NATO's eastern flank prepares to fend off Russia — with or without America

NORTH KARELIA, Finland — Bears, wolves and moose still cross the frontier freely, but for the border guards patrolling this stretch of fields and forest, this is where NATO ends.

A line of wooden poles and painted markers cuts through the light green grass, separating Finland from Russia along the alliance's longest border with Moscow — 1,343 kilometers (835 miles) of increasingly militarized territory. The crossing has been closed since 2023, the year after the Kremlin's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. On the other side lies land Finland lost to the Soviet Union when it was left to fight largely on its own in the early months of World War II.

Reporters from Axel Springer's Global Reporters Network traveled to three exposed stretches of Europe's eastern frontier — Finland's forested border with Russia, Poland's fortified line with Kaliningrad and Belarus and Lithuania's vulnerable edge near the Suwałki Gap — to see how ready NATO's frontline states are for the possibility that Moscow will attack the alliance.

What we observed was a continent racing to harden its eastern edge against a threat it can no longer assume Washington will handle. As US President Donald Trump questions old security guarantees and looks to reduce America's military footprint in Europe, the countries closest to Russia are building fortifications, expanding reserves, buying tanks and drones and preparing for the possibility that the first days of any conflict may be theirs to fight largely alone.

Since his reelection in 2024, Trump has repeatedly called into question Washington's commitment to NATO's Article 5, the foundational clause under which an attack on one member is treated as an attack on all. The uncertainty only deepened after the war in Iran, when the president and his team threatened to reassess US membership in NATO in response to European allies' refusal to join the conflict.

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Meanwhile, satellite imagery shows that Russia has built up its armed presence along its border with Finland and other EU countries, building barracks and staging military vehicles in what the head of Swedish military intelligence has described as preparation for a possible confrontation with NATO.

"Russia is a superpower, and we're a small country," said Col. Matti Pitkäniitty, commander of Finland's North Karelia Border Guard District, while driving to the border. "You have to be careful when you sleep next to a bear."

Finland never forgot the lessons of what it calls its Winter War, when it halted an unprovoked attack in 1939 by the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin but lost roughly a tenth of its territory. While much of the rest of Europe spent the decades after the Cold War cutting armies and cashing in the peace dividend, Helsinki kept conscription, maintained vast reserves and built its defenses around the assumption that Russia might one day come back.

"In the Winter War, Finland felt very alone, with very little help from other countries," said Pitkäniitty.

A dozen Finnish defense officials, military officers, lawmakers and analysts interviewed for this article described their nation as unsurprised by Russia's 2022 assault on Ukraine. And even after Finland joined NATO in 2023, Helsinki has continued to view the alliance as a reinforcement of its own defense, rather than a substitute for it.

"We're happy to be in an alliance, but we still understand that we will take the first blow alone, before NATO's Article 5 is activated," said Jukka Kopra, a Finnish lawmaker who chaired the parliament's defense committee, referring to the mutual defense clause that underpins the alliance.

"We trust the US as our ally, a member of NATO, but we realize they have crucial interests elsewhere," Kopra said.

Finland: 'Total defense'

A US Chinook helicopter carrying British paratroopers took part in NATO exercises, led by the Finnish military, at a training ground less than 30 miles from the Russian border.

Over decades, Finland built its preparedness around the concept of "total defense" — a mobilizable population, civil resilience, shelters and a military designed to keep fighting with or without allies. The country can mobilize nearly 870,000 reservists out of a population of 5.6 million, a figure set to reach one million by 2031.

"It's fair to say Finland is more ready to fight alone than other frontline countries. The US wind-down doesn't impact its readiness," said Eoin Micheál McNamara, a postdoctoral fellow at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs.

Finland spends nearly 3 percent of its GDP on defense and, in line with its commitments to NATO, it intends to raise that figure to 5 percent by 2035. Its air force expects to receive US-made F-35 fighter jets in the coming months. Like most European militaries, the Finnish armed forces are still catching up on drone warfare, but on land they have one of Europe's largest artillery arsenals.

"Stalin called artillery the god of war," said McNamara. "Unlike a lot of Western countries, Russia never forgot about artillery. Finns never forgot either."

One of Finland's greatest military assets is the land itself. An army invading from the east would have to move through a country of few roads, dense forests, deep snow and freezing temperatures, with little light in winter and almost none of the darkness that conceals movement in summer. In the woods, long, slender gray-white trunks stand so close together that it is impossible to see more than 50 meters ahead. In spring, when the leaves turn bright green, visibility drops even further.

Finland's army relies on artillery like this 155mm self-propelled howitzer.

Even without the US, it's unlikely Finland would have to fight entirely on its own. Several European countries have an interest in keeping Russia off NATO's northern flank, according to Charly Salonius-Pasternak of the Helsinki-based Nordic West Office think tank, referring specifically to Norway, Sweden and the UK.

Still, Finland would face a Russian army with more manpower and a willingness to use sheer numbers in ways the alliance cannot easily match. "Since the Winter War, the very basics haven't changed," said Pitkäniitty, the border guard commander. "We have to be able to use the terrain, operate the environment better than anyone else — then, we have leverage," he added. "Is the forest a typical Russian battle environment? I would say no. Their lessons are learned in more open environments."

Finland is now trying to teach its NATO allies how to fight on that ground. In May, two multinational exercises in southeastern Finland — Northern Star 26 and Karelian Sword 26 — were designed in part to show troops from countries including France and the United Kingdom how to operate in Northern Europe's forests, lakes and swamps. US soldiers from the Virginia National Guard also took part.

Karelian Sword — conducted in Finland's Vekaranjärvi region — involved some 10,000 soldiers in a simulated invasion of the country. One main takeaway from days of drilling in the woods was that armored vehicles and drones are ill-adapted for Finland's forests. "It's also very hard for commercial drones to find Finnish troops in the forest because of the leaves, unless you have a thermal camera," according to Col. Ari Määttä, the Karelian brigade's deputy commander who commanded the exercise.

The Nordic country is also preparing to add another obstacle. Alongside Poland and the three Baltic states, Helsinki withdrew last year from the Ottawa Convention banning anti-personnel landmines, arguing that Russia never joined the treaty and is already using the weapons in Ukraine.

Several Finnish military officers confirmed to the Global Reporters Network that the country's defense forces plan to purchase anti-personnel landmines in the coming months. The mines would not be deployed in peacetime, they said, but would be available if the threat of a Russian invasion became more imminent.

"We have quite a long border with Russia," said First Lt. Terra Tevajärvi, a 33-year-old reservist and trained mechanized infantry officer who works as a filmmaker. Standing in a clearing, with the sounds of gunshots in the distance, he added: "Landmines would help slow [an attacker] down and make our lives easier."

Nuclear gap

France has proposed deploying jets like the Dassault Rafale fighter, which is capable of carrying a nuclear-armed cruise missile, to allied countries.

There is one domain where geography, conscription and military readiness offer little protection: nuclear weapons. While Finland has practiced for a conventional defense for decades, it is only since it joined NATO three years ago that it has had to incorporate nuclear deterrence into its calculations.

Since joining the alliance, Helsinki has participated in its Nuclear Planning Group, taken part in nuclear exercises and begun rewriting laws that still reflected its long history outside the alliance. In June, Finnish lawmakers lifted restrictions on the transport and storage of nuclear weapons on Finnish territory, a legacy of its non-nuclear posture before NATO membership.

Changing that framework had proven more contentious than the discussion about joining NATO itself. Opposition parties resisted lifting the restrictions, while officials and analysts argued that Finland could not be a full participant in NATO defense planning without understanding how nuclear deterrence works. "Readiness in that regard is being learned," said McNamara. "You hear the phrase: 'Finland needs to upgrade its nuclear IQ as a society.'"

Finland's nuclear debate highlighted an uncomfortable truth. While the country is better positioned than most frontline countries to defend its territory without American ground forces, it's no more able than the rest of Europe to replace Washington's nuclear umbrella.

While the US has not publicly questioned that guarantee, the Trump administration's unpredictability has pushed Helsinki and other European capitals to examine whether Europe can build a stronger deterrent of its own.

After meeting with France's top general in the Finnish capital in June, the country's Defense Minister Antti Häkkänen acknowledged talks with Paris about French President Emmanuel Macron's proposal to broaden his country's nuclear deterrent to include other European countries. The French president, who officially proposed the idea in March, has left what he means by it purposefully ambiguous. Paris has floated joint exercises and temporary deployments of nuclear-capable French fighter jets, but not a formal European nuclear guarantee. For Finland, it is still unclear what participation in the scheme would mean.

In the meantime, Helsinki is hoping that hosting troops from two nuclear-armed allies — France and the UK — will add another layer of deterrence, even if the force itself is conventional. Paris and London have expressed interest in participating in a NATO battalion that will be based in Sweden but operate in northern Finland. Designed to strengthen the alliance's presence in the high north, the force will be led by Stockholm, another formerly neutral government that joined the military alliance after Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.

"We'll be on high alert, with high readiness to act," said Col. Daniel Rydberg, who leads Sweden's NATO mission in northern Finland. Along with Finnish border guards, NATO troops would be among the first responders if Russia decided to test Finland, he said in a phone interview the day before the force's inauguration in June. "The message to Russia is deterrence," he said.

Just what that would mean in the case of an attack by the Kremlin will depend on people like Nuutti Kurikka, a 20-year-old conscript whose great-grandfather fought in the Winter War.

Deep in the Finnish forest, Kurikka, a platoon leader, stood in front of a tank. The lesson of that war, he said, is "a mentality that we can overcome very hard things."

Unlike officials in many European capitals, he is not anxious about the Trump administration's ambiguity regarding NATO. "It's not good that the relationship is a bit shaky, but Finland is prepared to defend itself alone if needed," he said. "We did it before in the past."

Poland: 'Eastern Shield'

A Polish Army tank fires during an exercise near the Suwalki Gap in June 2026. Poland depends on force size to deter neighboring Russia.

In November 2024, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk visited the small village of Dąbrówka, near his country's border with the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, to inspect the first stretch of a new fortification system known as the Eastern Shield. Standing before reinforced concrete anti-tank barriers known as hedgehogs, Tusk delivered a message aimed at both Poles and Moscow. "I don't have to explain to anyone that this border must be guarded exceptionally carefully," he told reporters.

At the time, Polish television reported that the first section had been completed ahead of schedule. And yet, a year and a half later, with the project roughly halfway to its 2028 deadline, the hedgehogs still stand behind Dąbrówka — but only a few hundred meters farther on, the visible fortifications end abruptly. A local resident said the activity around the border surged before Tusk's visit, then disappeared. "Before the prime minister's visit, dozens of trucks, cranes and troops passed through here day after day, week after week," the resident said. "After the visit, complete silence. The operations simply stopped."

If Finland's answer to uncertainty is national readiness, Poland's is concrete barriers, sensors, drones and one of Europe's fastest-growing armies. Since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Warsaw has recast itself as NATO's frontline state: buying weapons at a pace few allies can match, expanding its army, and pouring billions into new defenses along its borders with Belarus and Kaliningrad.

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The message is meant to be unmistakable — to Moscow, to Washington and to Europe — that Poland is preparing not for a distant theoretical threat, but for the possibility that war could come sooner than many Western capitals assume. Yet along parts of the very frontier where that deterrent is supposed to take shape, the gap between Poland's military ambition and the physical reality on the ground remains visible: fortifications appear, then stop; materials sit in warehouses; and local residents say the building frenzy has given way to quiet.

Poland is the largest country on NATO's eastern flank and the alliance's biggest defense spender by share of GDP. Warsaw had already exceeded NATO's 2% target before Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine; this year, it is set to spend 4.8% of GDP on defense even as its economy continues to grow.

At the start of Russia's full-scale invasion, Poland sent more than 300 tanks from its own stocks to Ukraine, then moved to replace and expand its arsenal with off-the-shelf tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, support vehicles and rocket artillery from the United States and South Korea. Its army is NATO's third largest, behind the US and Turkey.

Border guards patrol a section of Poland's border with Belarus during a high-profile visit in June.

Wojtek RADWANSKI / AFP

The sheer mass of the Polish military, combined with Warsaw's role as one of the world's largest buyers of US weapons, has earned Warsaw a reputation in Washington as a model ally. Even US President Donald Trump, while berating other European countries over defense, has regularly praised Poland. The US keeps thousands of troops in Poland, the vast majority on a rotational basis, an arrangement the Polish government is keen to keep as a deterrent to any Russian attack.

The country's importance to NATO is not just a matter of spending. Its size and location make it the alliance's central frontline state in any potential confrontation with the Kremlin. During the Cold War, West Germany was NATO's conventional bulwark against the Warsaw Pact. Today, Poland plays a similar role on NATO's eastern edge.

"While Germany has long focused on quality, Poland stands for mass and speed," said Carlo Masala, a professor at the University of the German Federal Armed Forces in Munich and one of Germany's most renowned security experts. "Because Warsaw does not rule out having to fight tomorrow. It is what is called 'fight tonight.'"

Tusk's Eastern Shield project is Warsaw's attempt to reinforce its defenses along its 800-kilometer (500-mile) frontier with Belarus, a close ally of Moscow's, and Kaliningrad, the heavily militarized Russian territory wedged between Poland, Lithuania and the Baltic Sea. Designed as a network of obstacles meant to slow an attack, channel Russian forces and buy time for NATO to respond, the system includes anti-tank and infantry trenches, concrete barriers, bunkers, drones, thermal cameras, mines and nearby military units, while also using natural obstacles such as swampy terrain. When completed, it is expected to cost about €10 billion ($11 billion) according to Poland's defense ministry.

Poland's military buildup is part of a large-scale, multi-billion-dollar new deterrence and defense system along NATO's eastern border. Known as the Eastern Flank Deterrence Line, it is planned to stretch from Finland to Romania. Brig. Gen. Thomas Lowin, deputy chief of staff for operations at NATO Land Command in Izmir, says the alliance will build up much larger stockpiles of weapons, ammunition and equipment in border states, while establishing an "automated zone" of sensors and robotized weapons to help halt Russian forces early in any attack.

Cezary Tomczyk, Poland's deputy defense minister and the official overseeing the project, called his country's part of the effort the largest fortification effort in Europe since World War II. "We are building a border that sees further, reacts faster and makes it harder for the enemy to act at every stage," he said. "Russia must know one thing: Every kilometer of potential aggression will cost more time, more equipment and more resources. The Eastern Shield is intended to raise the price of aggression to an unacceptable level."

At the end of the world

A section of Poland's border with Russia is laid with anti-tank obstacles, seen here in 2024. But along a farm nearby, the only obvious protection is a simple concertina-wire fence.

So far, however, along parts of the border, the Eastern Shield is still more promise than reality. Polish officials are reluctant to discuss delays, and not every element of the system is meant to be visible. But large sections of the border are not visibly fortified. A military facility near Dąbrówka warehouses large numbers of hedgehog anti-tank barriers, but since Tusk's visit to the village, none have been placed along the border.

Poland's defense ministry told the Global Reporters Network that engineering troops, using pre-positioned material from warehouses, would be able to erect fortifications along the entire border within seven to 14 days. But a logistics expert who has held senior military positions said some elements cannot be moved into place so quickly.

"Laying one kilometer of reinforced concrete hedgehogs takes anywhere from several weeks to several months, depending on terrain conditions," said the logistics expert, who was granted anonymity to discuss sensitive defense matters. "It took the army three weeks to fortify a relatively short section."

A short distance from Dąbrówka, an agritourism farm named "At the End of the World" welcomes visitors looking for a rural retreat. At the Russian border, less than 100 meters away, the only obvious protection is a simple concertina-wire fence and a scattering of warning signs.

The owner, Wioletta Bornejko, does not want the new fortifications to reach her meadow. "I hope they don't put up those concrete hedgehogs here," she said. "Even barbed wire scares away tourists. A neighbor recently closed down a similar business." Others in the area say the constant talk of war has already hurt local businesses.

The quiet is deceptive. Travel east from Dąbrówka and you'll reach the so-called Suwałki Gap. Ben Hodges, a retired general who served as the commander of US Army Europe, has described this short stretch of Polish and Lithuanian territory separating Kaliningrad from Belarus as NATO's Achilles' heel. The fear is that a Russian attack could try to close the corridor from both sides, cutting Poland and the rest of NATO from the Baltic states to the north.

Farther east, Poland's border with Belarus stretches some 420 kilometers (260 miles). There, the limits of the current defenses are even more evident. "I don't see any other fortifications here," said one soldier from a brigade serving on the border.

Much of the border is protected only by a 4-meter-high (13-feet-high) fence built in 2022. Erected to stop migrants from crossing into Poland, it would offer little protection against tanks. Poland's defense ministry told the Global Reporters Network that it currently "has material resources that allow it to secure border sections with a total length of over 140 kilometres" — less than a third of the length of the frontier.

Drone wall

Tanks and other traditional forces aren't the only thing Poland would have to worry about in case of a Russian attack. Anti-tank measures are of limited use when the weapons of choice fly far overhead and are cheap enough to exhaust conventional air defenses. And so the country is busy developing an anti-drone system it calls SAN.

Its development gained urgency after 19 Russian drones entered Polish airspace last year, forcing NATO aircraft to shoot them down with missiles from F-16 and F-35 jets — a response that cost millions of euros against drones worth a fraction of that. SAN is meant to allow Poland to defend against drones without relying on fighter jets. The system, sometimes described as a "drone wall," could cost up to €4 billion — accounting for about 40% of the entire Eastern Shield. "Russia is watching Ukraine," said Tomczyk, Poland's deputy defense minister. "So are we. We draw our conclusions faster."

Tomczyk said SAN would be Europe's largest and most advanced anti-drone effort. Within 24 months, he said, the Polish army is expected to receive 18 battery modules, including about 700 combat vehicles, radars, sensors and effectors, and roughly 350 systems to detect and counter aerial threats.

"It is not a single system," he said. "It is an entire architecture for drone defense." Construction of SAN began at the start of the year and is scheduled for completion by the end of 2027, after which it will be permanently deployed on Poland's eastern border.

For Masala, the security expert, the drone wall and the Eastern Shield are part of the same strategy: to slow a Russian attack long enough for NATO to react. "It is clear that the USA is withdrawing from Europe and that the Europeans currently lack deep-strike capabilities," he said. "So we have to ask ourselves which strategies make sense in the event of conflict."

"One is to aim at delaying the Russians. This is possible with the installations that Poland is building," he added. "The lesson from Ukraine is that not everything always has to be at 150 percent, but that 80% is sometimes enough."

Lithuania: 'The Baltic Defense Line'

German soldiers cross a path lined with anti-tank dragon's teeth during a June exercise in Lithuania.

In the office of Raimundas Vaikšnoras, Lithuania's chief of defense, a map of the country lies spread across a table. Marked on it are the positions of German and American troops near the Belarusian border — a reminder that, for Lithuania and its Baltic neighbors, national defense depends on allies being close enough to quickly join the fight.

Vaikšnoras, who has led Lithuania's armed forces since 2024, does not think a Russian surprise attack is likely. NATO warning systems, he said, make large troop movements difficult to hide. Lithuania watches rail hubs, logistics sites and when Russia and Belarus hold military exercises across the border, its armed forces respond in kind. "We organize exercises with equally strong or even stronger forces," Vaikšnoras said. "We mirror the movements of the other side."

Lithuania's chief of defense, Raimundas Vaikšnoras, said his country matches or exceeds the scale of Russian military exercises held nearby as a deterrent.

But if Finland is preparing to fight alone if it has to and Poland is building an army capable of doing the same, the Baltic countries do not have that luxury. Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia are too small, too exposed and too close to Russia and Belarus to trade territory for time. Connected to the rest of NATO by the roughly 65-kilometer-wide (40-mile-wide) Suwałki Gap, they are vulnerable to being cut off by a lightning assault.

Their defense rests on a narrower calculation: make sure that NATO comes to their rescue. That makes them the most vulnerable to the Trump administration's unpredictability. And so the Baltic states have set out to bind their security as tightly as possible to the rest of the continent — through border fortifications, pre-positioned obstacles, allied troops on their soil and, above all, a German brigade meant to ensure that any Russian attack would immediately become a European war.

In any conflict in the region, the Kremlin would enjoy a clear advantage. Russian troops would be fighting virtually on their own doorstep, while NATO reinforcements would have to move across Europe — and in some cases across the Atlantic — before reaching the front. Kaliningrad compounds the problem. One of Europe's most militarized areas, the Russian territory is packed with air-defense systems, missiles and surveillance technology. In wartime, Russian military units based there could threaten NATO supply routes in the Baltic Sea and along the Polish-Lithuanian border.

Lithuania's vulnerability is on display near the village of Lavoriškės, where a red sign warns Lithuanian citizens not to travel across the frontier: "Do not risk your safety — do not travel to Belarus. You may fail to come back." The government closed the crossing in early 2024 on national security grounds. The border is lined with dense coils of razor wire, and rows of triangular concrete blocks — known as dragon's teeth — stand ready to stop enemy tanks.

The fortifications are part of the Baltic Defense Line, a joint defense project by Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Along NATO's eastern frontier, the three countries are preparing anti-tank ditches, bunkers, defensive obstacles and — more controversially — minefields. Like Finland, the Baltic countries have moved to leave the Ottawa Convention, which prohibits such weapons.

"These obstacles make it harder for an attacker to simply roll through," said Ralph Thiele, a retired colonel and chairman of the Political-Military Society in Berlin. "They have to stop, bring in combat engineers and clear a path."

If Russian forces break through, they would have "open terrain," Thiele added.

Forward defense

US soldiers trained with allies at Lithuania's Pabradė Training Area in May.

Vaikšnoras, Lithuania's chief of defense, does not pretend his country can defend itself alone. The border fortifications are intended to slow Russians down, channel enemy forces onto predictable axes of advance and buy time for a response.

The defense of the Baltics relies on how long they can hold out — and, crucially, how quickly NATO can reinforce them.

There are already about 3,000 soldiers from other NATO countries in Lithuania, he said in February, including German, Norwegian, Dutch and American troops. Since then, however, the rotational deployment of more than 1,000 US soldiers has ended. Unlike previous rotations, no follow-on force has yet arrived, as Washington reviews its military posture in Europe.

This, again, underscores the role European allies are playing on NATO's eastern flank. The most important addition is the German brigade, due to be permanently stationed in Lithuania by the end of 2027, when it is expected to consist of around 5,000 personnel.

For years, NATO's presence in the Baltic states was largely based on so-called tripwire forces — that is, multinational units whose purpose was to ensure that any attack on the region would automatically draw the entire Alliance into the conflict. Today, NATO relies on forward defence. The aim is to defend every inch of Alliance territory from the outset. Still, the strategy continues to rely on reinforcements. It is unlikely that the troops stationed in Lithuania at present will be able to fight on their own indefinitely. How long they could hold out depends on how quickly additional NATO troops arrive, as well as on the scale and nature of a possible Russian attack.

The German presence is important because the old NATO assumption — that the US would automatically lead any response to a Russian attack — is no longer one Europe can take for granted. "I very clearly feel that we have strong allies by our side," Vaikšnoras said. "The fact that Germany has assumed a leadership role in NATO here is an important signal, including to our own population."

German Army troops moved through smoke during the Freedom Shield 2026 exercise in Lithuania.

What such a leadership role could mean in practice was revealed by the outcome of a wargame conducted late last year by WELT, part of Axel Springer Global Reporters Network, together with the German Wargaming Center at the Bundeswehr University in Hamburg. The exercise tested how Germany would respond if Russia used a post-Ukraine ceasefire to threaten Lithuania — and if Washington declined to play its traditional role as NATO's leader.

For one day, former senior politicians, military officers, intelligence officials and security experts took on the roles of the German government, its allies and the Kremlin. The scenario began with Russian troops remaining in Belarus after an exercise instead of withdrawing as announced, then concentrating near Lithuania's border.

The result was sobering. While Team Russia moved quickly toward a limited invasion, the German side held crisis meetings and focused on recruiting allies and building political support — rather than preventing Moscow from achieving its military objectives.

The new NATO

Brig. Gen. Christoph Huber of the German Army emerges from a Puma infantry fighting vehicle during the Freedom Shield 2026 exercises in Lithuania in June.

In the old NATO, German hesitation would have mattered less. The US would have been expected to take command politically and militarily, moving troops, aircraft and ships while European governments aligned behind it. But as the US reduces its role in Europe, the defense of the eastern flank increasingly depends on a question the alliance has not yet fully answered: Is Europe ready to fight on its own?

Hodges, the former US Army Europe commander, has warned that, in a worst case — if NATO is caught by surprise and Polish troops are unable to provide support — the Baltic countries could have to fight for up to two weeks without additional reinforcements from more distant allies. That is the window of time in which their allies would have to react. German and Lithuanian officials reject the notion that such a scenario would come as a surprise. A Russian attack, they say, would be preceded by visible military preparations, allowing NATO reinforcements early on. Which indicators would trigger such a response is classified. According to that logic, however, reinforcement would require political leaders to act before an attack has actually started.

"What we are witnessing is the dissolution of NATO," Anders Fogh Rasmussen, a former NATO secretary-general, has argued. Europe must rethink its defense plans and build the capabilities to act without waiting for Washington. Europe needs "new defense plans and new military capabilities," he said.

That calculation is already shaping defense planning across NATO's eastern flank. Finland is making itself more difficult to invade. Poland is building up its military forces, fortifications and drone defense. And the Baltics are working to ensure they won't be left to fight on their own. Europe may not yet be ready to defend itself alone. But on its eastern frontier, it is already preparing for the day when it may have to start.

In Finland, Col. Ari Määttä, the Karelian brigade's deputy commander, was asked whether, with America's disengagement, NATO needs to become more European. "That's not a concern I have for my brigade," he said. "I focus on military preparedness. Ask the politicians."

Laura Kayali, Senior Defense Correspondent at POLITICO's Paris office, reported from Finland. Marcin Wyrwał, a journalist with Onet, and Philipp Fritz, Warsaw Correspondent for WELT, reported from Poland. Carolina Drüten, International Security Correspondent at WELT, reported from Lithuania.

The Axel Springer Global Reporters Network harnesses the resources of the company's newsrooms to publish ambitious scoops, investigations, interviews, opinion pieces and analysis. It allows journalists — including those from POLITICO, Business Insider, WELT, BILD, Onet and Fakt — to collaborate on major stories for an international audience of hundreds of millions across platforms: online, print, TV and audio.

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