Europe is facing a flow of refugees not seen since the end of World War II.
Then, over 12 million people, many ethnic Germans from Poland, Czechoslovakia, and other Eastern European countries were either expelled from their homelands or fled to Germany as the Communists filled the political vacuum left by the Nazis. Those numbers don’t include the many millions more who crisscrossed a war-torn European continent to seek shelter and security.
Today, Germany, Austria, and, especially, Greece and the Western Balkan countries are trying to cope with huge flows of refugees as tens of thousands of people, young and old, flee the war in Syria and try to make their way to Europe.
Greece as well as Macedonia, Serbia, Croatia, and Slovenia are stretched beyond their limits in trying to provide basic security and shelter for the refugees. On October 20, Slovenia announced it would deploy the military to help patrol the country’s borders. Ljubljana recognized it had to deal with a civil emergency.
And that is what this part of Europe is facing: a civil emergency that requires an emergency response. That is what NATO should be providing. But ever since the beginning of the refugee crisis many months ago, NATO has remained on the sidelines, almost indifferent to a problem that has the potential to undermine the stability of some of the countries in southern Europe.
Some could argue that these kinds of civilian crises have nothing to do with NATO. That is not the case. The alliance has a Civil Emergency Planning Committee whose goal is unambiguous: “Civil Emergency Planning provides NATO with essential civilian expertise and capabilities in the fields of terrorism preparedness . . . humanitarian and disaster response and protecting critical infrastructure.”
NATO also has a Euro-Atlantic Disaster Response Coordination Center based at the alliance’s headquarters in Brussels. The center is supposed to work closely with the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and other international organizations. So far, this center has not been catapulted into action.
And the alliance has a Civil Emergency Planning Rapid Reaction Team that is meant to evaluate civil needs and capabilities to support a NATO operation or an emergency situation, which is what the Western Balkans are now facing. No evidence of that being activated either.
It’s not as if NATO didn’t have some experience in supporting civil emergencies. In August 2005 after Hurricane Katrina, NATO transported 189 tons of relief and emergency supplies to the United States. In the same year, after a request from Pakistan to assist after the huge earthquake in the Kashmir region, NATO airlifted 3,500 tons of supplies and sent engineers, medical units, and specialized equipment. The alliance helped Pakistan again in 2010 to cope with the floods of that year.
NATO can claim it has other bigger and more important issues to deal with, specifically increasing the alliance’s ability to defend itself in the wake of Russia’s aggression in eastern Ukraine and its annexation of the Crimean Peninsula in March 2014.
Since then, NATO has stepped up its air defenses in the Baltic states and Poland, where it has also conducted exercises. More recently, on October 19 in Italy, NATO began Trident Juncture, a military exercise that consists of 36,000 troops, 140 planes, 60 ships, and 30 nations and will last until early November 2015.
“Trident Juncture is the largest NATO exercise for over a decade,” said NATO Deputy Secretary General Alexander Vershbow at the operation’s opening ceremony. “Trident Juncture will increase our readiness and our ability to work together, including with our partners. It will demonstrate that NATO is capable of responding to threats from any direction.”
In the current refugee crisis, the governments in the Western Balkans can all agree that they have gone beyond dealing with a threat. The unremitting flow of refugees passing through or stranded in their countries is a reality that requires a very special response.
Since the security and armed forces in these countries are poorly equipped and trained to deal with such emergencies—another story in itself—NATO could compensate these shortfalls in several ways.
First of all, it could help bring security to the Europe’s borders. This does not mean closing the frontiers. It means providing logistics and personnel to ensure stability for the authorities and the refugees.
The alliance could also offer emergency facilities such as field hospitals and emergency housing. It could work with the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in registering the migrants and issuing them with identity papers. And it could provide transportation to take the refugees to other countries in Europe.
As it is, European governments should be ashamed of the wretched conditions the refugees have to endure in Croatia and Slovenia, both members of the EU and NATO. Since these countries, as well as Greece, have been unable to cope, they should have called in NATO, which they are entitled to do.
A NATO role in helping with a refugee crisis that shows no sign of ending could take the immense strain off the Western Balkan countries. Such a role could also improve NATO’s image.
In most cases, publics across Europe have little idea what NATO is about or why its member governments should spend more on defense. Long-overdue alliance help for the refugees could change that.
Photo by Allied Joint Force Command Brunssum, used under CC BY-SA 2.0 / Cropped from original
Comments(14)
NATO is just a dysfunctional LEFTOVER from first Cold-War so that US does have a fig leaf coverage to tell off Europeans. Similar to EU.If you are fisherman in Mediterranean you can get EASY in trouble with EU if you fish the wrong fish.But if you fish for dead or alive migrants NOBODY cared within EU.Even a relocation of 30 people ( one school class ) between 2 EU countries is almost impossible
NATO and refugees crisis ? Many were appealing to joint organisation of no avail u till a boat arrived at the NATO base in Cyprus. Is it so important in this situation have military muscle flexing at the boarder to a nuclear power, namely Russia, and being abssessed with insignificant on the Richter scale tyranny of Assad in the times when nearly a million of undocumented trespassers are crossing boarders. The world is changing quicker then any of the old school organisations inc. UN, EU, Interpol. Europol etc can do anything about it. Let us recognise our differences but act decisively and promptly by the way we associate ourselves with those outlived organisations and start building ( not dividing ) sefe and secure from attack on our humanity global society.
Yes, NATO should probably help provide shelter, heat and food to the refugees but, in my opinion, the current crisis was exacerbated by Germany's announcement that it would take in so many. That opened the flood gates for the current level of migration. Due to that, Germany should shoulder a good bit of this, if not all. Germany and Europe will live to regret this.
NATO is run by the US for the US. These refugees are a European problem. Hurricane Katrina was a US problem, thus it made sense for NATO to get involved in that civil emergency. NATO would much rather rattle their sabers at Russia than do something useful for Europe. This is pathetic; another prime example of why the EU needs it's own military to look after its own interests, not those of the US.
Nato, Germany, France, uk and islamic Turkey is responsible for this mess. Who wanted to get rid of Quadaffi, who wanted to get rid of Assad.
The preamble to the Treaty (below, 1949) makes clear that NATO should have been involved in this situation at least a year ago to prevent it from happening in the first place - Turkey is a member - to safeguard the freedom, common heritage and civilisation of Europe's peoples, rather than playing war games with Turkey: "The Parties to this Treaty reaffirm their faith in the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations and their desire to live in peace with all peoples and all governments. They are determined to safeguard the freedom, common heritage and civilisation of their peoples, founded on the principles of democracy, individual liberty and the rule of law. They seek to promote stability and well-being in the North Atlantic area. They are resolved to unite their efforts for collective defence and for the preservation of peace and security."
Apart from what NATO soldiers might do to help, bearing in mind that their training is'nt exactly along these lines, Apart from remarking that it was the Royal Navy that built and administered the vast camp on Abaco island in the Bahamas to receive a vast flood (about a third of the nation ) of American Loyalist refugees after 1776, I'm sure the various NATO intelligence folk worry a good deal about odd individuals within the present-day flood who are not what they seem. the
"their training is'nt exactly along these lines" Indeed, and it's about time they were re-trained to deal with REAL threats, rather than playing ruinously expansive games on Europe's coastline and engaging in the much more ruinously expensive wars (far from the Atlantic) that have contributed to this humanitarian catastrophe - all paid for from the shrinking tax bases of aging Western democracies. Sorry - how rude of me to mention that, as a taxpayer - but our governments, multi-national corporations and the UN don't seem to understand that they are killing the goose that laid their golden eggs!
There you go again....that there might be a terrorist hiding among the hundreds of thousands of displaced refugees is no excuse to turn away (yourself or them.) It has always been easy to slip into Europe; why bother risking your life on refugee transport? NATO has many qualities aptly suited to this job: 1, A pool of soldiers to draw on who are multi-skilled. 2, National resources to draw upon. And 3, Command and control: the ability to tell soldiers what to do and make sure it gets done as ordered. This "order" is exactly what is needed, even if NATO's interests are more American than European.
NATO do not care about the Syrian people (or other refugees) any more than IS or Assad care about them. It's time the people of Europe recognise the unholy alliance of NATO & "israel" for the terrorists they are, having between them, directly or indirectly, destroyed the lives of literally millions of civilians since 2001.
All too true - however, you forgot to mention the OTHER best customer of the death merchants in the US/UK/EU 'defence' industries (peaceful, self-righteous Sweden no exception): the OTHER theocracy in 'the region' , whose only contribution to the humanitarian crisis in Europe (aside from actively helping to create it) has been a kind offer to build 200 mosques in Germany. Always the elephant in the room which everyone prefers not to notice, for some reason.
Get news an media involved as to why NATO is Not moving to set up refugee camps where the people are??
Why do Europeans have their heads in the sand about their own National Security ? And what about NATO ? 28 countries & 500+ million people can't defend themselves Or don't they have BACKBONE to go it alone ? And really don't want to pay for it either ! If US Taxpayers knew they pay 73% of NATO's Budget while 29 countries & 500+ million people only pay 27%..... it's Time 2 Get the USA out of NATO .. And 26 of 27 cities and 9 out of 10 countries in Europe all have better standards of living then the USA !!
Oh this goes way back! Thanks for it. A group of Soviet journalists toured the US in the 1960s , meeting with American colleagues, as they traveled. At the end of their tour, they expressed astonishment at the uniformity of reporting across the continent, including in local press - and marveled at the control of what readers were permitted to read and know. Like Americans, Europeans are loathe to understand that their taxes are used to pay for what are basically very expensive boys clubs (NATO, the EU, the UN) that exist primarily to preserve their own privileges, and those of less than half a million anonymous global uber-rich tax, war and drug criminals who have stashed away trillions of dollars (in off-shore bank accounts, after being laundered in Wall Street or the City of London) extracted from our treasuries, schools, hospitals, libraries, public pensions, etc. Everyone with half a brain knows or senses this, but no-one on either side of the Pond wants to face up to it, let alone try to take on the monsters who live off profitable perpetual wars - whose goal is to reduce the cost of labour, standards of living, and life expectancy everywhere to those of Bangladesh - for their profit. To them, human beings are nothing but interchangeable commodities. Unlike Americans, Europeans are faced with the FINAL bill for the perpetual wars of our masters - millions (billions?) of displaced people from alien cultures wanting a place of greater safety - and a free Western lifestyle, as promised on the internet by Western marketing. European heads are out of the sand, but American heads are still well-lodged somewhere else in their anatomies. CORRECTION: "26 of 27 cities and 9 out of 10 countries in Europe all HAD better standards of living then the USA !!" It's coming your way, via the UN and the State Department. Ever heard of 'Welcoming America'?, and its good work in Portland, Maine? Read it about it - you won't hear about it from the mainstream media, including FOX 'news', even though your taxes are paying for it. Good-bye and good luck, as Edward Murrow used to say. Timo
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