“What made the war inevitable was the growth of Athenian power and the fear which this caused in Sparta.” – Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War
The evolution of the battlefield in Ukraine goes towards an uncrewed battlefield. Soon, maybe around 2028, Russia will be able to wage war without soldiers manning the frontline. The ability to wage war without being restrained by a lack of manpower will shift the balance of power and create a temporary window of opportunity until Nordic, and other, armed forces catch up.
The summer of 1914 is often framed as a tragic accident: mobilization timetables, miscalculations, and diplomatic breakdowns. Yet beneath these surface events lay a far more deliberate logic. For the German General Staff, war with Russia, and likely France, was not a question of if, but when. Their objective was not to prevent conflict but to identify the moment when German relative power would be at its peak. The shots in Sarajevo did not cause the First World War; they provided the timely pretext for a war German planners already considered inevitable.
Germany’s reasoning rested on a shifting demographic and industrial landscape. Russia’s rapid growth meant that by the early 1920s, its military potential would outstrip Germany’s. France, though recovering more slowly, continued to rearm. In this strategic climate, time was not neutral but corrosive. Every year that passed reduced Germany’s advantage. Thus, the Sarajevo crisis was not significant for its shock, but for its timing, it arrived when waiting seemed more dangerous than action.
Two developments made this window especially sharp: the revolution in naval warfare triggered by HMS Dreadnought and the refitting of the Kiel Canal. HMS Dreadnought was revolutionary because it rendered every existing battleship obsolete the moment it entered service, effectively resetting global naval power balances overnight. Its “all‑big‑gun” armament and unprecedented speed forced every major power into an expensive naval arms race, eliminating previous advantages and compressing strategic timelines. The Dreadnought re-established United Kingdom’s naval dominance. Germany, unable to match Britain ship‑for‑ship, sought a fleet sufficiently strong to deter British entry into a continental conflict. This needed a wider and deeper Kiel Canal. This infrastructural project was finalized in 1914. This enabled the rapid redeployment of Germany’s largest warships between the Baltic and North Sea, giving the High Seas Fleet unprecedented operational flexibility, yet Berlin knew this advantage would be temporary (Massie, 1991).
These elements, the rise of Russia, the temporary naval configuration, and the canal upgrade, combined to create a narrow, fleeting window of opportunity. War in 1914 appeared less risky than war in 1917 or 1920. What seemed to contemporaries like fatalism was, in fact, strategic calculation. The idea of windows of opportunity remains deeply relevant. Modern strategic environments are shaped by similar calculations: demographic trajectories, military modernization cycles, technological breakthroughs, logistical chokepoints, and alliance dynamics. States often act not when they feel strongest, but when they sense that waiting will make them weaker. The German case before the First World War is a clear example of this pattern, one in which infrastructure, technology, and long-term planning converged to produce a moment that leaders believed they could and must exploit. This logic is not confined to the past. States throughout history have acted not when they were strongest, but when they believed a rival’s future strength would soon eclipse their own. Japan at Pearl Harbor, France before the Franco‑Prussian War, Sparta confronting Athens, and Caesar in Gaul, all illustrate the same principle: believing in that delaying can allow an adversary to grow beyond deterrence.
In today’s strategic landscape, Russia’s leadership similarly frames NATO enlargement and Western military modernization as existential threats. Whether this perception is based on fact or distortion matters less than the political effect: Russian elites believe time erodes national security as well as the ambition to rebuild a political unity like the Soviet Union. Meanwhile, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine generated new fears in Europe, particularly in frontline and Nordic states. Both sides thus view deterrence as necessary to avoid a larger conflict. Traditional deterrence depends heavily on perceived human costs. If both sides expect high casualties, both possess strong incentives to avoid escalation. But there is a difference in how humans/soldiers’ lives are valued in Russia compared to in the EU and NATO. After WWII, Russia cultivated the image of a nation willing to sacrifice its own population to secure victory. For Moscow, deterrence rooted in the human cost of war plays out differently than in Western societies that view human lives, including soldiers’ lives, as possessing intrinsic value. Consequently, the introduction of autonomous systems alters political decision-making differently for Russia than for EU/NATO. Russia may see operational efficiency and reduced domestic political costs in uncrewed warfare rather than a way to save lives.
If Russia attains a high‑performance autonomous capability before NATO’s northern flank adapts, the balance becomes dangerously unfavorable for one side, and the other side finds itself with a window of opportunity. This is not speculative futurism; it is the observable trajectory of warfare today. This would lead to the weaker part, us, needing to close that window of opportunity as fast as possible and re-establish deterrence in a new way.
In this case, the Nordic countries make an interesting case study. Russia may test NATO article 5 or utilize a potential crack in the NATO alliance where USA hesitates enforcing article 5. There are basically two targets for this. The first is the Suwałki Gap (or the Suwałki corridor). The corridor is a strategically vital, approximately 65-to-100-kilometer-wide land border area located between Belarus to the east and the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad to the west. This area is considered a critical, for different reasons, for both NATO and Russia. The second is the North Calotte, the Arctic area in the northernmost parts of the Nordic countries, often including the Russian Kola Peninsula. The North Calotte area is sparsely populated, and rich in natural resources (about 80% of all European iron ore comes from this area today). Controlling the sea south to the GIUK will enable Russia to protect their strategic nuclear submarines as well as deny sea transport from America to northern Europe. Permanent Russian control over this area will also control future commercial shipping routes in the northeast passage.
Autonomous warfare shapes not only the battlefield in Ukraine but also threatens to create a perilous strategic time-window. Russia may soon enter a period where its ability to wage autonomous war intersects with NATO’s continued reliance on traditional, manned defense. That intersection, the moment when Russia’s risk diverges radically from the Nordic states’, is the modern dreadnought moment. It is the window when war becomes thinkable and practical for one side and still catastrophic for the other.
If history teaches anything, it is that wars are most likely to start not when power is balanced, but when balance is shifting, when one side perceives a short-lived opportunity and fears the cost of waiting. The true risk is that Russia may soon convince itself it can win a conflict swiftly, cleanly, and at tolerable cost. As James D. Fearon (1995) observed, “States do not start wars unless they have convinced themselves that they can achieve their aims quickly and at relatively low cost”. When technological optimism merges with geopolitical impatience, and becomes embedded in a narrative of righteousness, windows of opportunity have a dangerous tendency to turn into doors of disaster.