Here is an alarming thought. When you combine the relentless hostility of Vladimir Putin towards the West with growing doubts about whether America should come to Europe’s defence—at least among Donald Trump and his followers—you soon reach the conclusion that Europe’s eastern borders now rival Taiwan as the most likely theatre for the first ever war between enemies armed with nuclear weapons.
That gloomy prospect was at the back of our minds this week as we took on the challenges facing European defence. Wreathed in acronyms like SACEUR, SHAPE and NATO, it is a theme that all too easily seems institutional and remote. What’s more, Europeans take pax Americana so much for granted that they overlook how immense a task it will be to rebuild the structures that have kept them safe since the second world war.
The job for our cover designers was to shake everyone out of their post-Soviet complacency.
One way to bring home the grim reality of a European war was to use a photograph. One option showed a Ukrainian soldier hauling an artillery shell near the front line in Kupiansk, in the east of the country. For another, our designers plonked a squaddie thigh-deep in a Europe-shaped puddle.
This week marks the second anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and we have lots of coverage on the war. These early ideas pointed to how NATO’s predicament has been aggravated by the fighting next door. Rapid Russian and Ukrainian advances in drone warfare, tested daily on the battlefield, risk leaving NATO behind the times.
However we worried that these cover ideas would mislead readers into thinking that the war was our main focus.
Perhaps two different designs could signal the breadth of our coverage. In one a soldier dressed for combat carried a gun stuffed with daisies. In another he was armed with a water pistol. Having relied for so many decades on America, many Europeans have never known anything but peace.
The message of these covers was that Europeans are ducking the hard choices Russian aggression demands. To make their continent safe means restoring its neglected military traditions, raising defence spending to a level not seen in decades, restructuring its arms industries and preparing for a possible war. The work has barely begun.
Another angle was to set out the context. An image of Mr Putin looking through binoculars implied that he has Europe in his sights. Having put the economy on a war footing, Russia’s president is spending 7.1% of GDP on defence. Within three to five years, he could be ready to take on NATO, as part of a grand scheme to wreck NATO’s pledge that if one country is attacked, the others will be ready to come to its aid.
We tried introducing Mr Trump standing beside Mr Putin, with his back turned. He is not alone. The Republican Party and parts of the security establishment are also becoming less committed to Europe. American defence is increasingly focused on the Pacific. Even if Joe Biden is re-elected, he may be America’s last instinctively Atlanticist president.
We worked up the water pistol-toting soldier into a full design. Europe depends utterly on NATO’s dominant military force. One American general recently complained that many of its armies would struggle to deploy even one full-strength brigade of a few thousand troops. Between 2015 and 2023 Britain lost five of its combat battalions. Many countries lack capabilities, such as transport aircraft, command and control, and satellites.
All that makes sense. However, we had our doubts. A lone European soldier risked seeming marginal to our readers in Asia and America.
The Putin-with-binoculars design, with a strapline of “Who’s next?”, was stronger. Mr Putin has options. He doesn’t have to launch a full-scale invasion to discredit NATO. Hybrid operations against one of the Baltic states may be enough to winkle out the differences in the alliance that undermine the idea that it would stick together.
An invasion, even on a small scale, rapidly leads down some very dangerous paths. Mr Putin has successfully used the threat of nuclear escalation to deter the West from giving Ukraine advanced conventional weapons. Eastern Europe would be vulnerable to the same tactics. If Mr Trump was unclear about America’s deterrent, could nuclear-armed Britain and France offer guarantees instead? Would they? If they did, would Mr Putin believe them?
This cover we went for was the most direct. We ditched Mr Trump’s MAGA hat, which played a starring role on last week’s issue and the global conservative movement. In doing so we discovered that it is alarmingly easy to distinguish Mr Trump by his hair alone. From the back. In black and white.
Russia is much poorer and less populous than Europe. Mr Putin’s depredations make it a declining power. But the bear can still spread destruction and misery. The best place to stop Mr Putin is in Ukraine. Yet even if that succeeds, Europe will have to think very differently about defence. It needs to start now.
Leader: Is Europe ready to defend itself?
Briefing: Can Europe defend itself without America?
Europe: How Boris Pistorius is transforming the German armed forces
