Is Europe Psychologically Prepared for the Next War?

As Michta described it, this “crisis of disbelief” varies sharply by location. The closer a country lies to Russia’s border, the more acutely its people recognize the threat and the more prepared they tend to be psychologically.

Sweden has not fought a war for two centuries and followed a policy of neutrality for generations. Yet Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 prompted a rapid shift in thinking. In a remarkably short time, the country has developed one of Europe’s strongest cultures of wartime preparedness.

“Russia is self-evidently dangerous,” Sweden’s outgoing prime minister, Ulf Kristersson, told The Economist magazine last month.

“We don’t know when it [the war in Ukraine] ends, but how it ends will define the security situation in our part of the world for at least a generation.”

Sweden maintains a system of partial conscription under which all school leavers must register for military service. The armed forces select the strongest candidates, who then complete as much as 15 months of compulsory training before returning to civilian employment or higher education. They also join the country’s extensive reserve force.

“There is a great deal of citizen engagement,” said Minna Alander, an analyst at the Stockholm Centre for Eastern European Studies think tank. “It was almost an internet joke in 2022 and 2023 that everyone wanted to receive a call-up notice. Sometimes people become frustrated when they have not been summoned for a long time. It is certainly an expectation.”

“Sweden has, for example, been identifying civil engineers with relevant skills, such as those involved in electricity supply, who could be mobilized if the grid were disrupted. The country can therefore draw on a pool of civil engineers who understand their roles and how they could be activated.”

When Kristersson was asked whether Russia should still be viewed as a potential aggressor after the war in Ukraine ends, he replied: “Yes. We have a few hundred years of experience with this… We know Russia pretty well.”

Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia—the three Baltic republics—also have extensive experience of Russia’s ambitions. They regained their independence from Moscow only in the 1990s. German forces occupied Lithuania during the 1940s and have since returned to Lithuanian territory by invitation to strengthen its defenses against threats from the east. Meanwhile, approximately 1,000 British troops lead a multinational force in Estonia for the same purpose.

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