The United States Army and NATO have launched a new Eastern Flank Deterrence Line plan to counter increasing threats from Russia.
Defense leaders announced the effort at the July 2025 LANDEURO conference in Wiesbaden, Germany, the website DefenseNews reported. The plan calls for an Alliance-wide effort to improve interoperability and ground-based capabilities to enhance global deterrence.
The Army and its NATO Allies are developing standardized, data-driven systems, common launchers and cloud-based coordination to counter Russia’s aggression, U.S. Army Gen. Christopher Donahue, commanding general of U.S. Army Europe and Africa and NATO Allied land command, said, according to DefenseNews.
Starting with the Baltic states, military leaders throughout NATO’s Eastern flank converged their ground-based defense plans into regional plans, then looked at ways to streamline working with Allies and industry to meet security needs, Donahue said during opening remarks at the conference. “Ultimately, that is now known as the Eastern Flank Deterrence Line,” he said. “The Eastern Flank Deterrence Line is the capability that hinges all these regional plans together.”
The plan also includes an artificial intelligence system to share data among NATO Allies to rapidly analyze ingested data to help military commanders make decisions. The Army also wants a common launcher that serves in both an offensive and defense capacity, along with a common fire control system.
“We want it to be one system, optionally manned, where we’ll be able to take munitions from any country and shoot through them,” Donahue said. “We understand the inflection point and how we have to change. We have a very coherent plan … of exactly what we need to develop. And we need industry to come with us.
Whenever we talk about a defense industrial base that is part of this overall global effort that the collective is doing — not the U.S., not Europe, not Asia, separate, but rather the collective.”
“We know what we have to develop and the use case that we’re using is you have to [deter] from the ground,” he said. “The land domain is not becoming less important; it’s becoming more important. You can now take down A2/AD [anti-access/aerial-denial] bubbles from the ground. You can now take over sea from the ground.”
As Russia’s war with Ukraine continues, NATO looks to strengthen deterrence in Europe by pledging increased defense spending and working toward greater interoperability among Allies. “Because of Russia, war has returned to Europe,” NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said in June 2025. “Russia could be ready to use military force against NATO within five years. Let’s not kid ourselves, we are all on the Eastern flank now. The new generation of Russian missiles travel at many times the speed of sound. The distance between European capitals is only a matter of minutes.”