As Europe faces growing military and hybrid pressure from Russia, the 2026 Munich Security Report warns that the time available to strengthen NATO’s eastern flank may be “far shorter” than assumed.
The document is the annual assessment published ahead of the Munich Security Conference, one of the world’s main foreign‑policy and defense gatherings held every February in Munich, southern Germany.
The organizers say the upcoming conference, starting on Friday, will focus on repairing what they call a “crisis of trust” in transatlantic relations and on Europe’s ability to act more independently.
Central and Eastern Europe, including Poland and the Baltic states, remain the area most exposed to Russia. The new report cites intelligence assessments that Russia could “reconstitute its forces for a ‘regional war’ in the Baltic Sea area within two years of a potential ceasefire in Ukraine – and for a ‘local’ one against a single neighbor within six months.”
The authors say this prospect means governments must speed up force generation, expand ammunition stockpiles and strengthen host‑nation support, including logistics and infrastructure, as well as military mobility for allied troops stationed or rotating through countries such as Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.
Poland a rising actor
Poland is singled out as a rising actor in Europe’s emerging “leadership coalitions” that aim to push defense industry reform and shape EU policy on Ukraine.
The report notes that “smaller avant‑gardes, such as the Weimar Plus countries (France, Germany, Poland and the UK) or the European Group of Five (the former plus Italy), will be essential to drive defense industry consolidation, articulate a coherent European vision for Ukraine, and prepare the EU for enlargement.”
This makes Warsaw a key voice on capability planning and post‑war security arrangements for Kyiv.
Europe divided
The report warns that Europe is divided between “fiscally solid high spenders in the northeast and fiscally strained lower spenders in the southwest”, adding that these gaps raise the risk of friction over burden‑sharing.
Poland, the Baltic states and some Nordic countries fall into the higher‑spending category.
Rearmament across Europe has grown rapidly since Russia’s full‑scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. According to the report, between 2021 and 2025, European NATO members boosted defense budgets by around 41%. But the document warns that the rise in spending has not led to more cooperation.
It notes that EU members are still missing their joint procurement target set in 2007, saying: “Rising defense budgets are instead fueling a new wave of industrial nationalism that risks deepening fragmentation, inflating costs, and eroding fragile public support.”
Hybrid warfare up
Hybrid threats are also intensifying across the continent. The report states that Moscow has “further intensified its hybrid warfare campaign across Europe, reflected in a growing number of suspected Russian incidents, including sabotage, vandalism, cyberattacks, and arson.”
It calls for stronger civil preparedness and more coordinated counter‑intelligence responses by EU and NATO members.
On Europe’s role in global security, the document argues that the continent should “move far more decisively to become a genuine security provider.”
It highlights major gaps in air and missile defense, drones, intelligence, cyber capabilities and strategic transport – areas where Europe remains dependent on the United States.
Trust in US shrinks
Meanwhile, European trust in Washington has declined, the report warns, adding that “conditionality and volatility has significantly eroded public trust in the US as a reliable ally.”
It also argues that the Trump administration has “blurred the boundary between security and economic policy, tying access to the US security umbrella more explicitly to alignment with its economic interests.”
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk is quoted in the document as pushing for high defense spending across Europe, saying: “We have a simple choice – either money today, or blood tomorrow. I’m not talking about Ukraine; I’m talking about Europe.”