Since Donald Trump’s second ascension to the US presidency, the European security framework has found itself on shaky ground. There is a sense of urgency for the continent to step up and boost its own defense capabilities. In the world of rail freight, that has put the topic of military mobility centre stage. Former commander of US Army Europe Ben Hodges explained to RailFreight.com why Europe needs rail for defense and which challenges are ahead of it.
Ben Hodges served as the commander of US Army Europe between 2014 and 2018, and until recently worked as Senior Mentor Logistics for NATO. In that capacity, Hodges learned first-hand the necessity of efficient rail transportation for Europe’s defense needs.
“I started getting interested in military mobility back in around 2015 and 2016, when I was still the commander of US Army Europe and the US had just deployed small units up into Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland as part of NATO’s forward presence”, Hodges recalls.
“I noticed that we were having trouble getting repair parts up to one of the units. I then asked the commander: ‘What is the problem? Why are you not able to get parts?’ And he said: ‘Sir, we cannot move military equipment across national boundaries without all kinds of paperwork.’”
Speed is key
That was a major lesson to learn for Hodges. “I thought, you have got to be kidding me. These are NATO countries and EU countries and yet you need all kinds of permissions to cross borders. I’m not talking about tanks here, I’m talking about repair parts.”
The experience of getting those repair parts to the Baltic States reflects a major issue in European military transport via rail. The objective, says Hodges, is speed. “The key is that this is about deterrence: the Russians seeing that we can move faster than them.” Rail is important, because that is how you could move a lot of the heavy equipment very fast: tanks, howitzers, armoured fighting vehicles, and more.
Rail is also crucial in getting heavy equipment to places where that would otherwise be difficult. For example, an attempt to transport a heavy military vehicle across the Carpathian mountains into Romania via the road failed, says Hodges. Here, rail was the only option, underlining its necessity for defense across Europe.
Areas of improvement
What, then, should Europe focus on to achieve said speed on rail? Hodges identifies three key areas for improvement, namely diplomatic or legal obstacles, the state of infrastructure and capacity. “This is not about train speed, but rather about how fast you can act and move things from A to B.”
In order to cut some of the red tape, Hodges has proposed a military equivalent to Schengen. “In Europe, you can, let’s say, move apples via truck from Poland to Portugal without stopping once. However, a military convoy will get stopped over, and over, and over again at every border crossing.” That does not help in moving quickly and deterring a potential adversary. “Obviously we would have to be in compliance with all safety and hazardous material rules, that makes sense. But you have to be able to move quickly.”
Rail infrastructure
When it comes to infrastructure, things are, simply said, not adequate. “Particularly the further east you go”, Hodges says. For example, transporting a Patriot air defense launcher becomes very difficult if bridges and tunnels cannot accommodate it. Most rail tunnels in Europe would be able to let a Patriot launcher go through, but it only takes one to stop it in its tracks.
Similarly, the various rail gauges in Europe are a challenge to be overcome. For example, rail logistics in the Baltic states becomes more difficult as a result of their broad 1520-millimetre gauge infrastructure. Most of Europe, including Poland and Germany, operate on the standard 1435-millimetre gauge. When a train carrying military equipment reaches Lithuania, one first needs to transfer everything onto a different train before continuing onwards. That takes time, and reduces speed.
With the Rail Baltica project, Europe tries to resolve the broad gauge issue in the Baltics, but without much success. “Rail Baltica has been going on for ten years and it’s still not finished, which is incredible”, Hodges explained. “It was supposed to provide European gauge rail from Białystok, Poland, all the way up to Tallinn, Estonia. It’s been held up for a variety of different reasons.”
Capacity
Then, there is the question of capacity. Is there enough rail to move things? “For example, DB Cargo is one of the critical organisations that we depend on”, says Hodges. “But the capacity of DB Cargo is not even a quarter of what’s needed to move armour brigades simultaneously.”
During the Cold War era, armies were not entirely dependent on rail operators for their mobility needs. “There were military organisations that were part of the ministries of defense that were specifically for rail movement. You even had rail wagons. I don’t remember the numbers, but we weren’t totally dependent on the private sector. Then after the end of the Cold War we thought we would never need this again”, says Hodges.
The former commander refers to an arrangement in the United States that could also work as a solution for Europe. Washington has the so-called Civil Reserve Air Fleet, which allows air carriers to get priority business with the Department of Defense. In return, they guarantee that they can deliver air freight transport on very short notice during emergencies.
A similar programme could work across the Atlantic Ocean. “The German Bundeswehr could pay some amount of money to DB Cargo to guarantee that they can show up with enough rail to move two brigades on 72 hours notice, just hypothetically speaking”, says Hodges. “I have also advocated for nations to get credit for their two 2 per cent [NATO defense spending requirement] if they paid for rail capacity that was on standby for very short notice.”
The Ukrainian experience
When looking beyond the EU and NATO, the one European country that has been forced to use its rail network in a military crisis is, of course, Ukraine. Is there anything the EU can learn from its experience at war?
“I have been impressed with how Ukraine has managed to keep trains moving. Everybody I’ve ever talked to that went to Ukraine for a visit, you know, they get on the train in Poland somewhere and then they ride across to Kyiv, and it’s always on time”, says Hodges.
“So even though the Russians have been attacking infrastructure, the Ukrainians managed to keep things moving, so it’s something about their resilience that is impressive. But I would also say that having some redundancy, you know, the ability to reroute whenever there is damage to a railway, the Ukrainians seem to have mastered how to do that as well. Rapid repair, redundancy.”