What does NRC think | The answer of the Cabinet Schoof to the increasing Russian threat is completely insufficient

Broken communication cables in the Baltic Sea, disturbances of the GPS traffic in European airspace, attempts to disrupt various military bases in Germany: Russia is becoming increasingly open in its sabotage actions against a wide range of European interests. If Dutch citizens have still had the illusion that there is a hybrid Russian war that takes place on a two thousand kilometers from the Dutch state borders, the military intelligence and security service (MIVD) has a sobering message.

In its annual report, the MIVD notes this week that Russia is becoming ‘increasingly brutal’ in his attempts to disrupt and destabilize Dutch society. For example, Russian hackers tried to invade the board system of a « public provision » with the aim of sabotaging it. According to the MIVD, it was the first concrete Russian sabotage campaign in the Netherlands.

The fact that the MIVD invested a press conference indicates that the service is taking the Russian threat very seriously. Defense minister Ruben Brekelmans (VVD) spoke of a « gray zone » between war and peace in September last year, MIVD director Peter Reesink has now scaled this up to « dark gray ».

The observations of the MIVD once again show that Russian hostility does not stop at the Borders Ukraine, for years victim of a true terror campaign. The fact that Moscow is increasingly expanding its sabotage operations indicates that it may be advocating a larger war in Europe.

Vladimir Putin will undoubtedly feel strengthened by the return of Donald Trump in the White House. The American president has been doing everything it can to get Moscow from his international isolation for three months. According to a leaked American ‘peace proposal’ for Ukraine, almost the entire Russian wish list is granted, including the elevation of the economic sanctions and recognition of the annexed Crimea as Russian territory.

It seems unlikely that Ukraine agrees with this, just like an end to the war in the short term. But the radical American turning in favor of the Kremlin is in itself a danger to Europe. If Trump removes the sanctions against Russia, for example because Ukraine rejects his proposal for peace, it will immediately have major consequences for Europe.

The Russian war economy has been running at full speed for several years; Moreover, the MIVD annual report shows that Moscow is already working on a military structure that is specifically aimed at Europe.

Russia may be heavily damaged by the war in Ukraine, the country, corrected for purchasing power, gives more of military equipment than all European countries together. Free from American (and therefore Chinese) sanctions, Moscow will not only be able to build up its military device much faster, the Russian weapons will also be of a much higher quality.

Europe has only just started a military reconstruction after the European countries had seriously neglected their forces for decades. Even though the production of military equipment is increased in many places in Europe, it will take years before the European defense, without the US, is frightening enough to resist the Russian threat. Moscow will also be aware of this European period of vulnerability, which, according to military experts, will take a few years.

In that light, the answer of the Dutch cabinet to the Russian threat is completely insufficient – and irresponsible. Yes, the Netherlands meets the NATO standard with hanging and strangling that allies must spend 2 percent of their gross national product on defense. In the meantime, the consensus in Europe is that a NATO standard of 3.5 percent is real, given the threat level.

In the Spring Memorandum, the Cabinet Schoof will allocate more than 700 million euros extra for the armed forces, in 2029, while more than 15 billion extra is needed to achieve NATO objectives in the coming years. Just like many other important files, the cabinet also frightens this hot potato anxiously.

Countries in Western and Southern Europe are probably safe as long as the Russians wage their ‘real’ war in Ukraine. But, as soon as it is, as soon as that war is terminated, Moscow suddenly has a heavily armed armed forces of hundreds of thousands of soldiers at his disposal that can be used elsewhere. That threat can already be felt every day along Europe’s eastern borders. The Schoof cabinet has no excuse to ignore the alarm bells that sound from the East for longer.

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