Welcome to Eureka Street

back to site

INTERNATIONAL

NATO is sanitising its intentions

  • 30 April 2020
After building a reputation for foreign intervention and collateral damage — the most recent example being Libya — the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) is asserting its influence during the COVID-19 pandemic, this time by exploiting the humanitarian paradigm. 

Just one day after the September 11 attacks in the US, NATO invoked Article 5 of its founding treaty, which states that an attack against one of its member states will be considered as an attack on all members, thus paving the way for a coalition and foreign intervention. Since the aggression against Afghanistan, NATO deemed itself to have become 'far more experienced at conducting operations far from home' and credits itself with applying its tactics in other countries marked and destroyed by foreign intervention, specifically Libya in 2011.

Following the NATO intervention — the aim being the killing of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi — the country plunged into mutating instability which is now best reflected in the ongoing civil war between the UN-backed Government of National Accord led by Fayez al-Sarraj, and the House of Representatives, which seeks to assume control of Libya through General Khalifa Haftar. Haftar has enjoyed the military backing of France, also a NATO member, since 2015.

Stoltenberg has described NATO’s humanitarian charade regarding its COVID-19 response as ‘solidarity in action.' Yet the actions which NATO will be most remembered for involve failed states, human carnage, bombs and millions of people forcibly displaced from their homes and countries. NATO creates humanitarian deprivation in the name of democracy. 

NATO has been delivering supplies to its allies Italy and Spain, in a bid to ‘help in this common fight against an invisible enemy,' according to Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. The aid is organised and delivered through the NATO Support and Procurement Agency (NSPA), which also provides the alliance with delivery of munitions as necessary and when needed. To put it succinctly, NATO’s emergence as a key humanitarian player during this time is merely to protect its own interests. 

NATO’s Secretary General is proud to see the allies ‘supporting each other' in the same vein as the alliance is proud to be bombing countries together. Within Europe in particular there have been several requests for international humanitarian intervention. NATO’s response to such requests has been militarised, as seen in its statement, ‘NATO continues to deliver credible and effective deterrence and defence. Our ability to conduct operations has not been undermined, our forces remain ready and our crucial work goes on.' It
Forgot your password?
Subscribe
Join the conversation. Sign up for our free weekly newsletter  Subscribe