What is the next step after the fortnight of hyperventilating over the “Russian drone” security threat? Yesterday, the alliance for a “drone wall” and a $7 billion budget was announced, both part of the next stage of “drone derangement syndrome.” Before the details, a public service announcement: The Sept. 9-10 drones over Poland and Belarus were unarmed, and no one has stepped forward with, or even seemed interested in, the physical evidence of downed drones, to determine if Ukraine or Russia was involved. Back to the story:
EU Defense Commissioner Andrius Kubilius chaired a virtual meeting of ten Eastern European countries, along with NATO and Ukrainian officials. He secured agreement on the erection of a “drone wall,” designed to improve the detection and interception of unwanted drones. Kubilius announced: “Russia is testing the EU and NATO, and our response must be firm, united and immediate. Today’s meeting was a milestone—now we focus on delivery.” Polish Defense Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz explained: “The hybrid war is ongoing and all countries in the European Union will experience it. The threat from the Russian Federation is serious. We must respond to it in a very radical manner.”
EU leaders are expected to add the issue to next week’s summit in Copenhagen, even though their executive branch, the European Commission, had recently turned down the funding request from Lithuania and Estonia for a smaller drone wall project. EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen declared that Europe “must heed the call of our Baltic friends and build a drone wall.... This is not an abstract ambition. It is the bedrock of credible defense.” It needs to leave “no ambiguity as to our intentions. Europe will defend every inch of its territory.” She declared that $7 billion would be earmarked to set up a drone alliance with Ukraine.
