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On a recent spring day in a scrubby forest an hour outside the Lithuanian capital, diggers were digging trenches and people felling trees in an effort to restore the waterlogged, mosquito-infested ecosystem of the Soviet era.<\/p>\n
The reason for this is twofold: to help the climate and to protect the country from invasion.<\/p>\n
The area was once a vast peat swamp, and peat swamps are highly efficient at storing planet-warming carbon dioxide. They are also very good at stopping tanks, as spongy soil cannot withstand the weight of armored vehicles. Tanks often become permanently stuck and sink.<\/p>\n
Lithuania’s Deputy Defense Minister Tomas Godliuskas said that the swamp would become “an integral defensive line” when combined with other military tactics. He said the project also had the advantage of being relatively cheaper compared to other measures such as tank ditches and minefields.<\/p>\n
Lithuania isn’t the only EU country using the swamp to deter Russian aggression. For example, Latvia and Finland are also seeking to restore marshes for both environmental and defense purposes. And the Ukrainian swamp helped delay an unsuccessful attempt by Russian troops towards Kiev in 2022.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Richard Hooker, a former director of the National Security Council who is now a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, a Washington-based research organization that focuses on international security, said peatland restoration could play an important role in defending Lithuania against invasion from the east.<\/p>\n
He said only one major highway runs from Minsk in Belarus to Lithuania’s capital Vilnius, and the Russian army is heavily mechanized, without the kind of light infantry units that the U.S. Army has. This meant that reclaimed, impassable peat bogs would force attacking troops onto roads and trails, where they would be more vulnerable.<\/p>\n
“The idea that you can use natural barriers combined with man-made barriers to slow down an attacker is an excellent idea,” Mr Hooker said. “Much more can be done than has been done, but early signs are promising anyway.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
The dangers of the swamp were illustrated last March, when a US Army 70-tonne M88 armored recovery vehicle sank during a training exercise near Pabrade, a town in eastern Lithuania near the border with Belarus. Four crew members died.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n