Poland and the Baltic States have reached all the necessary agreements in order to link Poland, Finland and the Baltic States with the unified Trans-European Transport Network (NRA) that will be crucial to the defense of the Baltic States.
Photo: eiz-niedersachsen.de
Earlier this month, all the necessary political, financial and technical agreements have been reached by the governments of Poland and the Baltic States in order to link Poland, Finland and the Baltic States with the unified Trans-European Transport Network (NRA) and, in this way, implement one of the most important and ambitious projects inside the EU. A continuous rail link from Tallinn (Estonia) to Warsaw (Poland), via Kaunas (Lithuania) and Riga (Latvia), is envisioned by the project, which also will lead to significant logistical implications for the NATO.
According to the agreements, the construction of the railway, which has already been named ‘Rail Baltica’, is planned to be started by 2020 and to be completed by 2030. For now, existing commercial ferries will operate the section from Helsinki to Tallinn.
About 442 million euro ($485 million) or 81.83 percent of the co-financing of the project have already been allocated by the European Commission for the construction of Rail Baltica until 2020.
This summer, chairman of the European Parliament’s Transport and Tourism Committee, Michael Cramer, stressed the importance of Rail Baltica.
“In 2003, I traveled by train from Berlin to Tallinn. This trip lasted 60 hours, and I had to transfer nine times. Before World War II, the same route could be accomplished within 27 hours. Thus, the Rail Baltica project is very important both ecologically, because trains are more environmentally friendly, and, of course, it is necessary to connect the Baltic States with the rest of Europe,” Cramer said on August 28.
In September, the parliamentarians of Poland, Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia announced that “Rail Baltica would be the most important project for the Baltic States in the 21st century.” They stressed that the railway would be not only the promotion of good neighborly relations and solidarity, but also be crucial for regional economics and, first of all, for national security of the Baltic States.
So, up to 120 armored vehicles can be moved by a typical train in a single trip. The new Rail Baltica line, which will use the standard 1,435 mm gauge, as the most NATO member states, will allow the alliance to move large volumes of military cargo from Poland and Germany to the Baltic States without interruption that in its turn will save time, as well as limit the numbers of transport equipment and personnel, involved in the logistics. In this way, Rail Baltica has the potential to become crucial to the defense of the Baltic States.
Rail Baltica (Photo: Ministry of Transport of the Republic of Latvia)
I guess this will work for peacetime preparations but if a war actually broke out I would think that this would become a high priority target. It’s not like you can hide rail lines.
I know that rail lines worked out really well for the Russians during WW2 but that was a totally different ball game. The Germans didn’t have the long range bombers to take out the Soviet Union’s vast rail network. This is a highly confined rail network.
Absolutely right. Germany DID have long range bombers (Condors), but not enough to do any serious damage and the Soviets quickly moved their industries beyond the Ural mountains.
Russia has zero interest in these countries. It might bring some economic benefit.
2020 is too late! War will come in 2017 at about the time that Russia goes bankrupt. If it is true that the Satan 2 missile will not be operational until 2018, then NATO must attack in 2017. Let the warmer weather come in May 2017 and, then, there will be war. World War II killed 2% of the global population and the world survived and, indeed, increased its population since then to 9 billion. 2% of 9 billion people is 180,000,000 so, if this number were killed by some nukes, the world population would soon recover. Therefore, no need to panic!
This will not be a military railway, even when it could have military implications.
That Europe or Nato prepares for war is nonsense.
That Nato is starting to prepare defensive capabilities in Eastern Europe, that is correct and widely supported within Europe.
Europe has been dismayed by Russian annexation of Crimea and military operations within the Ukraine. Whatever the reasons for Russia, the perception of agression is there.
Within Western Europe arsenals with forward equipment for the US army have been, or are, revitalized and countries are starting to invest more in their defense systems, spurred on by both Obama and Trump.
Europe has hardly any large scale offensive capabilities and at this time does not want to have those. Expect heavy european investments the next few years in defensive and limited offensive capabilities and in naval and airforce systems.