Harry Targ
Original essay on NATO
posted on May 12, 2012
(To
quote a tired but true slogan, “war is not the answer.” The Russian invasion of
Ukraine threatens the lives and property of Ukraine’s, the lives of Russian
soldiers and protesters, raises fears of an escalation of war throughout Europe,
and raises the danger of nuclear war.
“We” need to demand “back-channel negotiations” as occurred during the Cuban missile crisis, diplomacy at the
United Nations, and summit meetings of diplomats from Russia, Ukraine, and
Europe. And conversations on the agenda should include forbidding Ukraine from
joining NATO, establishing regional autonomy for Ukraine citizens who want it, pulling
back NATO bases from Eastern European states, and/or abolishing NATO itself
because the reason for its creation in the first place, defending against an
attacking Soviet Union, no longer an issue.
The "we” at this moment could be a
resurgent international peace movement, taking inspiration from peace activists
in Russia and around the world. As horrible as this moment is, it is potentially
a “teachable moment,” a moment when peace becomes part of the global
progressive agenda again and people all around the world can begin to examine existing
international institutions such as NATO.
The essay below about NATO remains an
important part of the story. And while we react with shock and condemnation of
the Russian invasion of Ukraine, whatever the complicated and understandable
motivations, we need to be familiar with the historic context of the very
dangerous warfare that we are living through now.
As James Goldgeier wrote over twenty years ago on a Brookings Institute web page: “The dean of America’s Russia experts, George F. Kennan, had called the expansion of NATO into Central Europe ‘the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-Cold War era.’ Kennan, the architect of America’s post-World War II strategy of containment of the Soviet Union, believed, as did most other Russia experts in the United States, that expanding NATO would damage beyond repair U.S. efforts to transform Russia from enemy to partner.” James Goldgeier, Brookings Institute, “The U.S. Decision to Enlarge NATO: How, When, Why, and What Next?“, June 1, 1999).
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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 1999 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.
