Further to the south, staring down Kaliningrad and Belarus, Poland has started construction of what it has called its “East Shield,” costing over $2.5 billion and described by Warsaw as “the largest operation to strengthen Poland’s eastern border, Nato’s eastern flank, since 1945.”
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk visited the Polish border with Kaliningrad over the weekend to inspect fortifications being build on Warsaw’s territory.
“Poland’s investments have been a mix of building up both defensive capabilities and offensive capabilities, designed to deter Russia by convincing them that any attack would fail to achieve its objectives and come at very high cost,” said William Freer, a research fellow in national security at the U.K.-based think tank, the Council on Geostrategy.
“Poland’s ‘East Shield’ fortifications build on the lessons of the fighting in Ukraine, which have shown how hard it is to push through heavily entrenched defenders,” Freer told Newsweek. “In combination with traditional fortifications such as dragon’s teeth, East Shield will make use of a suite of electronic warfare and surveillance systems.”
Mass Evacuation Plans
The preparations aren’t just military, they’re civil, too. In mid-November, NATO’s newest member, Sweden, published a brochure it said helped the country’s residents to “learn how to prepare for, and act, in case of crisis or war.” The pamphlet outlines what a heightened state of alert would mean, how each inhabitant would pitch in to a war-time effort, and what different sirens sound like.
“Military threat levels are increasing,” the leaflet warns the Scandinavian country’s citizens. “We must be prepared for the worst-case scenario—an armed attack on Sweden.”
Norway, too, has published a leaflet on how to deal with “extreme weather, pandemics, accidents, sabotage—and in the worst case acts of war.”
Finland has publicly-available guides on how it prepares for “the worst possible threat, war.”
In the Baltics, Agnė Bilotaitė, Lithuania’s interior minister, said in September that each of the country’s local authorities had to quickly draw up evacuation plans that are “ready” to be put in motion.
“It is important to note that we are at the forefront, so today, civil defense has become a priority on our agenda,” Bilotaitė said. The Lithuanian minister has urged neighbouring countries to do the same.
Latvian Interior Minister Rihards Kozlovskis said in September that the Baltic state had roughly 5,000 underground buildings that Riga hoped to have “ready for use as shelters by November.”
Bilotaitė said in October that Vilnius would spend €12 billion in 2025 to install and upgrade shelters.
“If necessary, we could shelter two cities like Vilnius underground,” Vilnius Mayor Valdas Benkunskas said in remarks reported by domestic media.
Germany’s government has also said it is putting together a list of bomb shelters that will be available for citizens to see where their closest shelter is.
Air Defenses
In January, the Baltic states also stressed the need they felt to build up NATO air defenses on the eastern flank, according to a Latvian government readout.
Hungary’s defense minister, Kristof Szalay-Bobrovniczky, said in November that Budapest will place an air defense system in the northeastern region of the country.
“We still trust that there will be peace as soon as possible, through diplomacy instead of a military solution,” Szalay-Bobrovniczky said in a video address. “However, to prepare for all possibilities, I ordered the recently purchased air control and air defense systems and the capabilities built on them to be installed in the northeast.”
Europe has a chronic shortage of air defenses, although military and political officials have swerved providing specifics.
East Versus West
While Poland, the Baltic states, Finland and Sweden, as well as Romania, which borders western Ukraine, have significantly upped defense investment, western Europe is lagging behind.
“It is no coincidence that the greatest increases in defense spending in NATO are coming from those closest to Russia,” Freer said. “Behind NATO’s eastern flank, other allies are acting with less urgency and have proven far less willing to increase investment at the same level.”
Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, the head of the British armed forces, conceded in November that the U.K. was in a “slightly weaker” position than many countries closer to Russian soil.
“We don’t have some of the civil aspects or planning aspects that other countries within NATO have as part of their traditions,” Radakin said.
The U.K. has committed to increasing defense spending to 2.5 percent of GDP. France is on course to hit the NATO target of 2 percent this year, as is Germany.
Estonia’s defense spending is hovering at around 3.4 percent of its GDP, with plans to hike this to 3.7 percent by 2026. Lithuania said in March it would raise defense spending to 3 percent from 2025, and its defense minister has floated hitting 4 percent, to finance new long-range air defenses and other equipment. Poland has said it will spend 5 percent of its GDP on the military in 2025.
Western European countries are taking “some meaningful steps,” Freer added. Countries in the alliance are looking at how to improve NATO’s integrated air and missile defense capabilities, pulling lessons from Russia’s hammering of Ukraine.
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Publish date : 2024-12-02 23:00:00
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