Stoking tensions with Moscow, NATO is carrying out its largest war games yet this year that spread across the Atlantic Ocean and extend into Russia’s backyard in the Black Sea.
According to the NATO website, the Steadfast Defender exercises started on May 12th and will be held until June 22nd. The drills involve 20 ships, 60 aircraft, 500 vehicles, and over 9,000 personnel from 20 countries.
Among the ships involved is the HMS Queen Elizabeth, a British aircraft carrier that is on its maiden deployment. After drilling with NATO, the Queen Elizabeth and its strike group will head into the Pacific to send a message to China.
NATO-Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg spoke with reporters while onboard the Queen Elizabeth off the coast of Portugal. “NATO is there to defend all our allies, and this exercise sends a message about our ability to transport a large number of troops, equipment across the Atlantic, across Europe and also to project maritime power,” he said.
It’s clear the “message” the military alliance intends to send is aimed at Russia. The massive exercises come after NATO took a strong stance in support of Ukraine during a tense stand-off between Moscow and Kyiv.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky is pushing hard to get his country into NATO and is asking the US to back the effort. On Wednesday, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba decried what he said was a lack of progress towards a NATO membership.
This demonstrates to Russia the vital importance of the NATO threat to its borders, especially in the Black Sea. It only serves to prove to them they must keep Crimea and force Ukraine into an Austria- or Finland-style neutrality.
NATO could not have calculated anything that would make diplomacy more difficult.
Austria is nominally neutral, but is essentially a NATO country. It was the first to fly the Israeli flag alongside it’s own while Israel was massacring Palestinians recently. It was also in Austria that the plane of the President of Bolivia was forcibly grounded at the behest of the USA, though it was one of the first to denounce Belarus when Belarus did so to arrest an “activist” working with foreigners against his own country.
There are a number of questions about the Morales grounding that seem unanswered.
One is whether the plane was searched in Austria. The Austrian government said yes it was, the Bolivian government said no it wasn’t.
So, a hypothesis:
First, the plane wasn’t “forcibly grounded” BY the Austrian regime. Rather, its crew chose to land in Austria after being denied access to the airspace of other countries. I don’t think that’s so much hypothesis as reasonably established fact.
The hypothesis part is this:
1) The Austrian government didn’t search the plane because it wanted neither any confrontation with Bolivia nor any involvement with doing the US’s dirty work in apprehending Snowden; but
2) The Austrian government CLAIMED to have searched the plane so as to satisfy the US/NATO/EU and give itself sort of the opposite of “plausible deniability.” It was the Austrian government’s word against the Bolivian government’s word as to whether it had been search, and each government got to say what it liked with no one but them knowing which was the case.
But it could have gone down some other way.
Did Bolivian plane chose to land in Austria? Or it HAD to land once surrounding countries denied access. I guess the plane COULD have landed in Alps? It was very clear that no choice was available.
The rest is irrelevant. It does not matter how they ascertained that Snowden was not on board. But US was surely satisfied on that account. As for all other countries that participated in the denial of transit rights — they are just as complicit.
In all cases, such interference in air traffic in peace time is unacceptable.
But isn’t it true that no major warships are participating? Besides Black Sea littoral states (minus Russia and Turkey), other participants are Montenegro and North Macedonia.
Good call, Bianca… “massive” 9000 , chuckle, chuckle… Now if 90,00 I might start to notice, 900,000 – now that’s starting to approach “massive” but 9000 – ROFL
“After drilling with NATO, the Queen Elizabeth and its strike group will head into the Pacific to send a message to China.”
A return to the Opium Wars?
Embarrassing when these old rotting empires still think they can go do UFC one more time. Idiots.
How long would that slo boat carrier survive if the gloves came off. Probably not even a half an hour. What sort of defense does it have against hypersonic or ocean hugging missile technology. If push should come to shove, the results will become known almost immediately.