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050209 -
Global
Research - Edward S. Herman
- One of the deceptive clichés of Western accounts of
post World War II history is that NATO was constructed as a
defensive arrangement to block the threat of a Soviet attack on
Western Europe. This is false.
It is true that Western propaganda played up the Soviet menace,
but many key U.S. and Western European statesmen recognized that
a Soviet invasion was not a real threat. The Soviet Union had
been devastated, and while in possession of a large army it was
exhausted and needed time for recuperation.
The United States was riding high, the war had revitalized its
economy, it suffered no war damage, and it had the atomic bomb
in its arsenal, which it had displayed to the Soviet Union by
killing a quarter of a million Japanese civilians at Hiroshima
and Nagasaki. Hitting the Soviet Union before it recovered or
had atomic weapons was discussed in Washington, even if rejected
in favor of “containment,” economic warfare, and other forms of
destabilization. NSC 68, dated April 1950, while decrying the
great Soviet menace, explicitly called for a program of
destabilization aimed at regime change in that country, finally
achieved in 1991.
Thus, even hardliner John Foster Dulles stated back in 1949 that
“ I do not know of any responsible high official, military or
civilian…in this government or any other government, who
believes that the Soviet now plans conquest by open military
aggression.” But note Dulles’ language—“open military aggression.”
The “threat” was more a matter of possible Soviet support to
left political groups and parties in Western Europe. Senator
Arthur Vandenberg, a prime mover of NATO, openly stated that the
function of a NATO military buildup would be “chiefly for the
practical purpose of assuring adequate defense against internal
subversion.” The much greater support of rightwing forces by the
United States was, of course, not a help to internal subversion,
and a threat to democracy; only possible Soviet help to the left
fit that category. (Recall Adlai Stevenson’s claim in the late
1960s that the resistance within South Vietnam by indigenous
forces hostile to the U.S.-imposed minority regime was “internal
aggression.”)
The non-German Western European elites were more worried about
German revival and a German threat, and, like U.S. officials,
were more concerned about keeping down the power of the left in
Europe than any Soviet military threat—and the United States was
pressing the Europeans to build up their armed forces, and buy
arms from U.S. suppliers! Although knowingly inflated or even
concocted, the Soviet military threat was still very useful in
discrediting the left by tying it to Stalin and bolshevism and
an alleged Soviet invasion and mythical world conquest program.
In fact, the Warsaw Pact was far more a “defensive” arrangement
than NATO; its organization followed that of NATO and was
clearly a response, and it was a structure of the weaker party
and with less reliable members. And in the end, it collapsed,
whereas
NATO was important in the long-term process of destabilizing and
dismantling the Soviet regime. For one thing, NATO’s armament
and strength were part of the U.S. strategy of forcing the
Soviets to spend resources on arms rather than provide for the
welfare, happiness and loyalty of their population. It also
encouraged repression by creating a genuine security threat,
which, again, would damage popular loyalty and the reputation of
the state abroad. Throughout this early period the Soviet
leaders tried hard to negotiate some kind of peace settlement
with the West, including giving up East Germany, but the United
States and hence its European allies-clients would have none of
it.
As noted, in the U.S. official--hence mainstream media-- view,
only Soviet intervention in Western Europe after World War II
was bad and threatened “internal subversion.” But in a non-Orwellian
world it would be recognized that the United States far outdid
the Soviet Union in supporting not only “internal subversion”
but also real terrorism in the years after 1945. The left had
gained strength during World War II by actually fighting against
Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. The United States fought against
the left’s subsequent bids for political participation and power
by any means, including direct warfare in Greece and by massive
funding of anti-left parties and politicians throughout Europe.
In Greece it supported the far right, including many former
collaborators with fascism, and succeeded in putting in place a
nasty rightwing authoritarian regime. It continued to support
fascist Spain and accepted fascist Portugal as a founding member
of NATO, with NATO arms helping Portugal pursue its colonial
wars. And the United States, the dominant NATO power, supported
rightwing politicians and former Nazis and fascists elsewhere,
while of course claiming to be pro-democratic and fighting
against totalitarianism.
Perhaps most interesting was the U.S. and NATO support of
paramilitary groups and terrorism. In Italy they were aligned
with state and rightwing political factions, secret societies
(Propaganda Due [P-2]), and paramilitary groups that, with
police cooperation, pursued what was called a “Strategy of
Tension,” in which a series of terrorist actions were carried
out that were blamed on the left. The most famous was the August
1980 bombing of the Bologna train station, killing 86. The
training and integration into police-CIA-NATO operations of
former fascists and fascist collaborators was extraordinary in
Italy, but common elsewhere in Europe (for the Italian story,
see Herman and Brodhead, “The Italian Context: The Fascist
Tradition and the Postwar Rehabilitation of the Right,” in Rise
and Fall of the Bulgarian Connection [New York: Sheridan Square,
1986]. For Germany, see William Blum, on “Germany 1950s,” in
Killing Hope [Common Courage: 1995]).
NATO was also linked to “Operation Gladio,” a program organized
by the CIA, with collaboration from NATO governments and
security establishments, that in a number of European states set
up secret cadres and stashed weapons, supposedly preparing for
the threatened Soviet invasion, but actually ready for “internal
subversion” and available to support rightwing coups. They were
used on a number of occasions by rightwing paramilitary groups
to carry out terrorist operations (including the Bologna bombing,
and many terrorist incidents carried out in Belgium and Germany).
Gladio and NATO plans were also used to combat an “internal
threat” in Greece in 1967: namely, the democratic election of a
liberal government. In response, the Greek military put into
effect a NATO “Plan Prometheus,” replacing a democratic order
with a torture-prone military dictatorship. Neither NATO nor the
Johnson administration objected. Other Gladio forces, from Italy
and elsewhere, came to train in Greece during its fascist
interlude, to learn how to deal with “internal subversion.”
In short, from its inception NATO showed itself to be
offensively, not defensively, oriented, antagonistic to
diplomacy and peace, and intertwined with widespread terrorist
operations and other forms of political intervention that were
undemocratic and actual threats to democracy (and if traceable
to the Soviets would have been denounced as brazen subversion).
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The Post-Soviet NATO
With the ending of the Soviet Union, and that menacing Warsaw
Pact, NATO’s theoretical rationale disappeared. But although
that rationale was a fraud, for public consumption NATO still
needed to redefine its reason for existence, and it also soon
took on a larger and more aggressive role. With no need to
support Yugoslavia after the Soviet demise, NATO soon
collaborated with its U.S. and German members to war on and
dismantle that former Western ally, in the process violating the
UN Charter’s prohibition of cross-border warfare (i.e.,
aggression).
Amusingly, in the midst of the NATO bombing war against
Yugoslavia, in April 1999, NATO held its 50th anniversary in
Washington, D.C., celebrating its successes and with
characteristic Orwellian rhetoric stated its devotion to
international law while in the midst of its ongoing blatant
violation of the UN Charter. In fact, the original 1949 NATO
founding document had begun by reaffirming its members “faith in
the UN Charter,” and in Article 1, undertaking, “as set forth in
the UN Charter, to settle any international disputes by peaceful
means.”
The April 1999 session produced a “Strategic Concept” document
that laid out a supposedly new program for NATO now that its
“mutual defensive” role in preventing a Soviet invasion had
ceased to be plausible. (“The Alliance’s Strategic Concept,”
Washington, D.C., April 23, 1999 (http://www.nato.int/docu/pr/1999/p99-065e.htm
)). The Alliance still stresses “security,” though it has
“committed itself to essential new activities in the interest of
a wider stability.” It welcomes new members and new
“partnership” arrangements, though why these are necessary in a
post-Cold War world with the United States and its closest
allies so powerful is never made clear. It admits that
“large-scale conventional aggression against the Alliance is
highly unlikely,” but of course it never mentions the
possibility of “large-scale conventional aggression” BY members
of the Alliance, and it brags about the NATO role in the Balkans
as illustrative of its “commitment of a wider stability.” But
not only was this Alliance effort a case of legal aggression—“illegal
but legitimate” in the Orwellian phrase of key apologists--contrary
to this paper, NATO played a major destabilization role in the
Balkans, helping start the ethnic warfare and refusing to pursue
a diplomatic option in Kosovo in order to be able to attack
Yugoslavia in a bombing war that was in process while this
document was being handed out. (For a discussion of the NATO
role, see Herman and Peterson, “The Dismantling of Yugoslavia,”
Monthly Review, Oct. 2007: http://monthlyreview.org/1007herman-peterson1.php
)
“Strategic Concept” also claims to favor arms control, but in
fact from its very beginning NATO promoted more armaments, and
all the new members like Poland and Bulgaria have been obligated
to build up their “inter-operable” arms, meaning getting more
arms and buying them from U.S. and other Western suppliers.
Since this document was produced in 1999, NATO’s leading member,
the United States, has more than doubled its military budget and
greatly increased arms sales abroad; it has pushed further into
space-based military operations; it has withdrawn from the 1972
ABM treaty, refused to ratify the Comprehensive (Nuclear) Test
Ban Treaty, and rejected both the Land Mine treaty and UN
Agreement to Curb the International Flow of Illicit Small Arms.
With NATO’s aid it has produced a new arms race, which many U.S.
allies and clients, as well as rivals and targets, have joined.
The 1999 document also claims NATO’s support for the Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty, but at the same time it stresses how
important nuclear arms are for NATO’s power—it therefore rejects
a central feature of the NNPT, which involved a promise by the
nuclear powers to work to eliminate nuclear weapons. What this
means is that NATO is keen only on non-proliferation by its
targets, like Iran. Nuclear weapons “make a unique contribution
in rendering the risks of aggression against the Alliance
incalculable and unacceptable.” But if Iran had such weapons it
could make “Alliance” “risks of aggression”—which Alliance
member the United States and its partner Israel have threatened—unacceptable.
Obviously that would not do.
In its Security segment, Strategic Concept says that it
struggles for a security environment “based on the growth of
democratic institutions and commitment to the peaceful
resolution of disputes, in which no country would be able to
intimidate or coerce any other through the threat or use of
force.” The hypocrisy here is mind-boggling. The very essence of
NATO policy and practice is to threaten the use of force, and
U.S. national security policy is now explicit that it plans to
maintain a military superiority and prevent any rival power from
challenging that superiority in order to hold sway globally—that
is, it plans to rule by intimidation.
NATO now claims to threaten nobody, and even talks in Strategic
Concept about possible joint “operations” with Russia. Again,
the hypocrisy level is great. As we know, there was a U.S.
promise made to Gorbachev when he agreed to allow East Germany
to join with the West, that NATO would not move “one inch”
further East. Clinton and NATO quickly violated this promise,
absorbing into NATO all the former Eastern European Soviet
satellites as well as the Baltic states. Only self-deceiving
fools and/or propagandists would not recognize this as a
security threat to Russia, the only power in the area that could
even theoretically threaten the NATO members. But Strategic
Concept plays dumb, and only threats to its members are
recognized.
Although “oppression, ethnic conflict” and the “proliferation of
weapons of mass destruction” are alleged great concerns of the
new NATO, its relations with Israel are close, and no impediment
whatsoever has been (or will be) placed on Israeli oppression,
ethnic cleansing, or its semi-acknowledged substantial nuclear
arsenal, and of course neither its war on Lebanon in 2006 nor
its current murderous attacks on Gaza have impeded warm
relations, any more than the US-UK unprovoked attack on Iraq
reduced NATO-member solidarity. If Israel is a highly favored
U.S. client, it is then by definition free to violate all the
high principles mentioned by Strategic Concept. In 2008 NATO and
Israel have signed a military pact, so perhaps NATO will soon be
helping Israel’s “security” operations in Gaza. (In fact,
Obama’s choice as National Security Adviser, James Jones, has
over the past year or so been clamoring for NATO troops to
occupy the Gaza Strip and even the West Bank. He is not a lone
voice in the U.S. establishment).
The new NATO is a U.S. and imperial pitbull. It is currently
helping rearm the world, encouraging the military buildup of the
former Baltic and Eastern European Soviet satellites--now U.S.
and NATO satellites--working closely with Israel as that NATO
partner ethnically cleanses and dispossesses its untermeschen--helping
its master establish client states on the Russian southern
borders, officially endorsing the U.S. placement of anti-ballistic
missiles in Poland, the Czech Republic, Israel, and
threateningly elsewhere, at a great distance from the United
States, and urging the integration of the U.S. plans with a
broader NATO “shield.” This virtually forces Russia into more
aggressive moves and accelerated rearmament (just as NATO did in
earlier years).
And of course NATO supports the U.S. occupation of Iraq. NATO
secretary-general Scheffer regularly boasts that all 26 NATO
states are involved in Operation Iraqi Freedom, inside Iraq or
Kuwait. Every single Balkan nation except for Serbia has had
troops in Iraq, and now has them in Afghanistan. Half of the
former Soviet Commonwealth of Independent States have also
provided troops for Iraq, with some of these also in Afghanistan.
These are training grounds for breaking in and
“inter-operationalizing” the new “partners,” and developing a
new mercenary base for the growing “out of area” operations of
NATO, as NATO participates more actively in the U.S. wars in
Afghanistan and Pakistan.
As noted, NATO brags about its role in the Balkans wars, and
both this war and the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan
have violated the UN Charter. Lawlessness is built-in to the new
“strategic concept.” Superceding the earlier (fraudulent)
“collective self defense,” the ever-expanding NATO powers give
themselves the authority to conduct military campaigns "out-of-area"
or so-called "non-Article V" missions beyond NATO territory. As
the legal scholar Bruno Simma noted back in 1999, "the message
which these voices carry in our context is clear: if it turns
out that a Security Council mandate or authorization for future
NATO 'non-Article 5' missions involving armed force cannot be
obtained, NATO must still be able to go ahead with such
enforcement. That the Alliance is capable of doing so is being
demonstrated in the Kosovo crisis." ("NATO, the UN and the Use
of Force: Legal Aspects," European Journal of International Law,
Vol. 10, No. 1, 1999, reproduced at http://www.ejil.org/journal/Vol10/No1/ab1.html).
The new NATO is pleased to be helping its master project power
across the globe. In addition to helping encircle and threaten
Russia, it pursues “partnership arrangements” and carries out
joint military maneuvers with the so-called Mediterranean
Dialogue countries (Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Tunisia,
Mauritania and Algeria). And NATO has also established new
partnerships with the Gulf Cooperation Council states (Bahrain,
Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates),
thereby expanding NATO's military ambit from the Atlantic coast
of Africa to and throughout the Persian Gulf. In the same time
frame there has been a unbroken series of NATO visits to and
naval exercises with most of these new partners as well as (this
past year) the first formal NATO-Israeli bilateral military
treaty.
The pitbull is well positioned to help Israel continue its
massive law violations, to help the United States and Israel
threaten and perhaps attack Iran, and to enlarge its own
cooperative program of pacification of distant peoples in
Afghanistan and Pakistan, and no doubt elsewhere—all in the
alleged interest of peace and that “wider stability” mentioned
in Strategic Concept. NATO, like the UN itself, provides a cover
of seeming multilateralism for what is a lawless and virtually
uncontrolled imperial expansionism. In reality, NATO, as an
aggressive global arm of U.S. and other local affiliated
imperialisms, poses a serious threat to global peace and
security. It is about to celebrate its 60th anniversary, and
while it should have been liquidated back in 1991, it has
instead expanded, taking on a new and threatening role traced
out in its 1999 Strategic Concept and enjoying a frighteningly
malignant growth.
Edward S. Herman is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
Global Research Articles by Edward S.
Herman
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