How the Ukraine conflict moves Europe’s front line

The Ukraine crisis may have caught some off guard, but it didn’t come out of nowhere.

The current conflict can be traced back to the Maidan revolt of 2014 and the subsequent annexation of Crimea, or to 2004, when Russia realized it was losing ground to the West in Ukraine, or, really, to the end of the Cold War and beyond.

What’s new is that the possibility of war in the region is being taken seriously for the first time since the Soviet Union collapsed, and that has major implications for NATO, Ukraine and the rest of Eastern Europe.

Bad for Russia

At least part of Russia’s strategy on Ukraine was to use it to divide the West. Poland, for example, is existentially afraid of Russian advances, while Germany, for example, is heavily dependent on Russian hydrocarbons – and both are EU and NATO members. The United States, meanwhile, is focusing on internal problems as the United Kingdom, another European power, just left the European Union. Russia figured now was as good a time as any to highlight European and trans-Atlantic weaknesses.

So far, Russia has achieved the opposite. NATO has increased its military deployments to Eastern Europe, putting forces on standby and deploying additional ships and fighter jets. The U.S. and the U.K. have enhanced their respective presence in the region, while France has sent troops to Romania under NATO command. Spain and the Netherlands have also sent ships and fighter jets to the Black

Sea to join NATO forces. Even Germany seems to be on the same page. Last week at a press conference in Washington,

Chancellor Olaf Scholz seemed to nod in agreement as U.S. President Joe Biden threatened “there would be no longer a Nord Stream 2” if Russia invaded. In fact, the U.S. has been lobbying other countries to make up for any natural gas shortfall from Russia with liquefied natural gas.

So far, Australia, Japan and Qatar have agreed to help. Little surprise, then, that German military aircraft carrying troop reinforcements landed in Lithuania on Feb. 15.

Moreover, the threat of a Ukraine invasion galvanized Western countries outside of NATO. Finland and Sweden, for example, are for the first time in years discussing joining the alliance. Both have coordinated with NATO over the past few months.

Finland has enhanced its military readiness while Sweden has been reinforcing its military presence on the island of Gotland, the part of the country closest to Russia. Likewise, the Russian threat has revived concerns among NATO members and non-members alike from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea.

In other words, Russia’s latest push to reclaim the borderlands it lost at the end of the Cold War is bringing its supposed enemies closer together. And at their core is NATO, an alliance many believed had outlived its mandate.

A New Frontier

Clearly, the threat of war has raised concern among a host of nations. But for Romania and Poland – Washington’s operational allies on the front lines – it has raised profound strategic questions.

The first pertains to what a war with Ukraine would actually look like. Some war planners were convinced that a southern route would be Russia’s primary path to invasion, one that would link Odessa to Crimea and give Russia control of all non-NATO ports on the Black Sea.

A northern invasion route was deemed less likely. Even so, a northern invasion would require Poland to engage in an active defense against Russian forces to block their advancement, while a southern invasion would require Romania to engage in both amphibious and mountain warfare. All these necessitate different tactics and equipment, and all demand different kinds of coordination and cooperation between Bucharest and Warsaw.

The second is how likely an invasion truly is. Moscow said it needs to fight back against Western encroachment. NATO, after all, eventually absorbed Eastern European countries Russia hoped it wouldn’t at the end of the Cold War. Moscow’s demands made it seem as though Eastern Europe and Ukraine posed a unique threat to Russia that would go away if NATO simply got out of the region. Untrue as that may be, Russia’s message was clear: Eastern European countries are just as much a target as Ukraine is.

Of course, these countries have dealt with Russian assertiveness in all its forms before, and none are eager to fall back into Moscow’s orbit. It’s why they joined NATO and the EU in the first place, and their accession is a big reason that Russia is trying to reclaim influence in the areas it regards as its borderlands: the Caucasus, Central Asia and Eastern Europe.

The realization of what Russia has said – that Moscow considers them, like Ukraine, a part of its buffer zone – made Eastern European nations realize that they were less a borderland, where East and West collide every day without incident, and more a front line along which they would have to make their own strategic decisions.

To be sure, the countries of Eastern Europe have been doing just that. They have, for example, increased defense and security spending in case Russia decided to move on them. But while this was broadly understood at strategic levels by the governments, the average person didn’t really perceive the threat – that is, not until the current Ukraine crisis, which has convinced many that defense and security are now more urgent than ever.

This is more important than it sounds. A cornerstone of Eastern European strategy has been a focus on resilience to Russian hybrid warfare, making sure they don’t fall victim to disinformation campaigns, economic tampering, etc. It’s a largely proactive and measured strategy that necessarily eschews assertiveness. Active defense of the front line is an entirely different mentality. They have to not only step up when needed – but defend themselves and the NATO (and the EU) frontier at all times.

This mentality will likely spread. Urgency and assertiveness in defense matters translate into effective critical infrastructure development that improves the transportation, energy and health sectors. These developments need more than just investment from Western European countries that want the front line to hold; they need a fundamental change in policy that incorporates military, diplomatic, economic and political aspects. For better or worse, Poland and Romania may soon be responsible for defending NATO and the European frontier. They’ll need to adjust to reality accordingly.

“The threat of a Ukraine invasion galvanized Western countries outside of NATO. Finland and Sweden, for example, are for the first time in years discussing joining the alliance”