Across Europe, the “Russian threat” has hardened into something less like analysis and more like zeitgeist. Nato itself has stated that there is no immediate military threat to its territory. None of this means “nothing can happen”, but it does mean inevitability is being rhetorically manufactured where uncertainty still exists. But also a politics of threat: a style of public discourse that rewards escalation, treats caution as weakness, and collapses preparedness into perpetual alarm. It is a mood — sometimes a method — with a long history of dragging countries into wars they barely understood.

Source: Irish Examiner January 03, 2026 17:30 UTC