Europe, Without Waiting for Trump or Harris, Is Increasingly Standing Up to Russia

Europeans, no matter what happens in the American election, will be investing billions of euros along an 1,800 mile line between Norway on the Arctic Sea and Romania on the Black Sea, to defend against Russia. They are doing so without waiting for Uncle Sam to protect them, and without regard to who wins today’s election in the United States.Although America is the largest single-nation source of aid to Ukraine, the European Union collectively is a bigger source. With many Europeans feeling threatened by the largest war on the continent since World War II, defense planners know they are backed by a $17 trillion continental economy — almost 10 times the size of Russia’s.The most proactive nation is Poland. Last week, it broke ground on a 250-mile, $2.5 billion border wall with Russia and Belarus. When complete, this could make President Trump’s planned border wall with Mexico look like a picket fence. Billed as Poland’s largest defense project since 1945, the four-year “Eastern Shield” will consist of ditches, defensive fortifications, minefields and anti-tank obstacles. A series of base stations will house warning and tracking systems, some powered by artificial intelligence.The Shield will run the length of Poland’s 144-mile border with Kaliningrad, the Russian exclave on the Baltic. Barely the size of Delaware, Kaliningrad hosts the headquarters of Russia’s Baltic Sea Fleet and arsenals with massive amounts of Soviet-era war materiel. Poland’s shield will also cover much of Poland’s 250-mile border with Belarus. This Russian satellite repeatedly tries to push thousands of Third World migrants into Poland.On Kaliningrad’s northern border, Lithuania last month blocked key border river bridges with “Dragon’s Teeth”— tank traps made of cement pyramids. Mines are being placed on other bridges over the border river, the Nemunas.“Dragon’s Teeth will eventually be supplemented with iron beams, which will be sunk in and anchored,” Lithuanian Defense Minister Laurynas Kasciunas posted last month on Facebook with a photo of a blocked road bridge to Kaliningrad. “Fortifications will be supported by firepower, in case it’s needed, to stop and destroy the enemy.”Eastern Europeans freely admit to learning from the mistakes of Ukraine. During the winter of 2021 and 2022, Ukrainians ignored Washington’s clear warnings of a looming attack by Russia. On February 24, 2022, when Russian armored columns rolled northward out of Crimea, they crossed the five-mile wide isthmus into continental Ukraine virtually opposed.“If they attack even an inch of Lithuanian territory, the response will come immediately. Not on the first day, but in the first minute,” Poland’s former chief of the general staff, Rajmund Andrzejczak, vowed last month at the Defending Baltics conference in Vilnius. “We will hit all strategic targets within a radius of 300 kilometers. We will attack St. Petersburg directly.”To this end, he said, Poland is acquiring 800 American and South Korean cruise missiles with ranges up to 560 miles. “Russia must realize that an attack on Poland or the Baltic countries would also mean its end,” he said. “That is the only way to deter the Kremlin from such aggression,” he added. To deter more Russian moves West, national governments and NATO are spending billions of dollars to build a north-south string of three major land bases — in Finland, Lithuania and Romania.Finland, which last year joined the North Atlantic Treaty, is planning to build a new NATO headquarters adjacent to Finland’s existing army command at Mikkeli. The new command is to host an armored brigade with as many as 5,000 troops. Many soldiers will be from Sweden, a country that acceded to the treaty in the spring.A former Swedish colony, Finland is officially bilingual with Finnish and Swedish as its national languages. The base location will send “a direct message to Moscow,” Finland’s defense minister, Antti Hakkanen, told reporters last month. Mikkeli is 80 road miles west of the Russian border and 200 miles from St. Petersburg.In August, Lithuania began construction of a $1.1 billion military base. This is to accommodate up to 4,000 combat-ready German troops. When completed three years from now, the base is to host the first permanent foreign deployment for the German military since World War Two.Lithuania’s chief of defense, Raimundas Vaiksnoras, said at the groundbreaking ceremony: “The brigade will work as reassurance to our population, and as deterrence, to push the Russians out.” The base will be in Rudninkai, about halfway between Vilnius and the Belarus border.While Lithuania, population 2.9 million, foots the construction cost, Germany is to pay for soldiers and equipment. Last summer, Germany asked parliament for $3 billion to order 105 Leopard 2 A8 tanks, partly to equip the Lithuanian base, Reuters reports. With an eye to sea threats, Germany last month inaugurated a new multinational naval headquarters at Rostock designed to lead NATO operations in the Baltic Sea. Last month, German Federal Intelligence Service director Bruno Kahl predicted that Moscow’s military would be able to launch an attack against NATO “by the end of the decade at the latest.”Also last month, Estonia’s defense minister, Hanno Pevkur, and Britain’s defense minister, John Healey, signed a roadmap for military cooperation. Britain has committed its 4th Brigade for Estonia’s defense, pledging to pre-position Challenger 3 battle tanks and other advanced military equipment.To give advance warning of any Russian moves west, frontline militaries are coordinating the creation of a ‘drone wall.’ “This is a completely new thing—a drone border from Norway to Poland, the purpose of which would be to protect our border with the help of drones and other technologies,” Lithuania’s Interior Minister, Agnė Bilotaitė, told local news agency BNS. In addition to surveillance, the ‘wall’ will also use counter-drone technology to knock down intruders.In the biggest project in the north-south line, Romania broke ground last spring on a 10-square mile expansion to Mihail Kogălniceanu International Airport, Romania’s closest air base to Russia-controlled Crimea. Designed to host F-16 and F-35 warplanes, the new base will include two new airstrips, as well as housing, schools, and a hospital for 10,000 NATO soldiers and their families.The $2.5 billion project is to be a Ramstein Air Base for eastern Europe. “An American city will appear in Constanta County,” warns a Russian news site, Reporter. Facing Crimea 250 miles across the Black Sea, Constanta is Romania’s biggest sea port. In face of the Russian threat, two of these nations — Lithuania and Poland — are surpassing the Trump-mandated goal of spending at least two percent of GDP for defense.Despite this increase in spending, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán of Hungary told European Union leaders Sunday that Europe cannot bear the cost of supporting Ukraine in the event of a Trump presidency next year. “We need to realize that if there will be a pro-peace president in America, which I not only believe in, but I also read the numbers that way…if what we expect happens and America becomes pro-peace, then Europe cannot remain pro-war,” said Mr. Orban, who is a fan of Trump and of Vladimir Putin. Europe, he said, “will not be able to bear the burdens of the war alone.”Contradicting this view is the foreign minister at Berlin, Annalena Baerbock of Germany, Ukraine’s largest source of aid from Europe. She arrived yesterday in Kyiv for her eighth visit since the war started. Speaking on the eve of the American election, she said of Russia’s attack on Ukraine: “We are countering this brutality with our humanity and support, so that Ukrainians can not only survive the winter, but so that their country can survive. Because they are also defending the freedom of all of us in Europe.”

Europe, Without Waiting for Trump or Harris, Is Increasingly Standing Up to Russia

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