When NATO’s Secretary General Mark Rutte addressed Chatham House in June, he stated that Russia ‘could be ready to use military force against NATO within five years‘. He thus gave voice to what might be called the ‘known future’: a widespread consensus, even a growing certainty, about a coming war with Russia. The question is not whether, but when Russia will attack. Indeed, there are over 35 official western declarations that envisage a potential Russian attack on NATO leading to war: scenarios predict a time scale (by 2030), the location (an invasion of the Baltic States), and the tactics (ever more drones).

Such attempts to frame the future are normal: the human mind is given to making predictions, constantly reviewing the world around us and calculating what is likely to happen to help mitigate surprises and to shape plans. When it comes to the most existential of all human experiences, war, it is even more natural. No other institution thinks so much about a coming possible conflict as the military: it is they who consider how to allocate resources, adapt training, and figure out war plans. And with an adversary openly toying with the possibility of war, like Russia, decision-makers will want to grasp the nature of the threat by making it as concrete as possible, in order to be able to act on it as concretely as possible. The timing and nature of the threat is thus spelled out in such terms that there is little doubt; this is the ‘known future’, an expectation that is so high in certainty that it leaves no room for alternatives.

The problem, though, is that in the modern era we have consistently been wrong about the future of war. Forecasting the exact timing is always the most formidable challenge in strategic foresight, and correctly assessing the nature, outline or length of the next war is even more of a problem. There are a host of reasons for that, the most prominent of which are: a tendency to consistently overestimate the impact of evolving technology and underestimate the human factor, the difficulty of interpreting an adversary’s intent and strategy, and a proclivity to misread one’s own morale or capability.

Moreover, the Euro-Atlantic community’s record of foresight regarding Russia during the last 20 years is not one of unmitigated success. Moscow’s annexation of Crimea, its intervention in Syria, and Russian socio-economic resilience, for instance, have all come either as a surprise or have confounded widespread expectations.

For all these reasons, there is a very real danger that the strengthening consensus around the ‘known future’ of a Russian invasion of the Baltic States becomes an orthodoxy that causes us to overlook all the other possible ways in which a war with Russia could unfold. This can lead to a situation in which ‘nothing is ready for the war which everyone expected’.

Scenarios of a Russian invasion of the Baltic States have long formed part of the Euro-Atlantic debate about deterrence. Prompted by Moscow’s annexation of Crimea, the scenarios of the mid 2010s posited a Russian invasion of the Baltic States: influential war games suggested that Russian forces would reach Tallinn and Riga in a timeframe of 36 to 60 hours.

These scenarios offer useful reference points for decision-making in the wake of Moscow’s renewed assault on Ukraine. One is that such an attack would create the conditions for triggering NATO’s Article 5. Indeed, this latter point is essential because it obliges consideration of the escalatory trajectory that leads Moscow to decide to launch such an invasion.

Russian war strategy frames a war against a coalition (such as NATO) not as a limited campaign, but as a ‘regional war’ involving the whole European theatre, or, more likely given international alliances, a ‘large scale war’, global in nature. This assumes a war fought for major, even radical political-military objectives, one requiring mobilisation of all physical resources available and spiritual strength. In other words, a Russian invasion of the Baltic States would probably not be a localised conflict: scenarios should assume a war across the European theatre involving the use of a much greater level of mobilised state strategic capacity.

Another useful reference point is that such scenarios emphasised Moscow’s preference for seeking a quick knockout blow. In so doing, they painted a picture of a ‘clean’ Russian assault, factoring in none of the persistent problems that have characterised Moscow’s use of military power throughout the modern era.

There was none of the tension, for instance, between Moscow’s political decision-making and military capacity that senior Russian officers have regularly decried. Nor did the scenarios contain the many practical challenges – including, but hardly limited to, command and control, interoperability and logistics – that have hampered all Russian campaigning throughout the last century. The experience of Russian campaigning against Ukraine has highlighted the persistence of these problems, so any scenarios must also consider them as we look to the future. How will Moscow fix the problems its armed forces have faced, such that major offensive military operations could be successfully launched against an adversary much bigger than Ukraine?

These points indicate the need to shift the emphasis on how scenarios are developed regarding any potential war with Russia in light of experience since 2022. A third point is just as important, but all too often absent from western thinking: how Moscow sees the future. The Russian leadership invests considerable effort in foresight and planning both at state and military levels. And just as in the Euro-Atlantic community, there is extended discussion in Russia about what the contest – and possibly even war – with a US-led NATO might look like.

President Putin has repeatedly said that changes in the world order such as we are seeing today ‘have usually been accompanied by, if not global war and conflict, then by chains of intensive local-level conflicts’. And in December 2024, Defence Minister Andrei Belousov stated that Russia’s armed forces must be ready for any events, including a possible war with ‘NATO in Europe in the next decade’.

Senior Russian officials have indicated where Moscow sees potential threats. Some point to potential flash-points in the Baltic and in the Arctic. Other scenarios reflect concern about the eruption of conflict in the Pacific, especially between the US and China – which would also be categorised in Russian strategic terms possibly as a ‘regional’ or, more likely, a ‘large-scale’ war.

This adds important dimensions to how the Euro-Atlantic community should shape its scenarios in the future, with the emphasis on the scope and scale of any potential escalation to war. It illuminates Moscow’s strategic thinking, both in terms of the added emphasis on mobilisation measures at the wider state level, and the reorganisation of its military capability: the reorganisation of the Leningrad Military District treats the region from the Baltic Sea to the Urals as a single strategic space. Since several of Moscow’s scenarios reflect its maritime dilemma, it also illuminates the increasing emphasis on seapower.

That both the Euro-Atlantic community and Russia see potential for conflict within the next decade highlights the relevance of foresight as part of statecraft. But thinking about a possible crisis between Russia and the Euro-Atlantic community must not become simply a palimpsest of thinking from a decade ago reflecting a (limited) Russian invasion of the Baltic States. Their defence remains as essential as ever. Yet, as we look to the second half of the 2020s, a range of scenarios must be considered, from those that envisage an escalatory crisis in the Baltic, to those with wider regional and global horizons.

The foundation here is the dictum that the statesman’s first and most important act is to establish the kind of war on which they are embarking, defining that conflict’s political objectives and the means of achieving them. What is the escalatory situation that would lead Moscow to choose war over other policy options, when that choice would, by its own calculations, likely lead to a major conflagration?

Moving forwards, scenarios must also consider the changing characteristics of Russian state power and their further evolution through 2030. What are the dilemmas Moscow faces and how is it attempting to mitigate them? These two initial steps will contribute to shaping fresh and relevant scenarios that assist Euro-Atlantic decision-makers to prepare and plan appropriate measures to deter an attack.