Ukraine conflict once again calling the urgent need of the global attention on the very purpose of continuation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) that remained as a ghost of cold war’ conflicts.
It may be recalled that the main grudge of Putin against Ukraine is that the latter is moving ahead to join NATO, ignoring security threats to Russia. From the very first day, Putin’s prime condition to end the war is categorical assurance from Ukraine stating that it will not join NATO.
National Alliance of People’s Movements (India)- NATO, a joint forum of various mass organizations of the country, felt that a critical examination of the current crisis would be incomplete without understanding the historical and contemporary role of NATO, led by imperialist nations like the US and UK.
For a brief context, the NAT), established in 1949, in the aftermath of World War II, is an inter-continental, intergovernmental military alliance of countries from North America and Europe. Beginning with 12 member nations, NATO has a membership of over 30 countries, as on date.
Barring the US and Canada, all other 28 members are European. One of the primary motivations behind the formation of NATO lay in the ‘fear of Soviet expansion’ beyond Eastern Europe. As a counter to NATO, the erstwhile USSR formed the Warsaw Pact in 1955, with 8 allied Eastern European nations. The period between 1955 to 1989, infamously referred to as the ‘Cold War’ witnessed these military blocks of nations in a constant arms race and proxy combat.
The dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 also brought about the end of the Warsaw Pact and the Cold War. While this should have led to disbandment of NATO as well, it continued to function more as a direct instrument of U.S. military policy and infact became stronger over the past three decades.
Notably, at the time of dissolution of the USSR, the US-led NATO assured the then Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev that it had no plans for eastward expansion into Europe. However, NATO went back on its promise and began incorporating even many of the former Warsaw Pact countries into its fold. In the past two decades, 14 fourteen European nations were drafted into NATO as member states, thereby clearly grounding NATO’s military might on European soils.
However, later revelations, including one from Gorbachev himself states no such assurance was given by NATO. Seven decades of NATO’s existence and operations has only scarred our planet with many wars, military aggressions, economic sanctions and puppet regimes often in the garb of ‘establishing peace’ and ‘restoring democracy’.
NATO is the only multi-national ‘security’ architecture across the globe that functions in gross violation of the United Nations Charter and has a long history of aggression against small nations in Europe, Asia, and Africa. To name a few, US-led NATO has been responsible for:
·Bombing and disintegration of the erstwhile Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
·Bombardment of Afghanistan in the wake of the 9/11 terror strikes in the US and continued imposition of sanctions, after withdrawing from that country in a mess.
·Invasion of Iraq and destruction of that country.
·Encouraging the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to wage war against Yemen
·Siding with Israel which continues to occupy, attack and invade Palestine.
·Pushing Libya into a protracted civil war.
·‘Intervention’ in Syria and bombing of that country to poverty.
·Humanitarian crisis in Venezuela due to economic sanctions for years.
Just this past week, while Western media attention remained focussed largely on Ukraine, the US bombed Somalia, Israel bombed Syria and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia bombed Yemen at least 37 times. All of this, with US-NATO backing. This long list of aggressions against smaller nations debunk the hollow claims by the US and UK that NATO is only a ‘defensive alliance’ and establish the imperialist objectives of the Organization.
Undoubtedly, Russia remains the aggressor in Ukraine and must stop its war, but NATO must also own up much of the responsibility for this militarized mess it has created, by criminal interference in the internal and inter-state relations of sovereign countries. NATO has consistently increased its presence across countries bordering Russia.
Ukraine, located at the doorstep of Russia becoming a NATO member, would pose a direct threat to Russia’s security interests, especially with its nuclear arsenal and hence the demand from Russia that Ukraine should not be drafted into NATO.
To add to the tensions, withdrawal of the United States (in 2019) from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, 1987 has given rise to more concern of nuclear threat against Russia. The refusal by US and NATO to address these concerns have further escalated tensions.
It is also pertinent here to point out the manner in which the ‘sanctions regime’ functions. While within a week of the war against Ukraine, US and some other nations have begun imposing sanctions against Russia, neither the US nor NATO faced such sanctions for all the wars and destruction it has been responsible for, over decades. After what we have witnessed in Afghanistan, Yugoslavia, Libya, Syria and other wars backed by imperial powers in their quest for political and economic power, it is abundantly clear that far from being a ‘defensive alliance’, NATO is a war-instigator of the first order.
NATO with member nations from different continents increases tensions both within Europe and across the world. Its actions of devastating entire nations by wars and sanctions for their imperialist objectives are nothing short of grave crimes against humanity. So long as NATO remains the formidable militarized force that it is, global peace is next to impossible in real politik terms. Therefore, it is important to build up a global movement of all peace-loving nations and peoples to disband NATO, altogether.
