NATO leaders pledge to boost military mobility between allied countries

NATO leaders are preparing to sign a pledge today to
reduce the amount of time it takes to move troops between allied countries to
help counter the military threat from Russia, the dailymail.co.uk reported on
July 10. The “mobility pledge” will cut the amount of time a commander must
wait for permits to cross an allied country with tanks, troops and ammunition
from up to 40 days to just five, the report said. The document will be signed
at a summit of NATO heads of state to be held in Brussels on July 11-12.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg announced on
July 10 that its members, including Canada, could decide at the summit to
invest an additional USD 266 bln in defense in the period until 2024. A plan
could also be approved to have fully prepared by 2020 30 battalions, 30
aircraft units and 30 warships on rotation. In response, Russian Duma Defense
Committee Chair Vladimir Shamanov referred to these plans as “a sharp tension”
that will prompt the activation of anti-aircraft and anti-rocket systems. “We
will plan measures in response accordingly,” he said, as reported by the
eurointegration.com.ua news site.

Russia has developed a munitions storage site in
Kaliningrad between March and June this year, the dailymail.co.uk news site
reported on July 10. The explosives storage bunkers were fortified using
earthen berms to further insulate these structures, the report said, citing an
analyst at Defense One. “There also appears to be clearings, new structures,
visible within the forested portion of the installation,” said the expert, Matt
Hall. He added, “Every structure in the northern non-forested sector [has] been
reinforced during the three month period of the imagery.”

Zenon Zawada: Notions of
a continental war have been dismissed as unrealistic by some observers, but we
have consistently viewed it as one of the options that Russian President Putin
will consider in trying to wriggle himself and Russia out of the mess they’re
in. We believe the decision to pursue war will largely depend on the results of
the elections in Ukraine next year, as well as European elections in the coming
years.

Putin is mostly likely to resort to war if a
perception or pretext can be created under which Ukraine’s Russian-oriented
population is under threat, as had been done in the Donetsk and Luhansk
regions. This type of pretext can be manufactured if the political situation in
Ukraine turns chaotic during the elections next year, creating an opportunity
to impose proxy control on numerous regions.

If more nationalists come to power in the European
elections in the coming years, which we expect, then we expect they will begin
to relax or remove sanctions against Russia about four years from now. That
would prompt Putin to abandon his plans for war. But if the Russian economy
begins to collapse under the weight of sanctions, Putin could resort to war as
his only way of retaining power.