Russia is at war with Europe, even if Europe is too timid to admit this as fact, a retired U.S. General told the Oslo Security Conference.
Europe’s NATO members are naïve, timid, and unable to defend themselves, General Ben Hodges said in Oslo on Monday. The heavily Trump-critical retired officer who commanded the United States Army Europe between 2014 and 2018 banged the drum for aggressively confronting Russia, saying Europe needed to wake up to the threat and start imposing costs on Russia.
Speaking on a panel at the Oslo Security Conference, Hodges said: “you have to acknowledge there is a threat, that there is an enemy. And Russia is absolutely at war with Europe, even if we don’t want to believe it, the Russians are absolute at war with us.
“It’s sometimes described as ‘hybrid warfare’, but I think that’s a terrible name. Hybrid doesn’t sound very scary, you think of a hybrid car, it’s kinda cute. That will not inspire governments to action. I think grey-zone is a little better”.
On the wave of sabotage attacks against Europe, including commercial ships dragging their anchors to tear up sea-bed data cables and the persistent harrying of major airports with drones to shut their airspace, Hodges sarcastically remarked that if it wasn’t Russia behind these events then who else could it possibly be. He said: “I think we’re very naïve if we think this is not the result of Russian influence and Russian design to cause us to lose trust in each other and distract us from supporting Ukraine.”
The General told European powers to stop being so timid and to consider impounding more of the Russian dark fleet that transports embargoed oil around European shores, arguing to do so is less of a risk than to wait for one to suffer an accident and cause a natural disaster. This would give Moscow cause to pause the Ukraine war, he said, as the oil helps fund the conflict, the retired officer asserting: “until we can inflict consequences on the Russians it is going to continue”.
General Hodges is a persistent critic of President Trump and endorsed Kamala Harris in 2024, but nevertheless said he could agree with the U.S. Commander-in-Chief on one thing, that European states need to take defence more seriously. He said: “this is probably the only time I’ve ever agreed with my President, Europe absolutely can’t defend itself. Please stop whining! You were Vikings for God’s sake.”
The retired officer is just the latest NATO figure to reach for the alarm bell over Russia, which several European leaders believe is just years away from a military engagement with the continent. European Union foreign affairs boss and bloc vice president Kaja Kallas said last year that “Russia is gambling with war, and we are moving beyond the realms of hypothetical conflict” with the top military officer in NATO having stated the future doesn’t look “hunky dory”.
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