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Consolidated Recommendations
Security and Defense: Deterrence, Military Capabilities and Operational Posture
- Align EU and NATO strategic signaling toward Russia and establish consultation mechanisms among a core group of European countries willing to help deter Russia militarily, in order to improve coordination and exclude countries that hinder effective deterrence
- Communicate clear red lines to minimize the gray zone that Russia exploits to wage hybrid warfare
- Include assertive measures in toolkits against hybrid warfare to increase the costs of interference for Russia and defy the Kremlin’s expectations about Europe’s “weakness”
- Expand European capabilities, particularly integrated air and missile defense (IAMD) on the EU’s and NATO’s eastern flank to reassure frontline states and mitigate the Baltic “abandonment dilemma”
- Increase European capacities for critical strategic enablers (air defense, ISTAR, deep strike capabilities) to reduce European dependence on the United States
- Increase investment in defense technological innovation, particularly on drones and anti-drone systems, and incorporate lessons learned by the Ukrainian military and defense industry
- Develop a contemporary NATO nuclear strategy, adapted from Cold War consensus but fitted to today’s geopolitical environment
- Reintroduce regular nuclear crisis exercises (combining military and political elements), inspired by Cold War-era WINTEX drills
- Carry out independent, systematic and policy-relevant analysis of Russian decision-making, security thinking, and possible responses; provide research institutions with sufficient resources and strengthen expertise within public administrations
- Revive or expand conscription in major European states for a long-term increase in manpower, sending a strong signal about Europe’s enhanced preparedness to prevent any Russian attack
Economic Resilience: Industrial Capacity, Funding, Critical Infrastructure and Sanctions
- Facilitate coordinated contributions from national budgets and joint procurement to improve efficiency and close capability gaps in Europe
- Draw on experience and best practices from Nordic and Baltic countries, including large-scale joint exercises, and invest jointly to improve critical infrastructure protection (ports, rail lines, energy grids, and LNG terminals)
- Strengthen coordinated maritime surveillance, focusing on Russia’s shadow fleet, and employ stronger economic anti-coercion instruments, to counter sabotage, weaponized migration, and sanctions evasion
- Keep the option of using Russian frozen assets to repay the EUR 90-billion interest-free loan on the table to enable sustained support to Ukraine without placing excessive strain on European fiscal flexibility
- Prepare a substantial and sustainable funding package for Ukraine’s defense and reconstruction within the next EU multi-annual financial framework (2028-2034)
- Combine Europe’s industrial capacity and system-
level standards with Ukraine’s agility, battlefield-driven innovation, and rapid adaptation cycle - Promote joint ventures and localization of European defense production in Ukraine to facilitate innovation and co-production close to Ukraine’s combat-driven testing environment
- Rethink procurement approaches, drawing on lessons from Ukraine’s dual procurement model – combining centralized structures with decentralized procurement at unit level
- Empower brigades and lower-level units with budgets, authority, personnel, and incentives to generate solutions that bypass slow and overly centralized procurement chains
- Clarify Ukraine’s export procedures and intellectual property framework to facilitate the integration of Ukraine into European supply chains and foster greater interoperability
Societal Resilience: Public trust, Cohesion and Resilience Against Hybrid Threats
- Develop an overarching, positive narrative about Europe’s strength that reconnects societies and political elites, giving Europe’s defense efforts a renewed sense of purpose and legitimacy
- Foster strategic empathy across Europe – recognizing that diverging national responses reflect different structural constraints rather than a lack of solidarity
- Publicly communicate trade-offs between defense investments and welfare spending, explaining long-term benefits of defense-related policy options to sustain societal consensus, transparency, and democratic legitimacy
- Highlight the tangible domestic benefits of defense investments such as job creation, dual-use innovation, and energy security, linking national resilience to collective security
- Emphasize the added value of multinational defense industrial cooperation in terms of bundling know-how and economies of scale arising from larger orders and lower unit costs
- Demonstrate courage and political leadership by taking necessary decisions despite resistance from parts of society and political elites
- Work toward convergence in shared threat perception across European societies
- Foster public understanding of Russia’s strategic goals and thinking to reduce uncertainty and to strengthen societal resilience to hybrid warfare
- Increase societies’ ability to cope with uncertainty, including through red-teaming and stress-testing of vulnerabilities
- Reintroduce conscription in major European states, possibly as part of a broader model of societal service, to increase national cohesion, to encourage citizens to take greater personal responsibility, and to prepare populations for external aggression and hybrid warfare
Institutional Resilience: Governance, Coordination, and Decision-making
- Adopt binding, multi-annual frameworks – that don’t rely on unanimous agreement within the EU – for military, financial, and reconstruction assistance to Ukraine
- Institutionalize differentiated burden-sharing across Europe, aligning national contributions according to comparative strengths across capability development, force provision, hosting, financing, and strategic enablers
- Expose decentralized hybrid attacks and their perpetrators by increasing intelligence-sharing, coordination of responses, and analysis of Russian decision-making
- Develop capacities for institutional flexibility and agile response mechanisms, dealing with uncertainty in the security landscape through innovation and improvisation
- Increase efforts to change procedures toward qualified majority voting in the Council of the EU on Common Security and Defence Policy issues to increase the EU’s agility in dealing with Russia’s hybrid aggression
- Close legal and operational loopholes that Russia can exploit with hybrid tactics
- Expand structured consideration of lessons learned from Ukraine by strengthening exchange at the bilateral MoD level and through EU defense frameworks
- Invest in good governance to reduce discontent in the population and build cohesion around security and defense. Reduce economic inequalities, foster inclusive societies, strengthen interpersonal and institutional trust, address polarization, and encourage civic participation
- European Zeitenwende Strategy Group
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This paper is part of a series of publications prepared in the framework of DGAP’s “European Zeitenwende” Strategy Group, which seeks to help reconceptualize European security in a rapidly changing geopolitical environment. Against the background of Russia’s ongoing war of aggression against Ukraine, a strained transatlantic relationship, growing rivalry with China, and changing global and regional orders, Europe needs to strategically reposition itself if it wants actively shape security on the continent.
Europe’s strategic reorientation should be inspired by those who – as direct neighbors to Russia and Ukraine – best understand the urgency to act. The Strategy Group therefore draws on in-depth analytical discussions with experts and stakeholders from Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe, as well as the Nordic and Baltic states, where debates on security are arguably most advanced, to propel a “Zeitenwende” of security policy and thinking in Europe.
Chaired by the German Council on Foreign Relations, the group met regularly online and in-person over the course of 2025. Convinced of the need for a comprehensive approach, it considered different dimensions of resilience, including security and defense, economic security, institutional reform, and societal cohesion.
The present paper series represents the results of the group’s analysis. It seeks to address questions and challenges that in the currently evolving security discourse remain conceptually and practically underdeveloped. By providing concrete analysis, definitions, and reflections to these open questions, the series aspires to add substance to the European Zeitenwende debate on security and defense. The ultimate question of all the papers is how to strengthen European agency in providing European security and in ensuring peace and stability in a new geopolitical context.
Members: Robin Allers (Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies), Hiski Haukkala (Finnish Institute of International Affairs), Wilfried Jilge (German Council on Foreign Relations), Karl-Heinz Kamp (German Council on Foreign Relations), Pavlo Klimkin (Center for National Resilience and Development), Jana Kobzova (European Council on Foreign Relations), Nicole Koenig (Munich Security Conference), Stefan Meister (German Council on Foreign Relations), Carolina Vendil Pallin (Swedish Defence Research Agency), Katri Pynnöniemi (University of Helsinki & Finnish National Defence University), András Rácz (German Council on Foreign Relations), Kristi Raik (International Centre for Defense and Security), Toms Rostoks (National Defence Academy Latvia), George Scutaru (New Strategy Center), Margarita Šešelgytė (Vilnius University, Institute of International Relations & Political Science), Marcin Terlikowski (Polish Institute of International Affairs)
The European Zeitenwende Strategy Group was established in the format of the project “In Together – Shaping a Common European Future,” which is funded by Stiftung Mercator.
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