According to an article in The Telegraph, NATO’s “Military Schengen” Strategy entails streamlining military logistics across Europe to expedite troop deployment, particularly to the Russian border, with the aim of strengthening the EU’s militarization and containment of Russia.
The “military Schengen” proposal from last November, which was spearheaded by Lt. Gen. Alexander Sollfrank, head of NATO logistics, came to fruition in February after Germany, the Netherlands, and Poland—the latter of which has fully surrendered to Berlin—agreed to streamline their military logistics.
In the case of a significant crisis, this is meant to expedite the dispatch of emergency American military forces to the Russian border via the rail networks of the next two nations and the Dutch port of Rotterdam.
A little over a month before the upcoming NATO Summit in Washington, DC, from July 9–11, The Telegraph provided their readers with an update on Sollfrank’s idea in an article titled “Nato land corridors could rush US troops to the front line in event of a European war.”
It came with a useful map that identified the five passageways being used for this purpose, the most notable of which is the Dutch-German-Polish corridor noted above.
The others are Norway-Sweden-Finland; Greece-Bulgaria-Romania; Italy-Slovenia-Croatia-Hungary; and Turkiye-Bulgaria-Romania. That publication listed them in that sequence. With Hungary’s resistance to NATO’s anti-Russian warmongering, the first option is currently unfeasible (unless Orban is neutralized); the next two entail extending Romania’s “Moldova Highway” project to the Aegean Sea; and the final option relies only on a small number of chokepoints. As such, they’re all ongoing projects.
This is why, to maximize the effectiveness of these corridors, the majority of the bloc may decide to join the “military Schengen” at the upcoming NATO summit. Cutting red tape to allow additional troops and equipment to travel freely means ceding more of each member’s sovereignty, something that Hungary and Slovakia are unlikely to accept, but the participation of the remaining members would provide the groundwork for the US’s envisioned “Fortress Europe.”
This idea relates to the militarization of the EU, driven by Germany but supported by the US. Berlin would spearhead the bloc’s containment of Russia on Washington’s behalf once the Ukrainian Conflict inevitably comes to an end, allowing the US to “Pivot (back) to Asia” to contain China more forcefully. Thus, “Fortress Europe” is a long-term project that won’t be finished very soon, especially since NATO must increase its military-industrial output to compete with Russia.
However, the significance of streamlining military logistics throughout Europe cannot be overstated, since improving the effectiveness of the five corridors that The Telegraph highlighted will greatly facilitate Germany’s management of Russia’s post-conflict containment under US supervision. It is also the simplest way for NATO to portray its upcoming summit as a success and ease some of Ukraine’s dissatisfaction at once again not being allowed to join if the majority of nations agree to join the “military Schengen.”
Without sugarcoating it, Kiev can be informed that the actions taken during that incident will facilitate the fulfillment of commitments made to it by those who have provided “security guarantees” to provide military assistance as soon as possible in times of crisis. As NATO might connect its upcoming military-industrial production centers with the “military Schengen” during peacetime, this may also assist comfort those hardline anti-Russian policymakers who think that any reasonable compromise on Ukraine would benefit Moscow.
This can be done while the NATO-Russian proxy war in Ukraine is still in progress, but the pace at which Kiev is being supplied prevents the bloc from restocking its arsenals, which in turn erodes the confidence that EU leaders have in their ability to “deter” Russia. If people begin to perceive it this way, then freezing the dispute at year’s end becomes more appealing, which may then allow them to more successfully prioritize these plans throughout the ensuing years.
The intention is to maximally militarize the EU. In that case, new military-industrial sites could appear along these five “military Schengen” corridors as well as additional ones like the German-Estonian corridor via Poland for bolstering the new Iron Curtain’s “Baltic Defense Line.” Even if everyone were on edge like they were during the height of the Old Cold War, emergency training could be taught in all schools, and conscription would reappear throughout the bloc, this cold peace would still be preferable to a hot one.
Recently, GreatGameIndia reported that Lt. Gen. Alexander Sollfrank, chief of NATO’s Joint Support and Enabling Command, said that NATO plans to send its troops, primarily U.S. soldiers, to the front lines in the conflict against Russia.
