AIt took far too long, but Europe is finally getting serious about military spending. This summer, at NATO's most recent summit in The Hague, member states agreed to increase defense spending substantially, to 5 percent of GDP, within a decade.
That decision was long overdue. For decades, successive administrations in Washington had urged the continent to do more for the common defense. But it took Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine, coupled with the Trump administration's strong-arm tactics, to create a meaningful change in the earlier status quo, in which NATO members were all too comfortable to rely on U.S. blood and treasure to provide for their security.
Many NATO members are now committed to meeting the 5 percent target within the next several years, while some are doing even more. Poland, for instance, was spending 5 percent of GDP on defense even before the latest NATO summit, and now plans to surge that figure still higher. The Baltic nation of Lithuania, meanwhile, has announced plans to boost its defense spending to nearly 5.4 percent of GDP in the coming year.
These are decidedly positive steps. But military readiness isn't simply about money. It also depends on mobility. Put another way, even if it is produced in greater quantities than before, European battlefield equipment won't do the Ukrainians—or anyone else—much good if it can't be transported to the frontlines.
Here, Europe currently suffers from real, serious deficiencies. Just how significant were hammered home to me on a recent trip to Lithuania, when NATO officials told me that, in the worst-case scenario, it would take the Alliance 45 days to deploy significant quantities of military equipment from the continent's west, where the bulk of Alliance troops are based, to its eastern flank.
That's why European defense planners are now focused intently on the concept of a "Military Schengen." The reference is, admittedly, a bit obscure. It derives from the existing Schengen Area agreement—a zone of 29 European countries that have gotten rid of internal border controls, making passport-free travel possible within them.
Since it took effect in 1995, the Schengen arrangement has been a resounding success. It currently encompasses 29 countries (all European Union member states except Ireland and Cyprus, plus Iceland, Lichtenstein, Norway and Switzerland), and serves as the "backbone" for trade and travel for Europe's 450 million residents.
But when it comes to military transport, such a system doesn't exist—at least not yet. And because it doesn't, Europe at present would struggle mightily to promptly deliver critical wartime resources to the frontlines, wherever they may be.
European lawmakers are aiming to change that. The current push for a Military Schengen on the part of the European Commission envisions a dramatically shorter timeline for military mobility—three days during peacetime, and six hours during emergencies. The effort involves things like fast-track permitting for cross-border military deployments and a harmonization of governmental authorizations that currently hamper fast movement. It also envisions the creation of a "military mobility solidarity pool" through which members will be able to use available transportation assets, like trains and ferries, to quickly bring necessary equipment to the front.
The costs of the project are high, estimated at $81 billion or more. But those expenditures are necessary to do things like upgrade critical infrastructure (roads, bridges, et cetera) so that heavy battlefield "kit" can travel across the continent quickly.
The key variable, however, is time. Rollout for this project is bound to be slow, with infrastructure upgrades taking years and the continent's formidable administrative red tape expected to throw up additional barriers. Thus, the new European military mobility plan won't come online until 2027 at the earliest—and may drag out beyond that.
That can't be allowed to happen. The ability to surge materiel to the front is a key metric of the continent's seriousness about confronting Russia's current aggression against Ukraine, as well as future instances of Russian predation should they arise. All of this, moreover, is undoubtedly being watched in Moscow, where Russian officials are drawing their own conclusions about whether Europe will eventually be able to truly muster the forces to present a serious direct challenge to their neo-imperial ambitions.
For the moment, it still can't. Changing that state of affairs, and doing so as quickly as possible, is a cardinal European task. Deterring Moscow depends on it.