COVID-19 will make us think about peace and war

World political leaders focus on strategic “threats” while forgetting “natural” dangers. The result is an untenable trade off between military and welfare expenditure. The COVID-19 сrisis has shown us just what the real priorities should be.

Militarization is the wrong path for the world to take and it fuels tensions and raises the potential for war and conflict.

This is one of the most critical issues of our time and will make a real difference to world stability and security. World leaders must put disarmament and peace at the center of policy making and develop a new agenda for disarmament that also includes banning nuclear weapons.

The world’s annual military spending is about $ 1.8 trillion. $ 1 trillion will be spent on new nuclear weapons in the next 20 years.

Anti-NATO activists have raised concerns about U.S. preparations for nuclear conflict. In their view, the major military conflict that Defender-Europe 20 military exercise was designed to prepare for, would never occur. An armed clash between NATO and Russia would inevitably be nuclear. The victims of this conflict would be the inhabitants of Europe, including the Baltic States.

So, on February 25, 2020, during a hearing in the United States Senate Committee on Armed Services, General Tod D. Wolters, commander of U.S. European Command and NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe, declared, “Nuclear forces are the supreme guarantee of the security of the Allies, and…

Read more: https://balticword.eu/covid-19-will-make-us-think-about-peace-and-war/