US military curtails another major exercise due to coronavirus outbreak

Washington CNN — The US military has curtailed another major military exercise, Defender-Europe 20, which had been anticipated to be one of the largest US military drills in Europe since the end of the Cold War, in response to the coronavirus outbreak. Last week, CNN reported that the remainder of one major military exercise between the US and several European nations would be canceled as a “precautionary measure.” The decision to cancel the remainder of “Exercise Cold Response 20” was made by the chief of the Norwegian Joint Headquarters in cooperation with the leadership of the Norwegian Armed Forces. “By ending the exercise now, we will also avoid any unnecessary burden to the civilian health care system, for example with illness among soldiers, accidents or corona testing among personnel,” Lt. Gen. Rune Jakobsen, the chief of the Norwegian Joint Headquarters, said Wednesday. “We may reduce in scope the size or cancel an exercise, but we will continue to lean forward to make sure troops in Africa have what they need.” Last week, US military leaders announced that they would be scaling back the size and scope of the African Lion military exercise with Morocco, Tunisia and Senegal “to minimize exposure of US and partner nation service members to the novel coronavirus.” And earlier this month, the US scrapped major exercises with Israel.