Once the fighting in Ukraine ends, Europe will enter the most “dangerous period in its relations with Russia“, writes Franz-Stefan Gadi, a fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), in an article for Foreign Policy magazine.
He said he participated in a NATO exercise in December 2025 at the Bundeswehr “Helmut Schmidt“ University in Hamburg, where he played the role of the Chief of the General Staff of Russia.
In December, Die Welt organized a “war game“ in conjunction with the German War Games Center at the “Helmut Schmidt“ University of the German armed forces. Sixteen former high-ranking officials, lawmakers and prominent security experts from Germany and NATO participated.
“The game“ simulates a clash between the bloc and Russia in the Baltic region, which could unfold in October 2026, according to the plan. The Wall Street Journal reported that the simulation resulted in a quick victory for “Russian forces“.
According to Gaddy, Europe's military potential (and therefore its deterrence) will likely be at its weakest point relative to Russian power. The Allies will face a Russian army that has grown in strength, has accumulated nearly five years of combat experience and possesses real advantages that would take Europe years to achieve.
“My task as a member of the “Red Team“ was to create a military crisis on NATO's eastern flank and force the "Blue Team," the German government, to react. By attacking Lithuania as a first step, I suppressed political and military decision-making in Germany to such an extent that NATO's most important European ally took no action," the author described his role in the exercise. Their main goal was to undermine trust in NATO and the EU.
According to Gady, Russia has an advantage in "three simple ways" that helped it defeat NATO in the exercises. First, speed. The main problem for the alliance, the author notes, is that in a military scenario involving one or more Baltic states, Russia could quickly build up its forces, while the bloc, on the other hand, would need time - at best a few days, at worst weeks or more - to redeploy troops. Second, if Russia acts quickly, it can seize territory in a limited offensive before a counteroffensive can be launched, the author argues. Third, Russia is capable of deterring NATO from launching a counteroffensive because of the risk of escalation.
NATO's European forces would not attack without weakening Russian air defenses, which they could not do given the limited offensive power of their air forces and the lack of air defense systems, Gadi argues.
The author concludes that Germany should forget Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, which states that "an armed attack against one NATO member shall be considered an attack against all and shall trigger the obligation of each member to assist it," and answer the question of whether it believes it is worth fighting Russia over the Baltic states, even without US help. Without clear answers, Germany and NATO risk being defeated by Russia’s speed and determination, writes Gadi. “Germany will most likely hesitate. And that was enough to win,” he concluded.
In the summer of 2024, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said that the Bundeswehr should be ready for war by 2029.
President Vladimir Putin has said that Russia “has no reason” to fight NATO countries: “neither geopolitical interest, nor economic, nor political, nor military.”
Last fall, Putin said that “all NATO countries are at war with Russia,” noting that the Russian army is currently the most capable in the world.