As policymakers reckon w/Russia’s advances in #Ukraine & Trump’s comments about not defending #NATO, the tools of 20th-century #warfare are coming back
2 years after #Russia’s #invasion of #Ukraine, countries such as the #Baltic states & #Finland warn that a threat to their own territory may be just over the horizon, w/some #intelligence agencies saying the #Kremlin could make such an attempt w/in a decade. Now they are taking lessons from their enemy’s robust defense lines in Ukraine, noting that Russia’s system of #minefields, #ConcertinaWire & #trenches made it all but impossible for Kyiv’s forces to advance last summer.
#EU states are still clamoring for F-35 fighter jets & space-age weapons, but the renewed interest & investment in century-old tactics is the latest example of how #Russia’s #war in #Ukraine is upending long-held assumptions about how to defend #NATO territory, w/a revived focus on stopping tanks & mobile artillery. And though policymakers say they are still confident that NATO would come to their defense, they [equivocate due to]… #Trump’s rhetoric….
Nowhere have the choices been starker than in the discussion about #LandMines, as militaries weigh their low-cost ability to slow tanks & buy time for #NATO rescuers against the risk to generations of their own citizens. Mines come in many forms, but… once laid, can pose a hazard decades after a conflict ends. #Mines & other explosive remnants of #war killed or injured at least 12 #civilians A DAY globally in 2022, many of them #children, acc/to the Landmine & #ClusterMunitions Monitor. #Ukraine
Add comment