By Gao Qiao
The navies of several NATO members are holding a large-scale joint exercise at the Pacific and the Mediterranean Sea in November, and five aircraft carriers, multiple escort warships, and thousands of troops from American, British, French and Italian navies have already assembled for that, according to the report of Groupe Radio France Internationale (RFI). The aircraft carriers will participate in subjects such as anti-submarine combat and air combat, deck-to-deck plane transfer, and replenishment-at-sea. Following the nuclear deterrence exercise in October, NATO’s November exercise involving several members’ aircraft carriers aims to showcase their elite naval strengths and flex muscles to Russia again.
It is learned that it's the first time that America’s most advanced carrier USS Gerald R. Ford participates in a real-combat mission. NATO spokesperson Oana Lungescu said the arrangement demonstrated their ability to project forces across the alliance and quickly assist allies, while Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh lauded the action as providing an opportunity for the allies to coordinate their key combat forces in the Europe-Atlantic region and showcase NATO’s cohesion.
Ever since the Russia-Ukraine conflict broke out, NATO has organized constant military exercises and largely increased deployments in Europe to accelerate its military build-up.
“The Russia-Ukraine conflict is at a subtle moment now. On the one hand, the two conflicting parties are entering a stalemate; on the other hand, the risk of escalation is on the rise. Against such a background, NATO’s aircraft carrier ‘gathering’ to flex its maritime combat muscles carries a strong message – to reinforce solidarity internally and enhance deterrence against Russia externally,” said Cui Hongjian, Department for European Studies, China Institute of International Studies.
“The US is playing a leading role in NATO’s series of moves,” said Zhang Jian, Assistant President and director of the Institute of European Studies, China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations. NATO has always been an important tool for the US to control Europe and dominate the world. By organizing constant military exercises and egging Europe to buy American weapons and equipment, the US wants to enhance its military integration with Europe and incorporate the latter’s military building and weaponry development into its own global strategy.
According to Cui, the US, using the Russia-Ukraine conflict as an excuse, has kept pushing its strategic deployments on NATO. For one thing, it has made a quasi-military mobilization in NATO to raise its war preparedness and military capability to a new level, thus having a more handy tool to control just how secure it needs Europe to be. Right now NATO’s attitude toward the Russia-Ukraine conflict is basically in line with what the US has in mind. For another, to achieve its strategic goals, America is seeking some kind of power balance within NATO – controlling the radical views of the hawks represented by Central and Eastern European countries while stimulating the doves represented by Germany and France to play a bigger part. It has also been cranking up its strategic superiority over Russia by coordinating diplomatic approaches with military deployments.
Russia’s Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu recently said in public that NATO’s current military activities have reached a level never seen before since the end of the Cold War, posing mounting threats to Russia and aggravating regional tension. When speaking of certain Eastern European countries’ plans to have American troops stationed on their soil permanently, Shoigu said Russia would be forced to take countermeasures in that case.
According to Zhang Jian, given the sluggish economy worldwide, all countries are under great pressure to recover economic growth, and Europe in particular is troubled by a mixture of energy shortage, high inflation, and roaring living cost. In this context, NATO’s constant massive military drills, which are intended to forge cohesion internally and flex muscles to deter Russia externally, only serve to entrench the NATO-Russia hostility, increase the risk of exacerbating their conflict, and possibly drive its escalation and spread, thus forming a vicious cycle. That is no good either for solving the conflict or for facilitating peaceful development in Europe and the world.
Editor's note: Originally published on paper.people.com.cn, this article is translated from Chinese into English and edited by the China Military Online. The information and opinions in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of eng.chinamil.com.cn.
