Tru-News – June 11, 2020
NATO is sending yet another provocative message to Russian President Vladimir Putin, sending an armada of warships, more than two dozen aircraft, and 3,000 personnel from 19 countries into the Baltic Sea for “drills.”
The 10-day BaltOps exercise will include participants from the U.S., UK, France, Germany, and the former Soviet satellite states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. The annual drill, a relic of the Cold War dating back to the early-1970s, will be commanded remotely from NATO’s new Joint Operations Center in Lisbon, Portugal.
During the first phase of BaltOps, the various military units will learn how to work together. In the second phase, they will test their ability to “respond to threats” in coordination with one another. Typically, it also includes ground operations, but that phase has been eliminated due to risk of spreading COVID-19.
The exercises take place against the backdrop of President Donald Trump’s decision to remove 9,500 American soldiers from Germany. That move prompted a backlash from British politicians who say it will “play into Russia’s hands.”
It also comes as NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has suggested a pivot in the alliance’s mission. During a speech this week, he said the organization must focus on the threat posed by China “to our values and way of life.” He added that there needs to be a “more global approach” to dealing with Beijing:
“The rise of China is fundamentally shifting the global balance of power, heating up the race for economic and technological supremacy, multiplying the threats to open societies and individual freedoms and increasing the competition over our values and our way of life.
“We cannot ignore the consequences of the rise of China. China will soon have the biggest economy in the world, and they already have the second largest defense budget. They are investing heavily in new modern capabilities.”