Harry
Targ
During World
War II an “unnatural alliance” was created between the United States, Great
Britain, and the former Soviet Union. What brought the three countries together,
the emerging imperial giant, the declining capitalist power, and the first
socialist state, was the shared need to defeat fascism in Europe. Rhetorically,
the high point of collaboration was reflected in the agreements made at the
Yalta Conference, in February, 1945 three months before the German armies were
defeated.
At Yalta, the
great powers made decisions to facilitate democratization of former Nazi regimes
in Eastern Europe, a “temporary” division of Germany for occupation purposes,
and a schedule of future Soviet participation in the ongoing war against Japan.
Leaders of the three states returned to their respective countries celebrating
the “spirit of Yalta,” what would be a post-war world order in which they would
work through the new United Nations system to modulate conflict in the
world.
Within two
years, after conflicts over Iran with the Soviet Union, the Greek Civil War, the
replacement of wartime President Franklin Roosevelt with Harry Truman, and
growing challenges to corporate rule in the United States by militant labor,
Truman declared in March, 1947 that the United States and its allies were going
to be engaged in a long-term struggle against the forces of “International
Communism.” The post-war vision of cooperation was reframed as a struggle of the
“free world” against “tyranny.”
In addition
to Truman’s ideological crusade, his administration launched an economic program
to rebuild parts of Europe, particularly what would become West Germany, as
capitalist bastions against the ongoing popularity of Communist parties
throughout the region. Along with the significant program of reconstructing
capitalism in Europe and linking it by trade, investment, finance, and debt to
the United States, the U.S. with its new allies constructed a military alliance
that would be ready to fight the Cold War against International
Communism.
Representatives of Western European countries met in Brussels in
1948 to establish a program of common defense and one year later with the
addition of the United States and Canada, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization
(NATO) was formed. The new NATO charter, inspired largely by a prior Western
Hemisphere alliance, the Rio Pact (1947), proclaimed that “an armed attack
against one or more of them…shall be considered an attack against them all…”
which would lead to an appropriate response. The Charter called for cooperation
and military preparedness among the 12 signatories. After the Soviet Union
detonated its first atomic bomb and the Korean War started, NATO pushed ahead
with the development of a common military command structure with General
Eisenhower as the first “Supreme Allied Commander.”
After the
founding of NATO and its establishment as a military arm of the West, the Truman
administration adopted the policy recommendations in National Security Council
Document 68 (NSC 68) in 1950 which declared that military spending for the
indefinite future would be the number one priority of every presidential
administration. As Western European economies reconstructed, Marshall Plan aid
programs were shut down and military assistance to Europe was launched. Greece
and Turkey joined NATO in 1952, and fueling the flames of Cold War, West Germany
was admitted to NATO in 1955. (This stimulated the Soviet Union to construct its
own alliance system, the Warsaw Pact, with countries from Eastern
Europe).
During the
Cold War NATO continued as the only unified Western military command structure
against the “Soviet threat.” While
forces and funds only represented a portion of the U.S. global military
presence, the alliance constituted a “trip wire” signifying to the Soviets that
any attack on targets in Western Europe would set off World War III. NATO thus
provided the deterrent threat of “massive retaliation” in the face of
first-strike attack.
With the
collapse of the former Warsaw Pact regimes between 1989 and 1991, the tearing
down of the symbolic Berlin Wall in 1989, and finally the collapse of the Soviet
Union itself in 1991, the purpose for maintaining a NATO alliance presumably had
passed. However, this was not to be.
In the next
twenty years after the Soviet collapse, membership in the alliance doubled. New members included most of the former
Warsaw Pact countries. The functions and activities of NATO were redefined. NATO
programs included air surveillance during the crises accompanying the Gulf War
and the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia. In 1995, NATO sent 60,000
troops to Bosnia and in 1998-99 it carried out brutal bombing campaigns in
Serbia with 38,000 sorties. NATO forces
became part of the U.S. led military coalition that launched the war on
Afghanistan in 2001. In 2011 a massive NATO air war on Libya played a critical
role in the overthrow of the Gaddafi regime.
An official
history of NATO described the changes in its mission: “In 1991 as in 1949, NATO was to be the
foundation stone for a larger, pan-European security architecture.” The
post-Cold War mission of NATO combines “military might, diplomacy, and
post-conflict stabilization.”
The NATO
history boldly concludes that the alliance was founded on defense in the 1950s
and détente with the Soviet Union in the 1960s. With the collapse of Communism
in the 1990s it became a “tool for the stabilization of Eastern Europe and
Central Asia through incorporation of new Partners and Allies.” The
21st century vision of NATO has expanded further: “extending peace
through the strategic projection of security.” This new mission, the history
said, was forced upon NATO because of the failure of nation-states and
extremism.
Reviewing
this brief history of NATO, observers can reasonably draw different conclusions
about NATO’s role in the world than from those who celebrate its world role.
First, NATO’s mission to defend Europe from aggression against “International
Communism” was completed with the “fall of Communism.” Second, the alliance was
regional, that is pertaining to Europe and North America, and now it is global.
Third, NATO was about security and defense. Now it is about global
transformation. Fourth, as its biggest
supporter in terms of troops, supplies and budget (22-25%), NATO is an
instrument of United States foreign policy. Fifth, as a creation of Europe and
North America, it has become an enforcer of the interests of member countries
against, what Vijay Prashad calls, the
“darker nations” of Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. Sixth, NATO has become
the 21st century military instrumentality of global imperialism. And
finally, there is growing evidence that larger and larger portions of the
world’s people have begun to stand up against NATO.