Europe is living through a rupture in the international order. After decades of relative peace and prosperity, the continent now faces deepening instability—shaped by Russia’s ongoing aggression, strains within the transatlantic alliance, and the open-ended fallout from the multifaceted conflict in the Middle East.

European and NATO leaders are no longer debating whether large-scale war could return to the continent, but when. As Emmanuel Macron warned, Europe confronts its greatest peril since the Second World War. Poland’s Donald Tusk has been blunter still, suggesting Russia could be ready to confront Europe as soon as 2027.

It is therefore unsurprising that polling around the 80th anniversary of D-Day found many Europeans now consider a third world war not only possible but plausible within a decade. A growing share also recognises that Europe must be ready to defend itself—with or without U.S. backing. Defence budgets are rising. Calls to reintroduce conscription are gaining traction. And Rotterdam, Europe’s largest port, is preparing to move NATO military cargo at scale.

Yet amid this renewed focus on hard power, Europe’s most decisive variable remains intangible: the collective morale of its societies. If Europe is to hold the line, it must relearn the value of civic cohesion when the system itself is under threat.

The grey zone is now the front line

The urgency of rebuilding cohesion reflects the changing character of war. Today’s conflicts are more often hybrid than conventional. Recent statistical declines in formal inter-state warfare and war-related mortality do not herald a more peaceful world; they mark the erosion of the old frameworks of war.

Modern conflict is rarely declared; it is outsourced. Europe now faces information warfare, economic coercion and sabotage, covert operations, and a relentless tempo of offensive cyberattacks. These deniable, diffuse tactics blur the line between peace and war, raising the risk of miscalculation and uncontrolled escalation. Even before the cascade of visible conflicts from Ukraine to the Middle East, the world had entered a more opaque—and more perilous—phase.

That shift poses not only a military challenge but a societal one. Are European nations psychologically prepared for a prolonged, high-intensity contest—one aimed not just at borders but at the cohesion of our democracies from within? Drones and precision munitions may dominate the battlefield; resilience—social, political, economic, and institutional—will determine who prevails.

Public opinion: vulnerability or force multiplier?

Active conflict is puncturing the illusions that shaped post-war European life. As memories of catastrophe faded and peace became the norm, war was reframed as remote and sanitised: surgical strikes, pixelated drone footage, minimal casualties borne by professional soldiers. A generation raised on this myth of “clean” war risks a brutal awakening if high-intensity conflict returns to Europe. The psychological distance between society and the true human cost of modern warfare would collapse overnight.

Military superiority is never measured by firepower alone; it rests on perceived resolve. That perception dissolves when public morale wanes or civic confidence erodes due to complacency, doubt, or distraction. No adversary is deterred by a nation whose citizens are unwilling to shoulder the costs of their own security. Russia understands this intimately. Its hybrid campaigns probe psychological seams—polarisation, complacency, fragmented civic identity—and seek to pry them open. In this environment, civic morale is not an optional virtue; it is a strategic asset.

Equally dangerous is the widening gulf between militaries that train for real war and societies that have become accustomed to treating conflict as an abstraction. That disconnect can become the weakest link in the defence of a nation—or of a union of nations. Closing it requires more than better messaging. It requires a frank conversation about the burdens of deterrence, the meaning of service, and the price of sovereignty.

Relearning civic purpose

Preparing for the possibility of war must extend far beyond procurement schedules and mobilisation plans. Europe needs a renewed clarity of civic purpose. Who outside the uniformed services still believes that freedom entails sacrifice? Why would Europeans accept losses on distant front lines unless they understand that such sacrifices protect everyday liberties and preserve their place in the world? As tragedy edges closer to home, Europe’s greatest vulnerability may lie not at its borders but in the erosion of collective will.

Rebuilding that will does not mean militarising daily life or romanticising conflict. It means restoring habits of solidarity: investing in civil defence and critical-infrastructure resilience; educating citizens in disinformation literacy, cyber hygiene, and emergency preparedness; strengthening local institutions that bind communities; and ensuring that those asked to fight are supported not only with equipment but with social legitimacy and political clarity about the mission. A society that knows what it stands for—and why it must stand together—hardens the target that hybrid warfare seeks to fracture.

The years ahead will shape Europe for generations. Democracy is at risk as surely as peace. The first line of defence in any democracy is not a base, a fleet, or a budget. It is a society’s deep, unshakeable conviction that it is worth defending—and the readiness to act on that conviction when tested.