The West has four years—perhaps fewer—to get its act together before the next great conflagration.
That is the stark warning delivered by Germany’s top soldier, General Carsten Breuer, who has bluntly declared that NATO must be ready to repel a Russian assault on the Baltic states by 2029. In other words, Europe is on the clock.
Speaking at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, a key security forum, Gen Breuer issued an unambiguous alert: Moscow is rearming with frightening speed, producing 1,500 tanks annually and amassing vast artillery stockpiles—none of which, he pointed out, are exclusively earmarked for Ukraine. “We must be able to fight tonight,” he said. It is not a metaphor.
The General’s remarks mark a watershed moment in Germany’s attitude to security and defence. For decades, Berlin has luxuriated in a pacifist consensus, dismantling its armed forces in the name of post-Cold War harmony. That era is over. The Bundestag—spurred on even by the once-dovish Greens—has begun to loosen purse strings for rearmament. Germany has finally looked east and seen not a trading partner, but a tank column.
Breuer’s message is simple and sobering: NATO is facing a threat unlike anything seen in the last four decades. He highlighted Russia’s steady encroachment on European infrastructure, citing drone sightings over German power stations, cyberattacks on transit networks, and sabotage of undersea cables in the Baltic. These are not isolated acts of espionage. They are probes—tests of our resolve.
The heart of the coming storm, he warned, is likely to be the Suwałki Gap—the vulnerable strip of land between Poland and Lithuania that separates the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad from Belarus. If Moscow seizes it, the Baltic states could be cut off from the rest of NATO. That would trigger Article 5—the collective defence clause—and risk war between Russia and the United States. The West has spent years pretending such a nightmare was unthinkable. It isn’t.
The Baltic nations—Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania—have never needed convincing. Breuer echoed their alarm, recalling how Estonian officials liken their situation to standing next to a wildfire: they “feel the heat, see the flames and smell the smoke.” In Germany, by contrast, he said, most only “see a little smoke on the horizon.” That metaphor captures Europe’s fatal complacency.
Some might scoff at the idea of a full-scale Russian invasion of NATO territory. But this is no longer the realm of hypotheticals. Breuer insisted that Moscow views the war in Ukraine not as a standalone conflict, but as part of a broader confrontation with the West. In its eyes, the frontline stretches from Donetsk to Dresden.
This isn’t just about tanks and troops. It’s about political will. The General pushed back against suggestions that NATO’s unity is fraying, pointing to the recent accession of Finland and Sweden as evidence of a reinvigorated alliance. Even Hungary and Slovakia, whose leaders have cultivated warmer relations with Moscow, have not blocked collective planning. “I’ve never seen such unity like it is now,” Breuer claimed.
Yet unity in rhetoric is not the same as unity in readiness. While Russia pours steel into new tanks and shells, Europe is struggling to revive its atrophied military-industrial base. Decades of underinvestment cannot be reversed overnight. Production lines need to be rebuilt, supply chains resecured, and personnel retrained. Ambition is cheap. Ammunition is not.
Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, America’s gaze is shifting eastward—away from Europe, toward the Indo-Pacific. Washington remains NATO’s indispensable partner, but its priorities are now clearly divided. That reality should make Europe’s defence renaissance not optional but urgent. As Breuer put it: “Ramp up. Get more into it. We need it.”
The clock is ticking. In Moscow, Vladimir Putin is counting on Western disunity, dithering, and delusion. He is rebuilding Russia’s war machine at full tilt. If NATO is serious about deterrence—and about peace—it must meet that challenge head-on.
Because if the West waits until 2029 to prepare, it may already be too late.
Main Image: By Anton Holoborodko (Антон Голобородько) – https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=31559793
