and Russia is primarily addressed through deterrence (U.S. Department of Defense, 2019).

All these issues not only stand in the way of U.S.-Russian arms control agreements (Schultz et al., 2020). The strategic dialogue between Moscow and Washington has essentially broken down, leaving the vast majority of these issues unresolved without much of a forum to address them. Many of them are not even on the agenda for serious discussions between Russia and the United States, and still existing arms control channels are not meant to address matters such as conventional threats to nuclear weapons infrastructure. Improvement of the situation is hardly in sight.

Europe in the U.S.-Russia Security Dilemma

Although these concerns characterize the bilateral relationship between the United States and Russia, this also affects Europe. The United States is of course not a European actor. Yet, due to Europe’s security being coupled with the security of the United States, Europe inescapably becomes part of the U.S.-Russian security dilemma. Regional European-Russian security dynamics consequently become intertwined with system-level repercussions of the U.S.-Russian security dilemma. Moreover, developments at the level of the European sub-system may impact U.S.-Russian relations. Transatlantic collective defense arrangements and U.S. security guarantees certainly do make Europe more secure overall, notably by making it much riskier to attack European NATO allies. Yet, coupled U.S.-European security also comes with risks. This is the downside of coupling. With the United States remaining the key security provider for its European allies, Europe is also inextricably entangled in overall U.S. security policies toward the wider Euro-Atlantic region. This first and foremost includes the United States’ management of the U.S.-Russian security dilemma, the features and dynamics of which continue to shape policies, doctrines, and procurement decisions in both Moscow and Washington. Both sides’ decisions have direct implications for Europe’s security, essentially over Europeans’ heads.

More concretely, Europe is part of this originally bilateral security dilemma for at least three reasons. First, the continent’s geographic location in between Russia and the United States makes it hard to imagine that it would remain unaffected by an armed conflict between the two great powers. Second, due to U.S. security guarantees for its European allies, potential U.S. reactions must be part of the equation in Russia’s approach to European countries or Western Europe as a whole. Third, U.S. allies’ influence on American policies may not be very considerable, but it exists, nonetheless. In that sense, Europeans are not only passive bystanders; they also have the (limited, but nonetheless) ability to drag the United States into their own regional conflicts and rivalries with Russia. This is, for example, observable around the Baltic Sea, notably in the case of Poland and the debate surrounding the establishment of what has come to be dubbed “Fort Trump” (Polish government, 2018) and more generally calls for more U.S. troops in Europe that Moscow will consider threatening. European actors may thereby trigger U.S.-Russian dynamics, likely without the intention to exacerbate the U.S.-Russian security dilemma, yet with ultimately negative consequences for European security. Among these negative consequences are Russian tactical nuclear weapons able to reach various European cities, which threaten European security on a day-to-day basis.

Is “Decoupling” an Option to Escape the U.S.-Russian Security Dilemma?

Fears of “decoupling” are frequently voiced European debates on security—as well as on the other side of the Atlantic. Perhaps most famously, decoupling decision-making was the first of then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright’ “three Ds.” Europeans were to avoid in for real adding a defense dimension to European integration after Saint Malo in 1998 (the two being duplication of efforts undertaken in a NATO framework by EU efforts and the EU’ discrimination against European NATO members that are not EU members) (Albright, 1998). More than two decades later, warnings against “transatlantic decoupling” are frequently voiced (e.g., Kempe, 2020; Kramp-Karrenbauer, 2020). In essence, much of the debate on European strategic autonomy boils down to whether pursuing that objective would effectively result in decoupled transatlantic security and whether this is a desirable outcome. Such expressions of fear notwithstanding, it nevertheless remains unclear what decoupling would look like in practice and what concrete policies would lead to it.

Of the three reasons that make Europe a part of the U.S.-Russian security dilemma identified in the previous section, two are related to Europe’s security being coupled to that of the United States. Assuming that, as outlined above, coupling is based on political commitment underpinned by military capabilities, “decoupling” would consequently consist of removing one or both of these elements, i.e., political commitment and/or military capabilities. Ultimately, however, only the United States can decide to decouple European security from its own. European strategic autonomy and more generally the military capabilities Europeans own are only indirectly linked to the question of coupling and Europe’s entanglement in the U.S.-Russian security dilemma. There is indeed no reason why a higher degree of European strategic autonomy would automatically lead to weaker transatlantic security ties and less U.S. commitment to security guarantees for Europe. As the proponents of European strategic autonomy indeed argue, a more militarily capable Europe would in fact strengthen the transatlantic link and thus arguably Washington’s commitment to its allies’ security. While the jury is out on this question, it nevertheless seems unlikely that the United States would continue to provide security guarantees if the Europeans no longer need them (or even more unlikely: cover the continent with security guarantees against Europe’s will)—including in a distant future when the Europeans may have acquired the capabilities required to ensure their own security.

However, what Europeans ought to understand is that European attempts at decoupling—even in degrees—by acquiring more strategically significant capabilities would likely result in a growing bilateral European-Russian security dilemma. This is notably to be kept in mind in debates surrounding a hypothetical Eurodeterrent, extended deterrence options based on France’s nuclear weapons or an even more hypothetical Franco-German Bomb (Egeland & Pélopidas, 2021; Kunz, 2020b). The same applies to the conventional capabilities Europeans would need to acquire (and be willing to use based on one single body of doctrine) in order to be considered decoupled. The exact consequences of such policies would obviously be hard to predict, given that Russia’s perception of them is a key factor. Yet, assuming that Moscow would not pay attention to major evolutions in its immediate security environment seems unrealistic. Overall, whether a more decoupled Europe would be beneficial for European security is an open question. Contributing to better managing the existing U.S.-Russian security dilemma may consequently be the safer option.

Finally, the first reason why Europe is part of the U.S.-Russian security dilemma remains untouched by any possible attempt at decoupling European from U.S. security: Europe’s geographic location in between the two nuclear superpowers.

How Can Europeans Contribute to (Better) Managing the U.S.-Russian Security Dilemma?

The question that arises beyond debates on decoupling is therefore: what other options do Europeans have to deal with their entanglement in the U.S.-Russian security dilemma? As of today, its management is currently almost exclusively left to Washington when it comes to the Western side of the equation. What could Europeans do to minimize its adverse impact on their security?

As noted above, Europe’s location in between Russia and the United States cannot be altered. Very obviously, therefore, due to geography, Europe does not have the option to opt out of the U.S.-Russian security dilemma. Europe can, however, influence—at least to a certain degree—how deeply it is entangled in that security dilemma. Europeans could and should attempt to gain better control over two important vectors. The first vector pertains to European relations with Russia, be it those of individual states or those of the European Union. The second vector pertains to Europeans’ behavior as allies of the United States, within NATO or in bilateral contexts. For example, European cooperation with Washington on missile defense, e.g., allowing sites to be built on national territory, matters in the context of the U.S.-Russian security dilemma and has an impact on European security in general.

In the context of the first vector, President Macron’s attempt at starting France’s own “strategic dialogue” with Russia may, in this sense, be interpreted as a way to extract Europe from the U.S.-Russia security dilemma. Its scant results illustrate the limits of such a strategy (Smolar, 2020). One key question is to what extent Russia is at all interested in strategic dialogue with Europeans when the key to alleviating Russia’s grievances with NATO and “the West” almost exclusively lies in Washington. The fact that the Europeans are by and large not relevant strategic military players, in particular as a collective, only reinforces Moscow’s tendency to focus on the other side of the Atlantic. That said, even Europeans have (limited) possibilities to work on their relationship(s) with Russia. Collectively, as the European Union, these are nevertheless not primarily in the security realm. Moreover, Europeans’ interest in a stable regional security order is (rightly) based on the principles of the Charter of Paris leaves relatively little room for maneuver for improved relations with Moscow, at least as long as the Minsk agreement is not implemented and the situation in Ukraine unresolved. Individually, notably military procurement decisions made in European countries have an impact on the Western-Russian security dilemma and thus European security at large.3 In sum, this first vector is therefore only of limited relevance, given the gap in military power between Russia and European states, both individually and as a collective.

The second vector, all its limitations notwithstanding, is consequently the more promising one. Europeans’ influence on the United States is obviously limited. Yet, even the Europeans as junior partners are not without influence (Keohane, 1971; Schmitt, 2018). Notably, when it comes to driving the politics and rhetoric of European security—as opposed to hard military facts—Europeans certainly matter (and be it only because, due to other priorities, the topic is not very high on Washington agendas). The fact that Europe hardly speaks with one voice when it comes to the continent’s security limits their influence. Yet, the louder voices still matter. Debates around questions like whether the 1997 NATO-Russia Founding Act still should apply contribute to the general security atmosphere on the continent. Arguing that the Alliance should still stick to its commitments (as does, for example, the German government) makes it easier to seek a dialogue with Russia than calling the agreement a dead letter based on the analysis that the security situation has evolved (Deni, 2017). The same is true for calls for more U.S. troops in Europe or matters such as NATO membership for Georgia and Ukraine, known to be a red flag from Moscow’s perspective. Europeans—or at least individual European states—may not be able to dictate U.S. behavior in any of these matters. But putting issues on the agenda at least forces the United States to position itself. How the U.S. positions itself on European security issues, in turn, has an impact on European security.

Reincorporating System-level Dynamics into European Analyses

There is no possibility for Europe to escape from U.S.-Russian security dilemma. Europeans simply need to become better at living with it—in particular at a time when doubts about U.S. security guarantees seem indeed justified, Joe Biden’s election as president notwithstanding. Not least the evolution of the multipolar international system, as well as domestic developments within the United States, may make the transatlantic link increasingly uncertain even if Washington’s commitment were to remain intact (see also Robert Lieber’s contribution to this volume). Consequently, it is of crucial importance that Europeans return to adopting a holistic perspective on their security; that is, they need to reconnect their regional concerns to the system level (as they did during the Cold War).

Understanding the security dynamics driving the relationship between the United States and Russia and the implications these dynamics have for European security is of key importance to conceiving of European security in the twenty-first century. Yet, current European debates, for example on European strategic autonomy, clearly miss this systemic dimension. Two crucial points follow from this observation.

First, Europeans need to become more aware of the fact that they are entangled in the U.S.-Russian security dilemma. Put differently, Europeans need to learn to (again) incorporate a system-level dimension into their analysis of the world. In many of the debates on, for example, regional security challenges, system-level factors and U.S.-Russian dynamics are largely missing. Achieving or preserving peace or at least stability in areas like the Baltic Sea Region, Ukraine or the Arctic cannot be adequately addressed at the regional level. Systemic dynamics are at play in these contexts and must inevitably be part of any conceivable solution.

Among the consequences of the missing systemic dimension is the almost exclusive focus on Russia as a security threat, competing with other sources of direct threats to European security, most prominently so terrorism emanating from Africa and the Middle East. This “East vs. South” divide is the defining feature of the current European security debate (Kunz, 2020a). While viewing Russia as a security threat is clearly warranted based on recent events, the merely two-dimensional take omitting system-level variables and hence the U.S.-Russian security dilemma overlooks important aspects of the equation. Instead, European foreign policy decision makers and security experts continue to treat Russian intentions or foreign policy goals as independent variables.4

Awareness of systemic variables is, second, an indispensable precondition for Europe to develop its own position on the issues driving the U.S.-Russian security dilemma. In particular, a more system-oriented analysis may lead to the conclusion that not only Russian policies, but also U.S. policies can be problematic. However, in the currently ongoing political debates, this too often leads to the reproach of excessive friendliness vis-à-vis Russia. Yet, and in light of serious and justified doubts regarding the future of U.S. security guarantees for Europe, it makes sense to question whether backing the United States under all circumstances really does make the European continent safer. If the Europeans were asking this question, this very fact would be an illustration of some sort of conceptual strategic autonomy on this side of the Atlantic.

The U.S.-Russian security dilemma and Europe’s entanglement in it are obviously characterized by tremendous complexity, at the political, military, and technological level. Most importantly, Europeans need to understand that the U.S.-Russian relationship is not static, but dynamic. Not only Russia’s acts, but also U.S. foreign policy behavior vis-à-vis Russia triggering Russian responses affect European security. Europeans would consequently benefit from a more thorough analysis of the United States’ Russia policies and their impact, notably in terms of Russian responses and, more broadly, the dynamics they engender.

Conclusion

Since the end of the Cold War, European security debates have largely lost awareness of the international system and its dynamics. Yet, for the sake of Europe’s security, the system level must be reincorporated into thinking about the continent’s future. This is particularly true for the relations between the two poles that are most relevant to European security, i.e., the United States and Russia, whose relationship is best characterized as a security dilemma.

Being aware of the systemic component and the US-Russian security dilemma does not mean that Europeans should strive to accommodate Russia on matters of principle. Conceiving of the relationship between the United States—and by extension NATO and Europe—and Russia as a security dilemma allows for a broader perspective that has the potential to allow for improved relations among these actors. Under current circumstances, no solution that would dissolve this security dilemma is in sight. Managing it in a better way, however, should be in all involved actors’ interest.

Such a system-based perspective would in particular be a necessary starting point for the debate on deterrence Europe likely to take place during years ahead. This notion should notably be discussed when a new Strategic Concept for NATO will be developed. If the objective is to make Europe safer, deterrence based on more and more (American) weapons is not a promising way forward. And this argument is not based on any desire to accommodate Russia or “reward” it for its foreign policy behavior. Instead, it is purely derived from realist theory of international relations, generally not know for dovish naïveté. That said, from a defensive realist perspective, there is hope, to again quote Tang: “for defensive realists it is the security dilemma that makes possible genuine cooperation between states” (Tang, 2009: 588).

Notes

  1. 1.

    Under NATO nuclear sharing arrangements, U.S. nuclear weapons are stationed in five member states (Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Turkey). If ever to be used, these countries’ armed forces would be delivering the weapons, while the United States retains exclusive rights of decisions on their use.

  2. 2.

    See for example Ivanov (2000). In 2015, Russian President Vladimir Putin addressed both the matter of high-precision long-range non-nuclear weapons and ballistic missile defense in his speech at Valdai (Putin 2015). Note that also official Russian doctrine considers “deployment by states which consider the Russian Federation as a potential adversary, of missile defense systems and means, medium- and shorter-range cruise and ballistic missiles, non-nuclear high-precision and hypersonic weapons, strike unmanned aerial vehicles, and directed energy weapons” as being among the main military risks (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, 2020).

  3. 3.

    One illustration is procurement decisions in Poland, Finland, and Sweden that have a potentially destabilizing effect. All three countries decided to procure long-range precision cruise missiles.

  4. 4.

    As just one illustration, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki qualified Russia as a “hostile regime” in September 2020 (Reuters, 2020). For an example of an academic analysis of Russia’s revisionism, see Pisciotta (2020).