Soldiers take part in a large-scale airborne assault exercise, involving some 500 fully equipped military paratroopers of various NATO partners, in the Netherlands on September 10, 2025. Siese Veenstra/ANP/AFP/Getty Images

“We are not at war, but we are no longer at peace either.”

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s warning last month might lack the fateful portents of Sir Edward Grey’s lament on the eve of World War I that “the lamps are going out all over Europe.” But they signaled a page of history turning amid a flurry of airspace incursions in NATO nations by suspected Russian drones and warplanes, alongside other threatening seaborne and cyber activity.

For 80 years Europe considered its peace inviolate. Now, it can no longer be sure. The buzz phrase for a new age of uncertaint

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