Europe has become aware that suffering a military attack – of every kind and severity – is no longer unthinkable. And many countries are starting to equip themselves: with rearmament, defenses, bunkers. But also with new cemeteries.
Everyone organizes themselves as they can, as they see fit. In Italy, at the command of the Rome Defense Staff, from the highest in rank to the last soldier, everyone wears camouflage: “You have to prepare for the worst case scenario” explains General Carmine Masiello. The Swedish attitude is much darker: in mid-December the Lutheran Church received a request from the Stockholm government to identify ten hectares of land and to prepare for the eventuality of having to bury 30 thousand people, not just soldiers.
Cold winds of war shake the world, from Ukraine to the Middle East, and chill all the way to Taiwan, where the Chinese fleet has just returned to surround the island. And Europe, almost without realizing it, has begun to prepare for conflicts. No, not as Mario Draghi suggested three months ago, who in his Report to the European Union had recommended more integration and more spending on common defense. But in no particular order. Faced with growing threats from Vladimir Putin, last November 19, in Warsaw, the Foreign Ministers of Italy, France, Germany, Spain, the United Kingdom and Poland signed a document strongly criticizing «the escalation of Moscow’s hybrid activities against NATO and EU countries”, which “are creating significant security risks”. Since then, however, united Europe has not been able to do anything more concrete. In many states, however, a silent, very concrete rush to prepare has begun: small and almost naive moves at times, but nevertheless symptomatic of an unprecedented anxiety, at least since the end of the Cold War.
One of the most decisive steps was taken by Germany. A confidential plan emerged in late November of a thousand pages, drawn up by the high command of the Bundeswehr, the German army, and entitled “Operation Deutschland”, full of war scenarios. The document identifies the lines of resistance to a Russian invasion, but also plans for the requisition and mobilization of civilian resources, starting from private means of transport, and projects for joint exercises between the military and companies to guarantee the logistical operation of the Village. The plan is detailed enough to include training private employees in skills useful in times of crisis, such as truck driving. Already at the end of October, the German Defense Minister, the Social Democrat Boris Pistorius, had invited the Germans to be “Krieg-stüchtig”, that is, “ready for war”. Pistorius had also announced 100 billion in investments in favor of the Bundeswehr, adding that the army had been “neglected for over 30 years”, and that this had been “a huge mistake which unfortunately cannot be repaired in a few months”. A shock, which was followed in early November by another: the crisis of Olaf Scholz’s centre-left government.
Since then, while awaiting the elections on 23 February, Berlin’s high command has started working on a list of available anti-atomic shelters, to get an idea of the spaces where the population can shelter in case of emergency. TOin early December the Ministry of the Interior announced that a total of 579 shelters could be “activated”, capable of providing shelter to less than half a million inhabitants (out of a total of 90 million Germans), and that a new one would soon be ready smartphone application with the location of the structures. The German Association of Cities immediately called for the renovation of the two thousand underground bunkers built during the Cold War years, but they have been largely dismantled since 2007.
Meanwhile, France has discovered the charm of private refuges. Construction companies are flourishing and demand – which started in 2022, after the Russian invasion of Ukraine – has surged in recent months. Updated estimates speak of at least a thousand new personal bunkers built in the last two years. At considerable prices: ranging from 70 to 150 thousand euros for a small, Spartan family refuge for two-three people, but reaching a few million for a large, luxurious bunker. In the spring, then, the French army will participate in the large-scale “Dacian 2025” exercise in Romania: the test will have to verify the speed of mobilization on the eastern flank of the Atlantic Alliance. According to General Bertrand Toujouse, head of the French land forces, the exercise changes every paradigm: “We are no longer simulating abstract wars, now we have a designated enemy.” Meanwhile, governments fall in Paris too, and the country has other things to think about. But a survey from early December revealed that 62 out of 100 French people want to return to compulsory military service, and over half of the sample would like to “increase resources for the army”. A third even believes that in times of crisis “a military government is more desirable than a civilian one”.
Switzerland has a historic bunker tradition. Since 1962 a law has required their construction under every new building, public and private, and so the Confederation today has around 360 thousand individual or collective shelters, capable of protecting a number of people even greater than its nine million inhabitants. Finland has similar numbers, given that it guarantees a place in a bunker for 70 citizens out of 100, but it also has 1,340 kilometers of open border towards Russia: for this reason, in autumn, it closed the eight crossings and started the construction of a high steel fence and asked NATO satellites to intensify controls on that white no man’s land. Since mid-November, one million Finns have downloaded from the government website a new survival guide entitled “Preparing for accidents and crises”, which also foresees “military conflicts” and offers advice on the use of iodine tablets against the effects of radiation. The Swedish Civil Emergency Agency has also distributed a 32-page booklet to five million families, entitled “If war comes”: it gives suggestions on how to stop a bleeding, what supplies to stock, how to calm children… And it the same happens in Norway, where the government advises the population to keep food and medicines (and the usual iodine tablets) at home to last at least a week.
In Italy – camouflage suits aside – calm reigns. Little is said about war conflicts, even less about bunkers. In our country, moreover, at most a few old anti-aircraft shelters survive, useless in the event of a nuclear attack. Yet some structures would exist, even if deactivated and transformed into a museum. One was dug in 1937 by fascism in Mount Soratte, not far from Rome, and in 1967 NATO strengthened it for the Cold War. Its four kilometers of tunnels, after the war, could have functioned as an anti-nuclear bunker. Another large nuclear shelter, 13 thousand square meters at 150 meters deep, dates back to the 1960s and is located in Affi, near Verona. It can withstand a 100 kiloton explosion (the Hiroshima bomb triggered 15), and nothing else is known. Here, as always, large private companies are much faster. Some have already organized to transfer their first lines of command to secret locations, well protected and supplied, and far from the possible targets of Moscow’s missiles. All the other Italians remain begged.
