Barry Posen has a wonderfully helpful and practical piece in Foreign Affairs today demonstrating that Europe can build an effective deterrent against Russia so long as it doesn’t bog itself down in a fruitless endeavor in Ukraine, instead focusing on a highly maneuverable force. “That means they must stop distributing European military forces over the continent’s east and southeast simply as symbols of their commitment, linked to a U.S. cavalry that may no longer ride to the rescue,” Posen writes, “Rather, they must conceive of European military formations as scarce, expensive, and potentially lethal combat power, which can be deployed as a concentrated fist with the ability to fight independently, under either a NATO or an EU banner.”
Military readiness is not just about materiel; it’s also about the infrastructure to move it. Europe is close, but not quite there, in terms of its capacity to move equipment where it’s needed. A sample of some practical suggestions:
In addition to readiness, mobility is a problem for the continent. If Poland is to be the fulcrum of a large-scale European crisis reinforcement effort, then Europeans have to figure out how to get there. Skeptics complain that Europe lacks the airlift rapidly to move forces around Europe, but this is a rhetorical diversion. No one, including the United States uses airlift to move this much armor. Instead, armor mostly moves by rail, sea, and road. NATO planners and European Union officials know what needs to be done to get the continent’s infrastructure ready for such a task: strengthen bridges in eastern Europe, complete the integration of eastern European railroads with the rail network in the west, acquire diesel locomotives to pull trains if electrical power is interrupted by enemy action, and improve port facilities for the shipment and unloading of military cargo.
Some of these preparations are already underway. Several bridges in western Poland have been strengthened in recent years, to accommodate heavy military loads. More broadly, the European Union has spent at least 15 years funding a major effort to upgrade Europe’s transportation infrastructure, and has spent or committed over $38 billion to the effort. But this endeavor remains incomplete, and it should be accelerated. The European civilian-trucking industry, which is massive, should also be organized so it can support the movement of military goods to eastern Europe.