FOR NATO, WAR IS PEACE

It's Plan to Make the World Safer? More Guns!

by Bill Paton, 13 July 2024, Choeng Thale

Far from defending itself against the long-gone Soviet Union, NATO today has become a menace, constantly increasing its already overwhelming military might and membership. It's recent Summit Declaration makes no mention at all of diplomacy, instead closing the door on negotiations to end the war in Ukraine, making incendiary threats against China and claiming a global remit. By constantly raising the stakes, pursuing ever-farther-reaching hegemony, NATO has itself become the greatest threat to world stability.

NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, was created in 1949 by the United States, Canada and a number of Western European countries for collective security against the Soviet Union. Despite the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, it has continued to expand both its membership and its remit, relentlessly.

According to NATO, official expenditure by its members on the military is expected to reach US$ 1.5 trillion in 2024.(1) The big spenders, led by the USA, do not declare all their military expenditure, for instance not counting military support to Ukraine and Israel, or intelligence-gathering, or bills for 'supplementary military expenditure'. As a result, the real figure is around $2 trillion or 2% of Global Product spent by NATO on its military. Official world military expenditure increased by 7% from 2022 to 2023 and will exceed $2.5 trillion in 2024.(2) Real military expenditure is now over US$ 3 trillion dollars—over 3% of Global Product, equal to the entire GDP of Africa—of which between 60% and 2/3 is spent by NATO members. Such figures do not include the enormous death and destruction wrought in our world's current batch of wars, in Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan and so on (it's a long list...).

NATO's recent meeting in Washington to celebrate its 75th anniversary has produced two clear outcomes. Firstly, it blocked the path to peace in Ukraine with the following sentence:

"... [W]e will continue to support [Ukraine] on its irreversible path to full Euro-Atlantic integration, including NATO membership." (3)

Insisting that 'Russia bears sole responsibility for the war in Ukraine' (we hear this constant refrain that Russia's invasion was 'unprovoked'), NATO thus denies there is any logical cause for the war, and thus any logical diplomatic solution.

In NATO's view, it is Russia that 'seeks to fundamentally reconfigure the Euro-Atlantic security architecture'.  While it is generally well-understood, and clearly stated by President Putin for many years now, that relentless NATO expansion eventually provoked Russia's catastrophic invasions, beginning in 2014, NATO asserts that it is Russia that is seeking to fundamentally reconfigure security. In NATO's view, it is apparently not due to their continuous expansion up to Russia's borders over recent decades, including the positioning of nuclear missile launchers in Romania and plans to put them elsewhere. It is not in spite of Russia's repeated protests for years at that expansion, now continuing with the addition of Finland, Sweden and -- well -- supposedly Ukraine. It is not, either, because of NATO's betrayal of the Minsk peace accords which Ukraine signed with Russia after its first invasion in 2014. NATO's logic is a little difficult to follow.

Secondly, while 'NATO' stands for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, it now clearly seeks to extend its remit worldwide:

"We will meet with the leadership of Australia, Japan, New Zealand, and the Republic of Korea ... to discuss common security challenges and areas of cooperation.  The Indo-Pacific is important for NATO, given that developments in that region directly affect Euro-Atlantic security.  We welcome the continued contributions of our Asia-Pacific partners to Euro-Atlantic security." 

China is of course not called 'China' but 'the PRC,' following a long tradition of using any available acronym to diabolize its foes (the USSR, the DPRK, the former GDR and so on...). It accuses China of cooperating economically with Russia and insinuates (without, of course, any evidence), that China supports Russia's manufacture of weapons (which Beijing vehemently denies). China, remember, has not recognized Russia's acquired territories in Ukraine and has made a 12-point peace proposal that was coolly received by Russia and Ukraine alike. All the while, NATO itself makes solemn commitments to continue supplying Ukraine directly with vast quantities of supposedly advanced weapons. In short, NATO's world is black and white, with themselves as the good guys and everyone opposed as just plain diabolical. Military, not diplomatic, solutions are the way forward, with considerable, ominous emphasis placed in the Summit Declaration on the importance of NATO's nuclear weapons.

Most NATO member-countries abhor the US domestic policy of allowing its citizens to own many guns and tote them around in public. However, they do not seem to realize the same principle—that too many guns is dangerous—applies equally in the international community.

No group of countries in human history has every been safer than NATO is today. With most of the world's military power grouped together, these 32 countries are invincible and should all be sleeping very well indeed. Instead, they fret about phantom risks, pursue expansion worldwide, and continuously provoke their perceived foes, despite their smaller capabilities.

NATO places enormous emphasis on greater and greater military expenditure, particularly on new equipment, and almost all members are currently increasing their 'defense' budgets. NATO's plans include the addition of up to 50 more brigades or 250,000 additional troops, and a possible increase of 25% in members' minimum expenditure to a historic high of 2.5% of a member's GDP. This is despite the fact that NATO's military expenditure already amounts to 4% of their combined GDP of over US$ 50 trillion, which is half of Global Product (and not less than 2% of their GDP as it is frequently portrayed.) It also seeks to deploy nuclear and hyper-sonic weapons closer and closer to the borders of its perceived foes, citing such major risks as the potential of North Korea launching an inter-continental nuclear attack—the excuse given for putting nuclear capable missile launchers in Romania.

If your already-very-well-armed neighbour keeps buying more and more guns, and prowling with them at your fence line, it makes you nervous. It makes you want to get better-armed yourself, or at least put an extra lock on the door. But NATO acts as if they do not understand this. Because they are so clearly 'the good guys', everyone else—even their declared enemies—should all feel comfortable as they continuously expand annihilation capabilities right up to their borders. This includes those new American nuclear missile launchers in Romania, planned American (nuclear-capable) missile launchers in Germany in 2026, an American nuclear-armed sub parked in South Korea (with over a 100 warheads ready to fire), eight nuclear submarines for Australia, and eight new American military bases in the Philippines (the list of such initiatives goes on and on). When China or others then increase their own defense capabilities, NATO expresses 'concern' and uses this as an excuse for still further military buildup.

While NATO portrays itself as 'defensive' it has never had to defend itself.(4) In fact, since the dissolution of the Soviet Union—collective defense against whom, remember, was it's raison d'être—it has invaded Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan, wreaking huge and pointless death and destruction on all three; illegally conducted 'humanitarian bombing' in Serbia (a new concept); and conducted numerous other 'anti-terrorist operations' around the world. In recent years, NATO has also been actively discussing 'its role' in the Taiwan Straight. And while much of the Declaration talks about Ukraine (1200 words), or even Asia—so far from the Atlantic—the words 'Gaza', 'Palestine', 'Lebanon' or 'Israel' are not mentioned. NATO, it seems, prefers not to mention that particular war, so near its own borders.

Nefarious NATO activities are not making our world a safer place. Not at all. They are making it more dangerous by continuously raising the stakes, thus systematically destabilizing the balance among competing security interests in different places around the globe. What would make the world safer is diplomacy—the vigorous pursuit of reasoned out, negotiated solutions to security problems and wars, based on compromise and the pursuit of lasting peace. This would require recognizing that the security concerns of others are also legitimate, including those of Russia, China, Iran and so on (it's another long list).

Unfortunately, nowhere in the 5,300 words of NATO's Summit Declaration—not once—do the words 'diplomacy' or 'negotiations' or 'talks' appear. Apparently, they feel there is no need for compromise on their part or genuine negotiations with other parties. Since they are entirely in the right about everything, and their foes all entirely in the wrong about everything, there is no need to even talk to them. Instead, NATO figures, what the world needs to be safer is—more guns!

______________ 1) NATO (June 2024), Press Release: Defense Expenditure of NATO Countries (2014-2024), https://www.nato.int/nato_static_fl2014/assets/pdf/2024/6/pdf/240617-def-exp-2024-en.pdf accessed 12 July 2024. 2) SIPRI (22 April 2024), Global military spending surges amid war, rising tensions and insecurity.

https://www.sipri.org/media/press-release/2024/global-military-spending-surges-amid-war-rising-tensions-and-insecurity accessed 12 July 2024. SIPRI's latest figure is for 2023, at $2.443 trillion. Using NATO projections for 2024 we can see official expenditure will exceed $2.5 trillion this year.

3) NATO (10 July 2024), Washington Summit Declaration issued by the Heads of State and Government participating in the meeting of the North Atlantic Council in Washington, D.C. 10 July 2024 https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/official_texts_227678.htm

4) In fact, the only time NATO has even claimed to defend itself was Operation Display Deterrence, for six days from 26 February to 3 May, 2003, in which it claimed was 'border defense' to deter 'Iraq aggression against Turkey' during the Iraq War. NATO, however, had invaded Iraq and not the other way around.