Applebaum: Europe can give up — or it can fight back by building.
New technologies, new platforms, new rules, more transparency, and democratic control over data and algorithms can replace systems designed to divide and exploit us. 1/
Applebaum: Europe should lean into its achievements. It remains an oasis of security, stability and rule of law.
In a world of unpredictable powers, Europe’s predictability is an advantage. 2/
Applebaum: Europe needs defense tech, European AI with European values, European social media platforms, and data stored on this side of the Atlantic.
It must think like the world’s most powerful economic zone — because that is what it is. 3/
NATO war game ended with Russia cutting off the Baltics in 24 hours — because Germany froze politically while the US stayed out.
Retired Ukrainian Gen. Romanenko, playing Russia’s commander, says NATO’s biggest weakness was not troops but hesitation, FP. 1/
Scenario assumed a ceasefire in Ukraine by late 2026.
Russia rebuilt forces, left troops in Belarus after joint exercises, then used a “humanitarian crisis” in Kaliningrad as justification for escalation against Lithuania. 2/
“Russian” plan focused on speed. 12,000 troops advanced from Belarus while forces from Kaliningrad moved east.
To link up near Marijampole and cut the Baltics off from Poland through the Suwalki Gap within 24 hours. 3/
NATO will press Europe's defence industry to invest without guaranteed contracts. Mark Rutte will ask Rheinmetall, Airbus, Safran, MBDA, Saab and Leonardo to scale production now.
This breaks the procurement model that has stalled European rearmament — Aaron Kirchfeld, FT. 1/
The meeting itself is unusual. Rutte meets defence executives regularly, but pulling this many top companies into one room is not routine.
NATO needs visible industrial expansion before the Ankara summit in July. 2/
NATO asked the companies in advance for data on planned investments and production capacity. Air defence and long-range missiles head the priority list.
Some firms will also present plans for new factories, hiring, and raw-material supply chains. 3/
A 12-year-old Ukrainian boy saved his siblings by doing something many soldiers fail to do under pressure.
Anatolii Prokhorenko grabbed a fiber-optic cable connected directly to Russia and stopped a drone seconds before it hit children playing near his house, The WP. 1/
The drone was hunting civilians.
Russia uses FPV drones to track and strike people biking, driving, walking, or standing near their homes in border regions — a tactic Ukrainians call “human safari.” 2/
These drones are connected by hair-thin fiber-optic cables stretching up to 12 miles, making them immune to electronic jamming. Russia scaled them massively during battles in Kursk. 3/