Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Why Not Simply Abolish NATO?
[NATO's goal is]
"to keep the Russians
out, the Americans in, and the Germans down."
Lord Ismay, first NATO
Secretary-General
"We should
immediately call a meeting of the North Atlantic Council to assess Georgia's
security and review measures NATO can take to contribute to stabilizing this
very dangerous situation."
Sen. John
McCain, (August 8, 2008)
"If we
would have preemptively worked with Russia, with Georgia, making sure that NATO
had the kind of ability and the presence and the engagement, we could have
perhaps avoided this” [The
invasion of S. Ossetia by Georgia and the subsequent Russian response].
Tom Daschle,
former Senate Majority Leader and adviser to Sen. Barack Obama, (August 17,
2008)
"Of
all the enemies to public liberty, war is perhaps the most to be dreaded
because it comprises and develops the germ of every other."
James
Madison (1751-1836), fourth American President
But since 1991,
the Soviet empire no longer exists and Russia has been cooperating economically
with Western European countries, supplying them with gas and oil, and all types
of commodities. This has increased European economic interdependence and thus
greatly reduced the need for such a defensive military alliance above and
beyond European countries' own self-defense military system.
But the U.S.
government does not see things that way. It would prefer keeping its role as
Europe's patronizing protector and as the world's sole superpower. NATO is a convenient
tool to that effect. But maybe the world should be worried about those who go
around the planet with a can of gasoline in one hand and a box of matches in
the other, pretending to sell fire insurance.
As of now, it is a
fact that the U.S. government and the American foreign affairs nomenklatura see
NATO as an important tool of American foreign policy of intervention around the
world. Since many American
politicians do not anymore support de facto the United Nations as the supreme
international organization devoted to maintaining peace in the world, a
U.S.-controlled NATO would seem to be, in their eyes, a most attractive
substitute to the United Nations for providing a legal front for their
otherwise illegal offensive military undertakings around the world. They prefer
to control totally a smaller organization such as NATO, even though it has
become a redundant institution, than to have to make compromises at the U.N.,
where the U.S nevertheless has one of the five vetoes on the Security Council.
That is the
strong rationale behind the proposals to reshape, reorient and enlarge NATO, in
order to transform it into a flexible tool of American foreign policy. This is another
demonstration that redundant institutions have a life of their own. Indeed,
when the purpose for which they have been initially established no longer
exists, new purposes are invented to keep them going.
Regarding
NATO, the plan is to turn it into an aggrandized offensive imperial U.S.-dominated
political and military alliance against the rest of the world. According to plan,
NATO would be enlarged in the Central-Eastern European region to include not
only most of the former members of the Warsaw Pact (Poland, the Czech
Republic, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Romania, Albania and Hungary) and many of the former republics of the Soviet
Union (Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Georgia and Ukraine),
but also in Asia to include Japan, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, and possibly admit Israel in the Middle
East. Today the initially 12-member NATO has mushroomed into a 26-member
organization. In the future, if the U.S. has its way, NATO could be a 40-member
organization.
In the United
States, both the Republicans and the Democrats see the old NATO transformed
into this new offensive military alliance as a good (neocon) idea to promote
American interests around the world, as well as those of its close allies, such
as Israel. It is not only an idea actively promoted by the neocon Bush-Cheney
administration, but also by the neoconservative advisers to both 2008 American
presidential candidates, Sen. John McCain
and Sen. Barack Obama.
Indeed, both 2008 presidential candidates are enthusiastic military
interventionists, and this is essentially because both rely on advisers
originating from the same neocon
camp.
For instance, the
rush with which the Bush-Cheney recklessly promised NATO membership to the
former Soviet republic of Georgia
and American military support and supply is a good example of how NATO is
viewed in Washington D.C. by both main American political parties. For one,
Republican presidential candidate John McCain envisages a new world order built
around a neocon-inspired "League of
Democracies" that would de
facto replace the United Nations and through which the United States would rule the
world. Secondly, Sen. Barack Obama's position is not that far from Sen.
McCain's foreign policy proposals. Indeed, Sen. Obama advocates the use of U.S. military force
and multilateral military interventions in regional crises, for “humanitarian
purposes”, even if by so doing, the United Nations must be bypassed.
Therefore, if he ever gains power, it is a safe bet that Sen. Obama would not
have any qualms about adopting Sen. McCain's view of the world. For example,
both presidential candidates would probably support the removal of the no
“first strike” clause from the NATO convention. It can be taken for
granted that with either politician in the White House, the world would be a
less lawful and a less safe place, and would not be more advanced than it has
become under the lawless Bush-Cheney administration.
However, it is
difficult to see how this new offensive role for NATO would be in the interests
of European countries or of Canada. Western Europe in particular has everything
to fear from a resurgence of the Cold War with Russia, and possibly with China.
The transformation of NATO from a North Atlantic defensive military
organization into a U.S.-led worldwide offensive military organization is going
to have profound international geopolitical consequences around the world, but
especially for Europe. Europe has a strong economic attraction for Russia. Then
why embark upon the aggressive Bush-Cheney administration's policy of
encircling Russia militarily by expanding NATO right up to Russia's doorstep
and by placing a missile shields right next to Russia? Wouldn't it be better
for Europe to develop harmonious economic and political relations with Russia?
Why prepare the next war?
And as for Canada,
under the neocon minority Harper government,
it has sadly become a de facto American colony as far as foreign affairs are concerned, and this,
without any serious debate or referendum to that effect within Canada. The last
thing Canada needs is to go further on that mined road.
In conclusion, it
would seem that the humanist idea of having peace, free trade and international
law as the foundations of the world order is being cast aside in favor of a
return to great power politics and gunboat diplomacy. This is a 100-year
setback.
It is a shame.
Rodrigue Tremblay is professor emeritus of
economics at the University of Montreal and can be reached at rodrigue.tremblay@yahoo.com
He is the author of the book 'The
New American Empire'
Visit his blog site at: www.thenewamericanempire.com/blog.
Author's Website: www.thenewamericanempire.com/
Check Dr.
Tremblay's coming book "The Code for Global Ethics" at: www.TheCodeForGlobalEthics.com/
Posted,
Wednesday, August 20, 2008, at 5:30 am
Email to a friend:
http://www.TheNewAmericanEmpire.com/tremblay=1093
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