The decision to go-ahead with NATO’s biggest-ever war games in
Europe at a time of heightened fears over the coronavirus sure raises questions
about the military alliance’s stated purpose of maintaining security.
NATO
secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg has said the Defender-Europe 20 exercises will not be
cancelled due to the flu-like disease which has now spread to every country in
the European Union causing hundreds of deaths so far.
Over
the next five months some 17 allied NATO members will participate in
military maneuvers across seven European states: in Belgium, Netherlands,
Germany, Poland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. All of the host nations have
reported infections from the COVID-19 virus. “Host” being an operative word
when it comes to also talking about the relationship with the U.S.-led NATO
alliance.
Germany’s
health minister Jens Spahn is quoted as saying that the coronavirus outbreak has “become a global
pandemic” and the “worst has yet to come.”
In all, 37,000 troops are involved in the
Defender-Europe 20 war games, the biggest contingency
since the end of the Cold War nearly three decades ago. The U.S. is sending
20,000 personnel. Most of those troops will return to bases located in at least
20 American states. Thus, the risk factor of spreading the disease across
Europe and the U.S. is significantly increased by the NATO events.
Going ahead with the European
war games looks especially ill-advised given that U.S. forces in Asia-Pacific
have cancelled similar military exercises that were scheduled in South Korea
out of fears about coronavirus (COVID-19).
The
Defender-Europe 20 events underway come amid reports that the U.S. Commander in Europe, Lt.
General Christoper Cavoli, may have been infected after attending a recent
military conference in Wiesbaden, Germany.
The
top health advisor to the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force Brig. General
Paul Friedrichs has also admitted that the number of COVID-19 cases
among the Pentagon’s armed forces may be far higher than is being reported.
The
seeming lack of cautionary measures by the U.S.-led NATO alliance is in
contrast to growing public concerns for containing the disease. Italy – which
has recorded the second highest fatalities worldwide after China – has placed a
total lockdown on public travel for its 60 million population. Airlines across
Europe have cancelled thousands of flights as some carriers go out of
business altogether.
Sporting
events across Europe including major soccer matches are being cancelled or will be held without attendance by
fans. The six-nations rugby tournament has been thrown into disarray from match
fixtures being rescheduled; a big match between Ireland and France due this
weekend is postponed until October.
In
Britain there are calls for parliament to be suspended after health minister
Nadine Dorries was reported to have been infected. Boris Johnson’s
government has been accused of complacency in dealing with the virus.
U.S. President Donald
Trump has also come under fire for not taking sufficient containment measures
or providing adequate resources such as testing kits. The official number of
U.S. cases of COVID-19 is relatively low so far, but that is thought to be due
to limited testing.
It would therefore seem reasonable in this context of pandemic
risk that such a multinational event like NATO’s Defender-Europe 20 be called
off. As it proceeds, the war games appear to a perfect vector for accelerating
disease spread between two continents and beyond. Indeed, not parking these war
games seems the height of carelessness.
How fitting that NATO should be so unresponsive to real
need. This lumbering 29-nation military organization which consumes a combined
annual budget of $1 trillion is a creature of habit and slavish ideology.
Nearly 30 years after the Cold War with the Soviet Union, the world has moved
on. But not, it seems, NATO. It continues to hold its war games supposedly
defending Europe from “Russian invasion”.
If
NATO can’t adjust to such glaring world realities as the end of the Soviet
Union three decades ago, then no wonder its response to coronavirus is hardly
fleet-footed. It’s the military equivalent of a dinosaur whose functioning is
no longer supported by its environment.
The irony is that NATO’s obscene
military largesse is crushing public finances that would otherwise be more
usefully spent, such as building up healthcare infrastructure that would help
mitigate crises like the coronavirus. Many other societal needs are chronically
neglected because of exorbitant military budgets among NATO members. Donald
Trump brags that he has cajoled European allies to fork
out hundreds of billions more dollars on military budgets.
The coronavirus is but a stress-test on whole societies that have
become hollowed out by excessive militarism and the corporate capitalist
super-structure it serves.
Even before the coronavirus problem emerged
in China earlier this year, the NATO war games in Europe (and elsewhere) have
been a cause for much criticism. The geopolitical tensions that this U.S.-led
militarism is engendering towards Russia and China have been deplored. Moscow
has denounced the
Defender-Europe 20 event as a “rehearsal for war” which is completely
disconnected from reality. The inveterate Cold War ideology that drives NATO is
imposing insecurity and risk of war on Europe in a way that makes a mockery of
NATO claims about being dedicated to “security and defense”.
The reckless risk-taking
with regard to inflaming a coronavirus pandemic is typical of NATO’s obsolete
purpose. Like the disease itself, NATO is a parasite on host nations draining
vital public resources. This organization should be “self-isolating”… 30 years
too late.
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/nato-and-covid-19-parasitical-disease-europe
