 ParaPumping up NATO with lofty words Stronger, bigger, and more united than ever? Secretary Blinken self-gratulatory view on the eve of NATO’s 75th anniversary: “The work tomorrow, the work at the summit is really about the next 75 and everything that we need to do now to ensure that this Alliance remains what it has been – as Jens [Stoltenberg] said, the most successful in history – a defensive alliance with no designs on the territory of any other country but with a determination to protect the territory of each of its members, and to do it in a way that is – has been unique in human history, based on the principle that we have each other’s backs, that if one of is the victim of aggression, all of us will be in to help. And that’s the most effective way to actually prevent aggression from happening in the first place, and to create an environment in each of our countries where people don’t have to worry about security in that sense and they can make the most of their lives and reach their full potential.” (state.gov.) No surprise that Russia has a different view of the alliance. Foreign Ministry spokeswomen saying “Today, in relations with Russia, the bloc has returned to Cold War settings” arguing that the NATO alliance had no place in today’s multipolar world. In one sense she is right isn’t she, today NATO – Russia relations have certainly returned to a cold war, a cold war that is as close as it has ever been to a hot war. And as for Blinken’s argument about an alliance preventing aggression and creating security, the opposite seems to be the case today. In fact, the foremost or perhaps only reason for seeing a need for the NATO alliance today is that that it wasn’t abolished, when it had become obsolete. At the time after dissolution of the Soviet Union, the opening up of Eastern Europe, the German re-unification and the possibility of an entente with Russia, supported by a belief in “Wandel durch Handel/Wandel durch Annäherung.” To see what happened take a look at these topics: NATO obsolescence years ago U.S. – bully in the schoolyard of nations NATO resuscitation with eastward expansion U.S. getting caught in its own trap The trap clicking shut with a world war looming NATO obsolescence years ago In 2017 President-elect Donald Trump certainly got the attention of political leaders in Europe when he said that NATO was obsolete. Apparently, his concern was not Russia, but the Europeans. They did not contribute their fair share to NATO. And he was right, wasn’t he? The NATO umbrella over the members countries in Europe was first and foremost a U.S. umbrella. Paid to large degree by U.S. tax payers. Trump’s grievances were perhaps not really with NATO, but with its freeriding European members. Later, in 2019, President Macron argued that NATO was “brain dead.” He was worried that Europe could no longer depend on the U.S. Arguing that Europe stood on “the edge of a precipice”, and that it needed to start thinking of itself strategically as a geopolitical power. Otherwise, we would “no longer be in control of our destiny.” (The Economist November 7, 2019). President Macron later argued that Europe should gain “military sovereignty” and open a dialogue with Russia. Failing to do so would be a great mistake. But NATO had lost its purpose much earlier and for a different reason. With the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the opening up of Eastern Europe, it had lost the reason for its own existence in the 1990s. According to NATO’s own historic reasoning “the Alliance’s creation was part of a broader effort to serve three purposes: deterring Soviet expansionism, forbidding the revival of nationalist militarism in Europe through a strong North American presence on the continent, and encouraging European political integration.” (nato.int) Looking at the 1990’s one might argue that there was no longer a need to deter Soviet expansionism. The Soviet Union was rapidly dissolving and descending into something that could not be seen to as threat to Europe or the U.S. Nationalist militarism in Europe had long disappeared, and European political integration was seen as having a glowing future, now that the Soviet Union had disappeared and Eastern Europe was poised to participate in the European political integration. Remnants of former times only remained in the Balkans. This is how a former CIA analyst and areas expert on Russia, with 30 years of experience, saw the time when the Iron Curtain came down: “As the Iron Curtain came down and the Soviet empire began disintegrating, the opportunity to construct a post-Cold War peace was there for the taking. U.S. Secretary of State James Baker assured Gorbachev in a Feb. 9, 1990 meeting that, following the unification of Germany, NATO would expand “not one inch eastward”… It’s difficult now to describe the feeling of those halcyon days. We who had chosen careers in the U.S. security apparatus enjoyed a sense of euphoria. The Cold War was coming to a peaceful conclusion without a catastrophic conflict, and we had played a small part in that historic turn of events. After the initial celebration, we increasingly realized that the world we had been born into had reached its end. It was time to rethink what national security meant in what was already being described by foreign policy wonks as a “unipolar world,” with the United States as the lone and dominant world power.” (Allensworth, Chronicles Magazine, March 2024). In other words, time to dismantle a NATO, as its original purpose had disappeared. Time for thinking of a whole new peace architecture in Europe, involving not the least the remnants off the former Soviet Union. Alas, although “the NATO bureaucracy lost the reason for its existence in the early 1990s”… [it] “carried on anyway, as bureaucracies are prone to do.” (Allensworth). Instead of a new peace architecture involving a Russia on equal footing, a totally obsolete NATO carried on, but at least peace was in the air, and thus NATO found a limited purpose for itself in creating something called “Partnerships for Peace” under its auspices. “On 27 May 1997, NATO leaders and President Boris Yeltsin signed the NATO-Russia Founding Act, expressing their determination to “build together a lasting and inclusive peace in the Euro-Atlantic area on the principles of democracy and cooperative security.” The Act established the goal of cooperation in areas such as peacekeeping, arms control, counter-terrorism, counter-narcotics and theatre missile defence. In the Founding Act, NATO and Russia agreed to base their cooperation on the principles of human rights and civil liberties, refraining from the threat or use of force against each other or any other state.” (nato.int) Meanwhile the U.S. as the dominant force in NATO had it its own ulterior motives and plans for upholding and enlarging NATO as we shall see. U.S. – bully in the schoolyard of nations After 1990 that the U.S. realized that it had become the undisputed hegemon, the superstate, able to dominate everywhere. Intoxicated with its power it made plans for a “Pax Americana. Just listen to this: "Our first objective is to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival. This is a dominant consideration underlying the new regional defense strategy and requires that we endeavor to prevent any hostile power from dominating a region whose resources would, under consolidated control, be sufficient to generate global power. These regions include Western Europe, East Asia, the territory of the former Soviet Union, and Southwest Asia … There are three additional aspects to this objective: First the U.S must show the leadership necessary to establish and protect a new order that holds the promise of convincing potential competitors that they need not aspire to a greater role or pursue a more aggressive posture to protect their legitimate interests. Second, in the non-defense areas, we must account sufficiently for the interests of the advanced industrial nations to discourage them from challenging our leadership or seeking to overturn the established political and economic order. Finally, we must maintain the mechanisms for deterring potential competitors from even aspiring to a larger regional or global role.” (pbs.org). This is an excerpt from a Defence Planning Guidance in February 1992. A secret memorandum by the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, Paul Wolfowitz. The secret Wolfowitz 1992 memorandum, now partly de-classified, states that “after the collapse of the Soviet Union the United States may be said to be the world’s sole superpower, enjoying a predominance on the world political-military stage that is unprecedented in the last century” (Wolfowitz, National Security Archive, gwu.edu). But it had a choice… “With the Soviet Union gone, the United States had a choice. It could capitalize on the euphoria of the moment by nurturing cooperative relations and developing multilateral structures to help guide the global realignment then taking place; or it could consolidate its power and pursue a strategy of unilateralism and global dominance. It chose the latter course.” (Wolfowitz memorandum). Also, in relation to Europe, as it can gleaned from the memorandum: “The end of the Warsaw Pact, unilateral Soviet force reductions, and the CFE agreement [Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe 1992] go a long way towards increasing stability and reducing Soviet military threat to U.S. interests in Europe. The emergence of democratic, increasingly Western-oriented states in Eastern Europe is a development of immense strategic significance, and it is critical to U.S. interests in Europe to assist the new democracies in East/Central Europe to consolidate their democratic institutions and national independence. In this regard we must give particular attention to the problems of security and political and economic stability in Eastern Europe, in order to remove the potential for regional instability or Soviet reentry into the region.” (Wolfowitz memorandum). The memorandum foresees that developments in Eastern Europe will lead to different kinds of friction and an “appreciable risk of conflict” in the future. Conflicts that may not be contained to the conflicting parties alone, meaning presumable that the U.S. (and NATO) might become involved. Therefore, the memorandum argues, “A substantial American presence in Europe and continued cohesion within the western Alliance remain vital. This presence will provide reassurance and stability as the new democracies of Eastern Europe that are integrated into a larger and evolving Europe. While its mission may be changed in this new area, the North Atlantic Alliance remains indispensable to peace and stability in Europe.” (Wolfowitz memorandum). An article based upon classified material in the Washington Post in March 1992 entitled “Keeping the U.S. first,” reveals some of the scenarios that seem to have been almost prescient. Envisioning for instance a conflict involving an American led defense of Lithuania and Poland against an invasion by Russia. NATO resuscitation with eastward expansion Declassified material now found in a National Security Archive show at least part of the story of broken promises behind the NATO expansion eastwards. When U.S. secretary of State James Baker met with Mikhail Gorbachev on February 9, 1990, he was one in a long row of Western leaders to assure the new Russia that NATO had no plans for an eastward expansion. “Not one inch eastward” Baker assured Gorbachev. Three times Baker is said to have assured Gorbachev that there would be no NATO expansion: “Neither the President nor I intend to extract any unilateral advantages from the processes that are taking place, … not only for the Soviet Union but for other European countries as well it is important to have guarantees that if the United States keeps its presence in Germany within the framework of NATO, not an inch of NATO’s present military jurisdiction will spread in an eastern direction.“ (National Security Archive). During an Open Skies Conference in Ottawa in 1992, Baker also assured Russian Foreign Minister Shevardnadze: “And if U[nited] G[ermany] stays in NATO, we should take care about non-expansion of its jurisdiction to the east.” (Notes from the meeting, National Security Archive). “The documents show that multiple national leaders were considering and rejecting Central and Eastern European membership in NATO as early 1990 and through 1991, that discussions of NATO in the context of German unification negotiations in 1990 were not at all narrowly limited to the status of East German territory, and that subsequent Soviet and Russian complaints about being misled about NATO expansion were founded in written contemporaneous memcons and telcons at the highest levels.” (National Security Archive). German Foreign Minister, Hans-Dietrich Genscher, heavily involved in the German Re-unification process, made clear “that the changes in Eastern Europe and the German unification process must not lead to an ‘impairment of Soviet security interests.’ Therefore, NATO should rule out an ‘expansion of its territory towards the east, i.e. moving it closer to the Soviet borders.” (National Security Archive). Genscher may have been sincere and believed in the guarantees, others less so. At a decisive meeting in Moscow on February 10, 1990, between Chancellor Kohl and Gorbachev, Kohl achieved “Soviet assent in principle to German unification in NATO, as long as NATO did not expand to the east.” (National Security Archive). French President Mitterand also chimed in, arguing that he was personally in favour “gradually dismantling the military blocs” and demanded that the West should “certainly not refuse to detail the guarantees that he [President Gorbachev] would have a right to expect for his country’s security.” Prime Minister Thatcher seemed to be in favour of a transformation of NATO “towards a more political, less militarily threatening, alliance instead as a kind of umbrella and giving Russia the assurance that its security would be assured.” Finally, President Bush in a phone call assured Gorbachev: “So what we tried to do was to take account of your concerns expressed to me and others, and we did it in the following ways: by our joint declaration on non-aggression; in our invitation to you to come to NATO; in our agreement to open NATO to regular diplomatic contact with your government and those of the Eastern European countries … We also fundamentally changed our military approach on conventional and nuclear forces. We conveyed the idea of an expanded, stronger CSCE with new institutions in which the USSR can share and be part of the new Europe.” (George H.W. Bush Presidential Library). Thus, there were certainly enough verbal and written assurances from Western leaders, that President Gorbachev, and later Russian leaders, were led to believe that NATO would not expand eastwards. Taking a look back at the U.S. Pax Americana visions, one may suspect that the U.S. had ulterior designs for Europa and NATO, “Inside the U.S. government, a different discussion continued, a debate about relations between NATO and Eastern Europe. Opinions differed, but the suggestion from the Defense Department as of October 25, 1990 was to leave “the door ajar” for East European membership in NATO.” Though it seems that this a view was not shared by President Bush in 1990. Later though “leaving the door ajar” later became “an open door,” accompanied by a widening set of invitations to join NATO as we have seen. NATO expansion eastwards “Some say we no longer need NATO because there is no powerful threat to our security now. I say there is no powerful threat in part because NATO is there. And enlargement will help make it stronger. (President Clinton). “In 1991 as in 1949, NATO was to be the foundation stone for a larger, pan-European security architecture. In December 1991, the Allies established the North Atlantic Cooperation Council, renamed the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council in 1997. This forum brought the Allies together with their Central European, Eastern European, and Central Asian neighbours for joint consultations. Many of these newly liberated countries – or partners, as they were soon called – saw a relationship with NATO as fundamental to their own aspirations for stability, democracy, and European integration.” (A short history of NATO-declassified, nato.int). Here NATO found it new raison d'être, its new calling so to speak, given it a renewed vitality. A few years later the first countries from Eastern Europe joined NATO, apart from Eastern Germany that somehow became included in the re-unification. In 1997 President Clinton gave voice to NATO’s new mission: “To build and secure a new Europe, peaceful, democratic, and undivided at last, there must be a new NATO, with new missions, new members, and new partners. We have been building that kind of NATO for the last 3 years with new partners in the Partnership for Peace and NATO's first out-of-area mission in Bosnia. In Paris last week, we took another giant stride forward when Russia entered a new partnership with NATO, choosing cooperation over confrontation, as both sides affirmed that the world is different now. European security is no longer a zero-sum contest between Russia and NATO but a cherished common goal. In a little more than a month, I will join with other NATO leaders in Madrid to invite the first of Europe's new democracies in Central Europe to join our alliance, with the consent of the Senate, by 1999, the 50th anniversary of NATO's founding.” (presidency.ucsb.edu). The expansion eastwards may have been welcomed by the new members as a way to guarantee their inclusion the rest of Europe and the West. To paraphrase former President Clinton, the eastward expansion of NATO will help secure the historic gains of democracy in Europe, and provide a secure climate where freedom, democracy, and prosperity can flourish. It was hope shared by most countries in Europe and the West at the time. At a Washington NATO Summit in 1999 “three former Partners – Czechia, Hungary and Poland – took their seats as full Alliance members following their completion of a political and military reform programme. (A short history of NATO- declassified, nato.int). In March 2004 NATO moved even closer to Russia’s borders. Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia and the three Baltic states Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania became members of NATO. On April fool’s day in 2009, Albania and Croatia became NATO members. Fast forward to June 2017, when Montenegro became a member, and in 2020 Northern Macedonia, after Greece had finally accepted that it could become a member. The next step proved to have been a step to far for the U.S. and NATO. U.S. getting caught in its own trap Instead of a situation in 90’s really advantageous for creating a new security architecture with Russia as an equal partner, we now have proxy war in Ukraine. A proxy war that is more or less a direct result of the resuscitation of a NATO that had become irrelevant. In a sense the resuscitated NATO now seems to be slipping back into its old role as guardian against Russia, forcing unity on its members, and demanding “kriegstüchtigkeit.” Arming itself against self-imagined threat from a Russia that has become the new old enemy. So much for peace after the demise of the Soviet Union. How did that happen? The sad history of NATO and Ukraine At the North Atlantic Council in Bucharest on 3 April 2008 passionate members encouraged Ukraine’s and Georgia’s Euro-Atlantic aspirations for membership in NATO. “We agreed today that these countries will become members of NATO …Today we make clear that we support these countries’ applications for MAP [Membership Action Plan]. Therefore, we will now begin a period of intensive engagement with both at a high political level to address the questions still outstanding pertaining to their MAP applications.” (NATO Bucharest Summit Declaration 2008). Encouragement came from the Bush administration now eager to expand NATO. Ignoring warnings from Russia that Ukrainian member ship would force Russia to treat Ukraine as an enemy. Some western leaders still lacked conviction, with Germany and France blocking Ukrainian membership of NATO, arguing that Ukraine was not ready and perhaps also heeding Russian warnings. French Prime Minister Fillon arguing: “We are opposed to the entry of Georgia and Ukraine because we think that it is not a good answer to the balance of power within Europe and between Europe and Russia.” The issue of NATO membership then lay more or less dormant until the Russian annexation of the Crimea and the fighting in the Donbas. Previous lukewarm and Ukrainian public support for NATO membership slowly changed to public support for membership. Leading to Ukraine’s passionate press for NATO membership. In 2019 “The Ukrainian parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, … approved in its final reading a constitutional amendment that reflects the country's strategic goal of becoming a member of NATO and the European Union.” (Radio Free Europe). When President Zelensky visited President Biden in September 2021, he pressed Biden on the issue of NATO membership saying “I would like to discuss with President Biden here his vision, his government’s vision of Ukraine’s chances to join NATO and the timeframe for this accession, if it is possible; and the role the United States can play being involved in a peaceful settlement in Donbas that we would like to reach.” (The White House). Biden at the time seemed to lack conviction and remained noncommittal. Later becoming more passionate he voiced support for the Ukraine’s wish. In December 2021 Zelensky’s chief of staff told Reuters: "President Biden said very clearly that the decision on Ukraine's accession to NATO is the decision of the Ukrainian people only, this is a sovereign and independent Ukrainian state." An attitude certain to encourage Ukraine and anger Russia. Blind passion and ill-advised belief Is the present war in Ukraine a result of the U.S. almost messianic striving to bring peace and democracy by imprinting its idea of rules-based order upon the rest of the World? A few weeks after the new Secretary of State, Blinken, had been sworn in, he outlined his idea of “A Foreign Policy for the American People.” Saying: “We will renew democracy, because it’s under threat…But we will not promote democracy through costly military interventions or by attempting to overthrow authoritarian regimes by force. We have tried these tactics in the past. However well intentioned, they haven’t worked. They’ve given democracy promotion a bad name.” (Emphasis added). (Secretary of State Blinken, March 3,2021). A year later the U.S. is fighting a proxy war in Ukraine, to save what U.S. sees as a Ukrainian democracy, but perhaps first and foremost to humiliate or overthrow a Russian authoritarian regime by military means. So much for avoiding costly military interventions. How did that happen? When the U.S. Senate in 1998 overwhelmingly approved the eastward expansion of NATO to include Poland, Hungary and the Czech, Republican Senator Joseph Biden Jr. said: “…this, in fact, is the beginning of another 50 years of peace, … "In a larger sense," he added, "we'll be righting an historical injustice forced upon the Poles, Czechs and Hungarians by Joseph Stalin." (Washingtonpost.com). No one listened to warnings of someone like George F. Kennan, the American diplomat and historian, who saw the expansion as a fateful error. “The view, bluntly stated, is that expanding NATO would be the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-cold-war era. Such a decision may be expected to inflame the nationalistic, anti-Western and militaristic tendencies in Russian opinion; to have an adverse effect on the development of Russian democracy; to restore the atmosphere of the cold war to East-West relations, and to impel Russian foreign policy in directions decidedly not to our liking.” (NYT 1996). Wise words, but no match for the U.S. eagerness to bring democracy peace and prosperity to the eastern European states. Especially for the new Biden administration with its inexperienced but aggressive and un-diplomatic believers in Pax Americana. Thus, the question of Ukrainian NATO membership propped up again in 2021. A few days after President Biden had spoken to President Putin in an attempt to defuse the situation at Ukraine’s border, he assured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy that Kyiv's bid to join the NATO military alliance was in its own hands. Russian demands and NATO/U.S. arrogant rejection To Russia Ukrainian NATO membership was unacceptable. Russian grievances and the possibility of Ukraine joining NATO explains why Russia handed the U.S. and NATO a draft proposal for a new treaty on security guarantees (Dated December 17, 2021). Among the proposals is article 6: “All member States of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization commit themselves to refrain from any further enlargement of NATO, including the accession of Ukraine as well as other States.” The leaked written answers to the Russian proposals from NATO and the U.S. gave no indication that Russia’s demands would be taken seriously. Here is part NATO’s reply to article 6 of the Russian Proposal: “All states respecting the right of other states to choose and change security arrangements, and to decide their own future and foreign policy free from outside interference. In this light, we reaffirm our commitment to NATO’s Open Door Policy under Article of the Washington Treaty.” (El País). The U.S. own reply likewise continued to firmly support NATO’s Open Door Policy In his reaction before the invasion of Ukraine, a visibly angry President Putin stated: “I would like to be clear and straightforward: in the current circumstances, when our proposals for an equal dialogue on fundamental issues have actually remained unanswered by the United States and NATO, when the level of threats to our country has increased significantly, Russia has every right to respond in order to ensure its security. That is exactly what we will do.” (en.kremlin.ru). Next, we had the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the strong reaction from U.S., followed a little later more timidly by Europe. The trap clicking shut with a world war looming A few days after Putin’s statement Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24,2022. The U.S. and NATO was drawn into a proxy war with Russia, leading to the re-revitalization of NATO eagerly promoted by the Biden administration and its suddenly scared European partners. Pumping up NATO with strong worded lofty statements, and setting aside billions for new armament. A dangerous escalation race is now on, spurred along by passionate and irresponsible voices. Take a speech by the Chair of the NATO Military Committee, The Dutch admiral Rob Bauer, in a security conference in Berlin: “For NATO, Russia’s pattern of aggressive and ruthlessly destructive behaviour has ushered in a new era of collective defence … We have developed several military strategies and plans that outline how we will protect ourselves - now and in the future - against the two main threats listed in the new Strategic Concept: Russia and Terrorist Groups.” What is new, and certainly scary, is that in order to strengthen collective defence and support Ukraine in its existential fight “we need a whole of society approach … We need public and private actors to change their mind-set, from an era in which everything was plannable… foreseeable… controllable… to an era where anything can happen at any time … Ready for war. Fit to fight.” With the West playing a major role in this escalation, stationing more and more troops and equipment closer to Russia’s borders. In Poland, in the Baltic region, in Romania, In Italy, In Spain and in the United Kingdom. For 2024 NATO is preparing to engage in large exercises like NATO’s “Steadfast Defender” with upwards of 90,000 soldiers involved and running for months. Or take the announcement that the U.S. is planning to place nuclear warheads at the RAF Lakenheath Airbase in the UK, in addition modernizing the nuclear arsenal placed in Belgium, Germany and elsewhere. In Orwell’s “1984. Oceania’s motto was “war is peace” We are getting there, with recent clamouring for involving all of society in preparations for war to avoid war. “This is our 1937 moment. We are not at war - but we must act rapidly so that we aren’t drawn into one through a failure to contain territorial expansion” (British Chief of the General Staff, Sir Patrick Sander, June 28, 2022). We know the result of such attitudes in 1914 and in 1939, so what can we expect now…? A change of attitude needed urgently. See for instance: Freezing the war in Ukraine? https://wahrnehmungen.weebly.com/blog/freezing-the-war-in-ukraine Stalemate in Ukraine – and doubt is creeping in https://wahrnehmungen.weebly.com/blog/stalemate-in-ukraine-and-doubt-is-creeping-in "Getting out of the Ukrainian quagmire? Part One" Part 2 https://wahrnehmungen.weebly.com/blog/getting-out-of-the-ukrainian-quagmire-part-two "Getting out of the Ukrainian quagmire? Part One" https://wahrnehmungen.weebly.com/blog/getting-out-of-the-ukrainian-quagmire-part-one Comments are closed.
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