NATO just concluded its annual Summit in Washington DC. While celebrating its 75th anniversary of “service to the world,” NATO issued its 38-point Washington Declaration. Point by point, the declaration outlines NATO’s most aggressive and provocative strategy yet for fulfilling its three core tasks of “deterrence and defense, crisis prevention and management, and cooperative security.” Contradicting its self-declared title as a defensive alliance, NATO shows how in pursuing its three core tasks it is actually gearing up for war on three named fronts–against Russia, against Iran, and against China and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea)–and making the world more unsafe, unstable and violent for the people of the world.
Deterrence and defense: NATO-speak for nuclear build-up, massing troops and weapons in member countries, and spending billions to modernize weapons NATO says that “Nuclear deterrence is the cornerstone of Alliance security,” making the twisted argument that security is dependent on the very weapons that pose the greatest annihilative threat to life on the planet. With the Washington Declaration, NATO continues to push its members to modernize and expand their nuclear arsenals. Hypocritically, NATO calls for the complete denuclearization of North Korea and for the prevention of the building of a nuclear weapon by Iran. NATO’s modernization doesn’t stop at nuclear weapons, but also “further accelerating the modernisation of our collective defense,” which includes “battle decisive munitions and air and missile defense… new technologies and innovation...air surveillance capability… Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear defense capabilities required to effectively operate in all environments.” Is it any wonder that NATO this week conducted the Defence Industry Forum with special guests from weapons corporations and launched the “Drone Coalition,” signing a new Memorandum of Understanding pledging $48.8 million to supply one million drones to Ukraine? As NATO continues to identify Russia as “the most significant and direct threat to Allies’ security,” it has ramped up “more frequent and large-scale training and exercises,...including through Steadfast Defender 24, NATO’s largest military exercise in a generation,” that mobilized over 90,000 troops. The military drills have also extended into the Arctic, with NATO wasting no time in involving its newest members, Finland and Sweden, by conducting exercise Nordic Response with 20,000 personnel including from the two countries this year. Modernization and expansion come at a cost–literally. NATO boasts that the “Allies are stepping up: defence expenditure by European Allies and Canada has grown by 18% in 2024, the biggest increase in decades. They are also investing more in modern capabilities, and increasing their contributions to NATO operations, missions, and activities.” Altogether, NATO members poured a total of $1.34 trillion into military spending just in 2023. When these countries spend more of their budgets on the military, they have less for their people’s basic needs, leading to more wealth inequality, more instability, and less security. Instead of crisis prevention and management, NATO incites and prolongs crises NATO claims it “does not seek confrontation, and poses no threat to Russia.” But NATO was founded from the start to contain Russia, relentlessly adding more member countries closer and closer to Russia’s borders after promises to not do so, and enabling the US to use existing or build new bases to surround Russia. With the addition of Finland and Sweden into its ranks, the alliance is positioned literally on Russia’s doorstep and covers the entire Arctic region with the exception of Russia itself. Although Russia has unequivocally stated that it would not tolerate Ukraine joining NATO, the Washington Declaration makes crystal clear that NATO is dead set on crossing that red line by saying, “Ukraine’s future is in NATO…we will continue to support [Ukraine] on its irreversible path to full Euro-Atlantic integration, including NATO membership.” The stubborn insistence that Ukraine will join NATO preempts any chance for a diplomatic solution. But the longer the US-NATO proxy war continues, the more money NATO members will continue to shell out to keep providing military equipment, assistance and training to Ukraine; the just-inked “Pledge of Long-Term Security Assistance for Ukraine” commits a minimum of Eu40 billion annually. NATO claims “Terrorism, in all its forms and manifestations, is the most direct asymmetric threat to the security of our citizens and to international peace and prosperity.” But it is NATO with the US leading the charge which has manufactured terrorist threats and used the War on Terror doctrine to wage state terrorism on the people and counter-insurgency on legitimate liberation movements. It was to come to the “collective defense” of the US that Article 5 of the NATO pledge was first invoked to draw NATO into the invasion and over 20-year occupation of Afghanistan. Cooperative security means new webs of military cooperation and big bucks for the war profiteers NATO has its tentacles in every region of the world, using special designations (i.e., “Global Partners”), offices and outposts (i.e., in Japan and announced to soon be in Ukraine), and cooperative agreements with dozens of countries in strategic locations. At this year’s Summit, NATO announced the opening of a new NATO office in Jordan, corresponding with its view to “foster greater security and stability in the Middle East and Africa;” announced new Defense Cooperation Agreements (DCA) between the US and Denmark, Finland, and Sweden, in the expanding Arctic frontier; and held meetings with leaders of Australia, Japan, New Zealand, and South Korea, to discuss China’s continuing “challenge [to] our interests, security and values” in the Indo-Pacific. With its expansion, NATO brags that it has “undertaken the biggest reinforcement of our collective defense in a generation. We continue to enhance NATO’s deterrence and defense against all threats and challenges, in all domains, and in multiple strategic directions across the Euro-Atlantic area…Providing the necessary forces, capabilities, resources, and infrastructure for our new defense plans, to be prepared for high-intensity and multi-domain collective defense.” This rhetoric could be lifted straight from the US’s own strategic defense plans for Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2), a sweeping campaign to create a wholly connected military, with information and forces coordinated across land, air, sea, space and cyber terrains. By the Pentagon’s own admission, JADC2 would likely have no end–meaning no end to the billions of dollars wasted on the new technology. NATO is inherently a tool to wage war for imperialism. NATO 2024’s focus on “bolstering allied defense and deterrence; support for Ukraine; and strengthening NATO's global partnerships” means war and misery for the people. As long as NATO exists, there will be no peace in the world. The only solution is for the people to resist NATO and fight for a just and lasting peace until it is achieved!
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