NATO hatches plan for 'military Schengen zone'

According to RT news agency, NATO's head of logistics for Europe has called on countries on the continent to establish a "military Schengen" zone to allow rapid movement of troops, equipment and ammunition in the event of war with Russia.

Specifically, Lieutenant General Alexander Sollfrank told Reuters news agency in an interview on November 23: "We are running out of time. What we do not complete in peacetime will not be ready in case of crisis or war."

Sollfrank is in charge of NATO’s Joint Support and Activation Command (JSEC), a facility based in the German town of Ulm that coordinates the movement of the bloc’s troops and equipment across the continent. Although JSEC was created in 2021 to streamline preparations for a potential war with Russia, its work is still hampered by national regulations, Sollfrank explained.

He added that transporting ammunition across European borders often requires special permits, while moving large quantities of troops or equipment may require advance notice. Solfrank suggested that European countries should create a “military Schengen” area to overcome these problems. The Schengen agreement allows free movement between most EU countries.

Sollfrank is not the first military official to highlight the bloc's logistical and bureaucratic problems in Europe.

“We don’t have the transportation capacity or the infrastructure to move NATO forces across Europe quickly,” Ben Hodges, who commanded the US Army in Europe until 2017, told Reuters last year. Hodges pointed out that countries have different rail gauges, adding that German rail operator Deutsche Bahn only has the capacity to move about 1.5 armored brigades at a time – about 4,000 troops, 90 tanks and 150 armored vehicles.

Traveling by road poses various obstacles, Reuters reported, noting that a group of French tanks traveling through Germany to Romania for exercises last year were stopped because their weight exceeded German road traffic regulations.

According to another Breaking Defense report, even if these tanks are allowed to pass through Germany, they will not be able to pass through Poland due to the poor quality of bridge construction in this country.

NATO currently has 10,000 troops in eight battlegroups across Eastern Europe. Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg announced last year that he aimed to support these forward-deployed forces with 300,000 high-readiness reservists. Under Stoltenberg’s plan, 100,000 of these would be able to reach the battlefield within a week, with the rest arriving a month later.

Although Russia has repeatedly warned that NATO has become a de facto party to the conflict in Ukraine by providing Kiev with weapons, training and intelligence, Moscow has not threatened war with the bloc.

However, Sollfrank argued that NATO must prepare itself for such a conflict. “We need to be ahead of the curve, we need to be well prepared before Article 5 is invoked,” he told Reuters, referring to the bloc’s collective defense clause.