Heather Williams, Nicholas Adamopoulos, Lachlan MacKenzie, and Catherine Murphy
Introduction
It is winter 2027. Europe has enjoyed two years of relative calm following a peace settlement between Russia and Ukraine in which Moscow secured territorial gains and imposed limits on Ukraine’s military forces. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has been forced out of power in Kyiv. Immediately following the peace settlement, U.S. President Donald J. Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin secured an arms control agreement to maintain the central limits of the 2010 New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) for an additional five years after its expiration in 2026. The Trump administration is moving ahead with plans to withdraw the U.S. conventional military presence from Europe, and the credibility of U.S. nuclear guarantees to Europe is questionable. European governments are struggling to maintain public support for defense spending following the 2025 peace settlement. Intelligence now shows that not only has Russia ignored the agreed-upon limits on its strategic delivery systems, but it is also just weeks away from deploying a nuclear weapon in space, in violation of the Outer Space Treaty (OST). Additionally, Russia has begun amassing troops on its border with Moldova, in the contested region of Transnistria. What options does NATO have to respond?
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