NATO’s COVID-19 objectives: Improving aid assistance, continuing core security tasks and winning the propaganda war

By Dr. Ian Davis and Joe Malmkvist

14 April 2020

COVID-19 has changed everything. Schools are closed, all public gatherings have been cancelled, hundreds of millions of people around the world are out of work and governments are introducing some of the largest economic stimulus packages in history. And the huge cost in lives lost continues to grow at an alarming rate. At NATO, however, despite concerns on the impact of COVID-19 on military readiness and the cancelling and rescheduling of some military exercises, on the surface at least, it is largely business as usual.

NATO Foreign Ministers meeting for the first time ever by video conference on 2 April agreed to speed up deliveries of medical aid to allies suffering the most from COVID-19. In their collective statement they emphasised that doing the “absolute maximum to contain and then overcome this challenge” would occur alongside the alliance remaining “active, focused and ready to perform its core tasks: collective defence, crisis management, and cooperative security”. 

So, what does NATO’s ‘absolute maximum’ contribution currently look like?

Read the attached pdf briefing to find out more.

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