In late January, Germany, the Netherlands, and Poland signed an agreement to create a military transport corridor between them, giving a much needed boost to the long discussed but rarely pursued goal of improving military mobility across Europe. Siemtje Möller, Germany’s parliamentary state secretary for defense, said the corridor was taking military mobility “on the road to a true military Schengen.” It was not the first time European policymakers have floated the idea of adapting the existing visa-free movement of people and commercial goods in the Schengen zone to the movement of troops and military equipment all over Europe. But the idea is now clearly gaining momentum.

In late January, Germany, the Netherlands, and Poland signed an agreement to create a military transport corridor between them, giving a much needed boost to the long discussed but rarely pursued goal of improving military mobility across Europe. Siemtje Möller, Germany’s parliamentary state secretary for defense, said the corridor was taking military mobility “on the road to a true military Schengen.” It was not the first time European policymakers have floated the idea of adapting the existing visa-free movement of people and commercial goods in the Schengen zone to the movement of troops and military equipment all over Europe. But the idea is now clearly gaining momentum.

The idea of a military Schengen first came up after Crimea’s annexation by Russia. Ten years after Russia’s annexation of Crimea and two years after its ongoing invasion of Ukraine, Europe is realizing that it better needs to prepare for the possibility that Russian President Vladimir Putin will decide to use his military even further westward. European military officials are digging into lessons learned in the Cold War—among them are specific lessons about military mobility.

Yet, several experts, diplomats and military sources told FP that the progress is much slower than desired. “Liberalization of rules is endorsed by everyone,” Tomasz Szatkowski, Poland’s permanent representative to NATO, told Foreign Policy. “But the problem is we have been talking about it since 2015.” They said Europe has acknowledged that the tensions of the cold war era may have returned and that European countries have a “long way to go” to effectively move their men and material.

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