The Wall Street Journal detailed “Germany’s Secret Plan for War With Russia” late last year, which boils down to rapidly remilitarizing and modernizing transport infrastructure across the country in order to more effectively function as a nationwide staging ground in any such future conflict. Former Chancellor Olaf Scholz set the ball rolling with his de facto manifesto that was published by Foreign Affairs in December 2022, but it’s his successor Friedrich Merz who’s now actively implementing it.
The modernization of transport infrastructure, which aims to slash to just 3-5 days the estimated 45 days that it currently takes to move troops and equipment from Europe’s Atlantic ports to the Russian border, aligns with the spirit of the “military Schengen”. This arrangement was agreed to between Germany, Poland, and the Netherlands in early 2024 and could soon see Belgium and France joining too. Lithuania could potentially do so as well so that Germany can more easily access its new base there from Poland.
While framed as a means of “deterring” Russia, which has no intention of attacking Europe as Putin recently confirmed and is willing to formalize this fact too, it actually exacerbates their security dilemma by heightening Russia’s threat perception of NATO and attendant fears of Operation Barbarossa 2.0. This contextualizes Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko’s recent claim that the EU is preparing for war with Russia and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko’s similar claim around the same time.
Be that as it may, the German-Polish zero-sum rivalry could obstruct these aforesaid preparations due to Poland’s concerns about safeguarding its sovereignty vis-à-vis Germany, which it regards as a significant non-military threat due to its control over the EU and plans to federalize the bloc under its leadership. After all, “The EU’s Planned Transformation Into A Military Union Is A Federalist Power Play” as is the proposal for the EU to spend $400 billion more on Ukraine, both ideas of which are backed by Berlin.
In fact, it was assessed in November 2023 that “NATO’s Proposed ‘Military Schengen’ Is A Thinly Disguised German Power Play Over Poland”, but this can be managed if Poland’s new conservative-nationalist president prevents the liberal-globalist government from selling their country out. To that end, Poland must keep Germany’s military presence to a minimum, with them only serving as a tripwire for ensuring that Germany doesn’t obstruct the flow of US military aid to Poland in the event of a crisis.
Germany and Poland are competing with one another for leading Russia’s containment in Central & Eastern Europe after the Ukrainian Conflict ends, which the first aims to do through the “Fortress Europe” plan while the second foresees this being achieved via the “Three Seas Initiative”. The only difference of relevance is that Germany wants to subordinate Poland as its junior partner for this task while Poland wants to become Germany’s equal therein and possibly even its senior partner one day.
The US supports Poland’s vision since its implementation would lead to more purchases of American arms, as opposed to Germany’s envisaged ramping up of domestic production and European purchases, as well as the creation of a geopolitical wedge for keeping Germany and Russia apart. Regardless of whoever comes out on top in this rivalry to contain Russia, the US still wins since they’re both NATO members, but a NATO-Russian Non-Aggression Pact should follow in any case for managing tensions.
