All of the worst disasters in recorded history have been natural disasters — earthquakes, tsunamis, cyclones, and floods.
A natural disaster depends on the size and location of the event and is generally only catastrophic if they take place in an area where they affect human populations.
There is often a relationship between past events and future events, but the fact remains that we cannot predict or control natural events., but they are thanks to our help surging exponentially affecting around 217 million people a year.
80% of this growth is the direct result of Climate Change.
Most of these disasters killed around 250,000 people.
The world death toll from the Coronavirus/ COVID-19 is unknown but the figure we are all watching is likely to be an under-report.
The truth is we don’t know how many deaths have or are taking place.
If we assume that 2% of the world population ( 7 Billion) get the virus that is 140,000,000 million and if only 0.05% died as a result that is 35,000,000.
Scary.
With a vaccine some months away it’s more than scary.
As of 20 April 2020, approximately 165,000 deaths had been attributed to COVID-19.
To put some perspective on the above the 1918 influenza pandemic killed as many as 50 million. If a similar contagion happened today it could kill up to 80 million and wipe out more than 5% of the global economy.
Correct me if I am wrong both started with the infection of one person.
When one looks at COVID-19 it will be catastrophic when it hits countries that do not have the capabilities to stop its spread.
This is why we need NATO to step up to the plate.
The WHO has neither the means nor the organization to administer a vaccine on a global scale and rest assured if we are to get to grips with COVID-19 on a global scale ( which is an ongoing world pandemic with over 2 million cases) we will need a military-style response.
Here is my suggestion.
NATO needs to reinvent itself and now is the time to do so.
It is going to take an army of trained people to administrate a vaccine when it arrives.
If you support this idea please copy the below letter to NATO and email it to the following email address.
As you know the world is in the grip of a war with an invisible enemy call COVID-19.
Never in your history or the world’s history is an alliance so needed to defeat this enemy.
To do so your military clout is needed urgently to coordinate and administrate worldwide a vaccine WHEN IT COMES.
What’s wrong with this picture?
As much as one can admire your new headquarters that cost somewhere around 1.6 billion, here is an opportunity to justify its cost and show the world that you can indeed protect and defeat an enemy.
WE ARE ASKING YOU TO PREPARE YOUR MEMBERS BY TRAINING ALL THEIR PERSONEL TO BE ABLE TO ADMINISTER THE VACCINE ON A WORLD SCALE.
TO COORDINATE AND TRACK ITS SUPPLY AND DISTRIBUTION.
With NATO future once again up for grabs, it celebrated its 70th anniversary on Wednesday’s with a meeting of all its leaders.
What is NATO Celebrating when actually, NATO is a vehicle for the US-led use of force in the interests of powerful corporations, accelerating militarization, by-passing the United Nations and the established system of international law, while escalating military spending.
Fifteen years ago, Nato’s existential challenge was how to cope with the demise of its old enemy: the USSR.
No alliance in history had outlived the disappearance of the threat against which it was formed.
So NATO today exists to manage the risks created by its existence.
It has reinvented its self five times.
In Bosnia (1995) and in Kosovo (1999), 9/11, Afghanistan to Iraq, the alliance as a whole was called into service to stabilise the former while the US military focused on the latter.
The third future for NATO was devised in the mid-1990s, with membership expanded to former members of the Warsaw Pact. This process, conducted in the name of a Europe “whole and free,” saw the alliance progressively advance to Russia’s borders.
In 2011, the alliance engaged in a renewed experiment with humanitarian intervention “Operation Unified Protector” in Libya. The spillover from this mission destabilized much of North Africa and the Sahel, galvanized radical Islamists from Nigeria to Syria, and precipitated Libya into a still-ongoing civil war.
Then Putin by annexing Crimea and intervening militarily in Ukraine offered yet another, possibly its sixth, post-Cold War “future,” returning to its original role as a security trip-wire in Europe.
Unfortunately, this sixth “future” for NATO is that the Europeans have been developing their own “autonomous” security project, the Common Security and Defence Policy.
This has created a strong case for progressive US disengagement from NATO.
NATO’s status has become a major geostrategic conundrum. Europe does not need two rival security entities in its relatively limited geographic space.
Defining exactly “What is Nato for?” has been a problem ever since the end of the Cold war.
Nato now sells itself as a broad security alliance, a force for stability in Europe, as well as a toolbox of highly trained forces, ready for new challenges.
The irony is that 15 years on, with former Soviet client states like Ukraine, Romania and Georgia all electing pro-Western leaders, it is once again relations with Moscow that could prove the most important and the most problematic.
So what did it agree to at this summit?
The officials have agreed to:
Strengthen NATO’s new command structure by more than 1,200 personnel.
Launch a NATO Readiness Initiative, the so-called Four Thirties.
Set up a Cyber Operations Centre, as part of the new Command Structure, and integrate sovereign cyber effects into alliance operations and missions.
Also, the meeting discussed concerns re space warfare and a new policy toward China. We must never shy away from discussing new realities – particularly Nato’s response to emerging threats like hybrid warfare and disruptive technologies, including space and cyber.
Trump said, “We’d be in World War Three if it weren’t for me”” If all NATO members had spent just 2 per cent of their GDP on defence last year, we would have had another $119 billion for our collective defence and for the financing of additional NATO reserves.”
Boris said, “The fact that we live in peace today demonstrates the power of the simple proposition at the heart of this alliance: that for as long as we stand together, no-one can hope to defeat us, and therefore no-one will start a war.”
Macron made a valid point, he said: ” Nato is brian dead.”
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey has already upset NATO allies by purchasing a sophisticated Russian antiaircraft missile system, the S-400. He is now threatening to oppose NATO’s plans to fortify the defence of Poland and the Baltic countries if the alliance does not join him in labelling some Kurdish groups as terrorists.
I say ” It is not just brain dead its political thinking is out of date.”
NATO has carried out wars, aerial bombardments and armed drone operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya to change regimes, but these countries are now in chaos with thousands slaughtered and many more made homeless and destitute with little help for their well-being.
It’s no longer East v West, nor is it starting bombing before you started thinking- Iraq Afghanistan.
No military operations were conducted by NATO during the Cold War.
Instead of allocating 2% of 28 countries GDP on “obsolete,” military spending, in order to play cowboys and Indians.
In fact, only five of the 28 NATO allies have made the grade: Aside from the U.S., the other four were Greece (2.36 per cent in 2016, amounting to $4.6 billion), Estonia (2.18 per cent, $503 million), Britain (2.17 per cent, $56.8 billion) and Poland (2.01 per cent, $12.7 billion).
As the French philosopher and essayist Paul Valéry noted in 1937, “the trouble with our times is that the future is not what it used to be.
Who is the enemy today?
The visible enemy is Climate Change, the non-visible, weaponized algorithm-driven drones.
If NATO is still needed in 10 years, it will have failed in its mission.
NATO can declare “mission accomplished” when Europeans become entirely self-reliant in security terms.
There remains an urgent need to address the root causes of terrorism.
What has Nato contributed to this problem It, in fact, spent $1.23 billion, on new headquarters. ( Dedicated on 25 May 2017.)
Military spending of the NATO countries from 2017 to 2019
(in million U.S. dollars)
20172
2017*
2018*
Albania
144
176
198
Belgium
4,431
4,840
4,921
Bulgaria**
723
961
1,079
Croatia
924
1,045
1,072
Czech Republic
2,255
2,746
2,969
Denmark
3,780
4,559
4,760
Estonia
540
607
669
France
46,036
50,459
50,659
Germany
45,580
49,473
54,113
Greece
4,748
4,853
4,844
Hungary
1,468
1,791
2,080
Italy
23,852
25,004
24,482
Latvia
530
701
724
Lithuania
816
1,056
1,084
Luxembourg
325
373
391
Montenegro
66
84
92
Netherlands
9,622
11,115
12,419
Norway
6,463
7,067
7,179
Poland
9,938
11,856
11,971
Portugal
2,702
3,220
3,358
Romania
3,643
4,359
5,043
Slovak Republic
1,053
1,297
1,905
Slovenia
476
550
581
Spain
11,864
13,186
13,156
Turkey
12,972
14,145
13,919
United Kingdom
55,672
60,446
60,376
Canada
23,704
22,068
21,885
United States
642,936
672,255
730,149
All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.
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