Europe’s populations are readier to struggle than they’re typically credited. The issue isn’t their lack of will, however elite pessimism about it.
The assumption that Europeans are too gentle to struggle — too coddled, too individualistic, too “post-heroic” — is quietly shaping coverage selections about mobilization, recruitment, and spending. Navy veterans, teachers, and arguably even European leaders seem extra apprehensive with divisions in their very own societies than with the adversary itself. And even the place self-confidence is rising — in Finland or Poland — it’s typically tempered by doubts about the essential query of whether or not different allies would defend them if attacked.
This skepticism feels believable — but it surely dangers changing into self-fulfilling. “Will to struggle” just isn’t a set class. As an alternative, it is a social potential: one thing that may be cultivated or suppressed. Throughout points as diverse as tax compliance, welfare take-up, or monetary bailouts, we all know that belief or distrust in society can form outcomes. Protection is not any totally different. If planners assume society gained’t step up and design insurance policies round that perception, they make it extra probably that society will stay all the way down to expectations.
It’s simple to indicate how leaders’ pessimism about society can change into self-fulfilling. Individuals are unlikely to fulfill the second when political leaders use conscription to self-discipline youth fairly than to construct skilled mass. The identical holds when leaders oppose pragmatic fixes to recruitment or retention issues, akin to permitting troopers to sleep longer, as a result of they really feel it appears “gentle.” And when armies place conscripts and reservists in static or boring and harmful roles out of distrust of their capacity to grasp complicated expertise, they squander their potential.
Publics take their cues from such insurance policies. As Australian overseas minister and historian Paul Hasluck put it, individuals typically fail to mobilize not from inherent weak spot, however as a result of they see their authorities doesn’t belief them to. He faulted his personal nation for shying away from demanding sacrifice or civic contributions — thereby signaling an absence of religion that residents would rise to the event. When governments ship that sign, people lose confidence that others will do their half, and collective belief erodes.
NATO’s European allies at the moment are deciding how greatest to spend money on their protection. A key query is methods to stability spending on superior expertise with constructing human mass. The hazard is getting the stability fallacious: appearing as technological optimists however societal pessimists, embracing innovation in {hardware} whereas seeing demographic change, training, and variety as weak spot. That’s not simply analytically incoherent. It encourages societies to see their defining attributes as flaws.
How We Misinterpret Society
This isn’t to say politicians and planners can afford to disregard the warning indicators. There are real causes for pessimism about social cohesion in Europe. Political polarization has deepened throughout the continent, and belief in establishments has declined. Youthful generations place extra worth on autonomy and private well-being than on collective responsibility. And as Europe’s societies have change into extra various and cellular, they’ve grown fragmented, leaving residents much less assured that others will share the burden when it counts.
However entrenched pessimism, when baked into protection planning, turns into a lure. Leaders ought to ask a unique query: not “What in the event that they gained’t struggle?” however “What if they’d — if the situations had been proper?”
When politicians decide regular residents by the template of the extremely skilled skilled soldier, they not solely downplay individuals’s capacity to be taught shortly, but in addition assume unusual individuals share the motivations of execs (typically unusually conscientious people drawn from households or localities with robust traditions of army service). And when politicians use benchmarks set by previous generations to measure at the moment’s society, they underestimate its capability to rise to a problem or act in another way from the previous.
Take the rise of non-public independence in Europe. Polls present that individualism erodes peacetime willingness to struggle. But in battle individuals be part of up exactly to defend their lifestyle. Constitutional freedoms like property rights intensify the motivation to struggle for home and residential. And democratic freedoms encourage individuals to struggle for a future they’ve chosen. In contrast, authoritarian states with supposedly stronger collective values incessantly see their much-vaunted “unity” dissolve beneath fireplace, resulting in mass desertion.
It’s true that Gen Z exhibits comparatively low employer loyalty and ambition for conventional management roles. However they’re additionally mission-driven, aggressive, and conscious of recognition. Scandinavian conscription methods —misperceived as a solution to self-discipline “woke youth” — really succeed as a result of they faucet into these motivations, providing public service as a path to private progress and social esteem. Different militaries are starting to acknowledge that they’ve overemphasized management roles whereas neglecting the significance of “followership.”
Girls typically report decrease willingness to struggle, however in lots of circumstances it displays lack of awareness, not lack of resolve. Girls rule out army service not as a result of they reject the concept of violence, however as a result of they’re unaware what roles exist, from trauma surgeon to explosive ordnance disposal technician. The tendency to pin the disparity on variations of gender or intercourse relegates ladies to “invisible” or “political” battalions and misses alternatives for sensible fixes akin to elevating consciousness about particular roles or interservice partner assignments.
As for being worldwide or cosmopolitan — a mindset European leaders actively cultivated as they pacified the continent — this often requires first adopting a nationwide identification, then constructing outward. Cosmopolitans can mobilize shortly when satisfied of the justice of their nation’s trigger. In contrast, throughout historical past, the individuals most certain by “unchosen” ties to household and locality had been sluggish to reply nationwide — not to mention worldwide — calls. In a multinational alliance akin to NATO, a cosmopolitan outlook can subsequently be an asset fairly than a legal responsibility.
After which there’s political disillusion. Populations which might be disenchanted with their authorities are certainly reluctant to place their lives in its arms. But, they could additionally view participation in battle as a solution to change the system, as political leverage. Throughout historical past, elites have repeatedly anticipated populations to defend establishments they don’t belief or are excluded from — solely to search out that society fights greatest when it has hopes of one thing new to struggle for, whether or not Poles beneath Napoleon or Black People in World Battle II.
Why Analysis Reinforces Pessimistic Coverage
Why has the wealthy educational literature on “will to struggle” didn’t right this pessimism? The reply is that the sphere has been pushed primarily by the UK and the USA, international locations with out obligatory nationwide service however with a rhetorical religion in “the individuals.” In these international locations, leaders and planners had been pressured to deal with will as one thing to be estimated from a distance, not formed by direct contact. Consequently, the analysis findings have been overstretched to fulfill the calls for of anxious policymakers.
Most students, for example, assess a society’s will to struggle primarily by peacetime polls. But these surveys seize solely how individuals think about a battle they’ve by no means skilled. It’s hardly shocking that responses look weak: battle is horrifying, and preventing remains to be seen as one thing professionals do. The issue arises when such guesses are handled as forecasts of actual conduct, a lot as peacetime distractions — doom-scrolling TikTok or chasing Instagram likes — are typically learn as indicators of deeper social decline.
When drawing coverage classes to construct resolve, teachers are inclined to look to states with essentially the most knowledge and the longest report of success. But these are sometimes the least transferable circumstances — the few international locations which have stored service obligatory. Finland constructed a robust territorial protection as a result of it lived beside a significant risk: Its official non-aligned standing left it reliant on itself and cautious of expeditionary warfare. Holding Finland up as a mannequin dangers disparaging societies whose histories and risk perceptions are very totally different.
Teachers make the same mistake when drawing classes from wartime case research. We each romanticize explicit nationwide efforts and generalize them into common templates. Ukraine is the newest instance. Analysis exhibits that Ukrainians struggle for causes probably discovered elsewhere — belief and mistrust, tradition, and current expertise — however every of those mattered primarily due to how that particular battle struck that nation at that second. Since the following battle will likely be totally different, we should always not overplay Ukraine’s function as a mannequin.
The rationale insurance policies akin to conscription matter just isn’t that they let politicians reform society or restore ethical fiber. Their actual worth lies in conserving political and army leaders conscious of their residents. In international locations like Finland, the place service has been maintained, politicians keep comparatively near society. In the UK or Germany merely reopening the conscription debate helps shut the hole to residents. This provides policymakers a greater sense of nationwide resolve — and their energy to form it — than educational indicators ever may.
The extra that political and army leaders come into contact with wider society, the extra they have an inclination to see that individuals’s peacetime traits and expertise can change into property in battle. Coverage then shifts towards adapting the army to society fairly than attempting to adapt society to army wants. This all displays a primary sociological sample: When leaders can not learn the individuals they rely upon in a disaster, they develop anxious and pessimistic about them — and that anxiousness quickly shapes coverage. Assist them learn society, and coverage improves.
In Europe, social distance is simply now starting to slender. After the Chilly Battle, politicians turned a separate class, indifferent from unusual residents. Most militaries shrank, professionalized, and misplaced contact with the broad mass of society. And even neighbors like Poland and Hungary had been relative strangers. If teachers have failed to supply a corrective to this estrangement, it’s as a result of they, too, stored their distance from the remainder of society, calling it objectivity however reflecting the rise of a extremely educated elite.
So What Ought to Change?
Ben Connable and Michael McNerney’s evaluation in 2018 and Raymond Kuo and Catherine Kish’s evaluation in 2025 help this message. Kuo and Kish, writing on Taiwan, present the risks of dangerous policymaking: Even when societies are prepared, morale falters when policymakers and planners mishandle them. In the meantime, Connable and McNerney present how typically policymakers and planners just do that — lowering battle to mechanics even whereas insisting that intangible human components resolve it.
It’s management, then, not latent social weak spot, that units the boundaries of resolve. And confidence ought to move in each instructions. Folks ought to belief the leaders who information them, and leaders ought to belief the societies they serve. Constructing that mutual confidence calls for proximity, wherein leaders assist to form society and are, in flip, formed by it. Policymakers can take a number of steps to show that perception into planning and preparation.
First, cease treating surveys as prophecies. The info captures peacetime attitudes, not wartime conduct. As an alternative, think about how individuals may reply nicely to battle — and construct the buildings that assist them achieve this. In Sweden, the Affiliation of Volunteer Motor Transport Corps trains truck drivers for disaster logistics. It’s a mannequin set to duplicate the success of Ukraine’s cyber-defense networks.
Second, design mobilization insurance policies that replicate actual motivations. Folks be part of the army for a lot of causes: camaraderie, journey, boredom, even Instagrammable alternatives with specialised gear. They typically embrace the reward of responsibility to nation and self-sacrifice to cowl extra frivolous impulses. What issues is providing them a approach in after which making certain that service offers which means as soon as they’re inside.
Third, prioritize sensible fixes over tradition wars. Many recruitment and retention failures are logistical, not cultural. These are solvable — however not if the beginning assumption is societal decay. Sensible fixes embody pre-training to assist volunteers meet health necessities, short-term service for these with manageable long-term well being situations, main by clarification as an alternative of orders, and better consideration to psychological well being.
Fourth, belief individuals as a lot as tech. When battle comes, individuals be taught the abilities they want. The duty is to make expertise intuitive, just like the STEN gun or Panzerfaust — which had been simplified for widespread use. Ukrainians utilizing industrial drones, improvising battlefield repairs with 3D-printed components, and turning unusual autos into communication hubs present the significance of creating methods that individuals can grasp and adapt beneath strain.
Lastly, cease reinforcing adversary narratives. Authoritarian states don’t personal societal cohesion. However when our leaders reward their resolve and cohesion whereas questioning our personal, they legitimize the concept democracy equals weak spot. The traits that outline open societies — autonomy, plurality, dissent — could be property in battle, if harnessed fairly than feared.
Florence Gaub, Ph.D., is director of the analysis division on the NATO Protection School in Rome the place she focuses on the way forward for warfare.
Roderick Parkes, Ph.D., is a senior fellow on the NATO Protection School and most just lately served as analysis director of the German Council on Overseas Relations in Berlin.
The evaluation provided right here displays the non-public judgment of the authors and never the place of any group.
Picture: Midjourney
