NATO is a Dangerous Farce — and We All Know It
It is simply a fig leaf to cover US imperialism
In the words of its first Secretary General Lord Ismay, NATO was formed to “keep the Americans in, the Russians out and the Germans down.”
In the 21st century, where the Soviet Union no longer existed, where Germany was at peace with its neighbors and formed the pacifist industrial heart of the European Union, this original mandate no longer really applied— so why did the US keep NATO alive?
Well, it seems that what was old is new again. For the US, the original mandate is still 100% relevant — just not as noble or as clear as the original raison d’être.
The US still wants to use NATO to “keep the Russians out” — but economically and politically, not just militarily. Ukraine notwithstanding, modern NATO was not conceived to battle hordes of Russian tanks rolling across the steppes into Eastern Europe (more on this below).
The US also still wants to “keep Germany down” — but again, not militarily. Today, in all practical terms, Germany has become the European Union, which the US perceives as a global economic competitor.
The US thus seeks to weaken the EU — like the Russians — both economically and politically, while keeping them dependent on the US for their military security.
The result: NATO has become a farcical echo of what it was originally. Its mission has been distorted; the organisation itself has become a twisted, perverted shadow of its former self.
President Trump, as has been widely reported, wanted to pull the US out of NATO. In fact, current reports say that, if elected to a second term, Trump might withdraw from NATO.
Once again, Trump’s instincts are correct. NATO is a joke. It is not a military alliance. Rather, it is a political organisation, a worrisome burden that the US bears in order to give legitimacy to America’s hegemonic dominance over Europe.
This is another long story, so I have broken it down into the following five chapters:
Spoiler alert — the last chapter has a little treat included!
Why NATO exists — The Military Factor
First, let’s be clear: militarily speaking, there is no strategic reason for NATO to exist, and there has not been any reason for its existence since the Warsaw Pact disbanded in 1991.
At least, there are no military reasons for the NATO countries to remain in NATO.
NATO is an arm of US military strategy
For the US, however, NATO plays an important role: it allows the US to station its military forces in European countries without being criticised for “occupying” those countries.
“Allies” or vassals?
Having NATO means that the US has a ready-made “coalition of the willing” to attack other countries anywhere in the world.
Indeed, the US has called upon its NATO “allies” to join it in various aggressive military adventures:
Yugoslavia
Afghanistan
Iraq
Libya
Ukraine
AND COMING SOON — CHINA!
That’s right, the “North Atlantic Treaty Organisation” has decided to develop a presence in the Indo-Pacific.
Obviously, when it comes to militarism, NATO members are just the little ducklings paddling behind their mother, the United States.
The US history in post-war Europe
How did we get here? How did NATO expand so fulsomely beyond its original mandate?
It all started with the fall of the Soviet Union.
What Gorbachev was promised
In 1991, Mikhail Gorbachev and the George H.W. Bush administration agreed that Germany could reunify.
The final agreement signed by Russia and the west in September 1990 applied only to Germany. It allowed foreign-stationed Nato troops to cross the old cold war line marked by East Germany at the discretion of the German government. The agreement was contained in a signed addendum. Nato’s commitment to protect, enshrined in article 5, had for the first time moved east into former Russian-held territory.
For its part, Russia agreed to remove 400,000 Soviet troops from the East German territory.
The roughly 500,000 US and UK troops stationed in Germany, however, could remain.
All that the Soviets asked was that NATO not expand eastward. The Bush team swore that, if Germany were allowed to reunify, and the Russians would remove all their military presence from the newly reunified Germany, NATO would not expand “one inch past Berlin”.
Well, we all know how that worked out.
Western Europe is still “occupied” territory
Though substantially reduced, Germany still hosts the largest contingent of US military in the world (outside the US itself).
Indeed, Russian leaders like Putin maintain that the US has “occupied” Germany non-stop since the end of WWII.
George Bush, Iraq and NATO Expansion
The US has always been able to count on their NATO vassals for support in the pursuit of American Empire. They dragged NATO into the Yugoslavian War in 1999, into the Libyan War in 2011, into Afghanistan in 2001.
It was only over the illegal invasion of Iraq that cracks started to develop in the NATO facade. Germany and France, in particular, balked at supporting Bush’s invasion. Clearly, they needed to be slapped down.
Enter Bush’s Defense Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld.
“Old Europe” versus “New Europe”
The map below shows the expansion of NATO over time. Notice that the original members, US, UK, The Benelux, Norway, Denmark, Italy and Portugal and (eventually) Germany were all safely located in what could be called “Western” Europe.
These were erstwhile allies, and all had opposed and fought against the Nazis at some point during the war. Although Portugal had remained nominally neutral, they did declare in 1939 that “the Anglo-Portuguese Alliance remained intact”. Germany, of course, was on the other side in WWII, but had since proven its anti-Communist bona fides as the Cold War ground on and Berlin became the touchpoint for US-Soviet relations (and espionage).
These countries together comprise what Donald Rumsfeld dismissively referred to as “Old Europe” during the run-up to the Iraq War in 2003.
Germany and France opposed the rush to war, and Rumsfeld was not having it. In responding to a reporter’s question about French and German qualms, Rumsfeld made the case that Washington would turn to Nato’s new members in eastern Europe for support.
“You’re thinking of Europe as Germany and France. I don’t,” he said. “I think that’s old Europe. If you look at the entire Nato Europe today, the centre of gravity is shifting to the east and there are a lot of new members.”
By “New Europe”, Rumsfeld was referring to the former Warsaw Pact nations like Poland, the Czech Republic, and the Baltic States. These “new members” of NATO were all gung-ho to support the US in its warmongering.
Poland and Romania in particular were enthusiastic in their support of US actions. In fact:
Poland sent the fourth largest contingent of troops to Iraq, behind the US, UK and Australia.
The Great Eastward Expansion of 2004
The “Eastern Flank of NATO” became a US obsession, as they saw in the former Soviet-dominated nations an earnest willingness — indeed, a passionate enthusiasm — to take on Russia.
Therefore, the Bush White House wasted no time. The fifth — and by far the largest — expansion of NATO took place on March 29, 2004.
On that day, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia formally became members of NATO by depositing their instruments of NATO accession with the US Government, which is the depository nation for the Treaty.
Their mass accession raised the number of NATO countries to 26.
The event was celebrated with a special ceremony hosted by President George W. Bush at the White House and attended by NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer.
But while champagne corks popped in Washington, the mood was much less festive in Moscow.
Poor Russia! They didn’t realise that the great expansion of 2004 was just the beginning. George W. Bush had much more in store for them.
Bucharest 2008: George Bush’s “parting shot” at Russia
In April 2008, in the waning days of the George W. Bush Administration, NATO had its 20th Summit meeting in Bucharest. While Bush’s “lame duck” status may have meant relative impotence in driving domestic policy, the pugnacious Texan nonetheless still wielded tremendous power over America’s NATO “allies”.
During the Bucharest Summit, at the insistence of President Bush, who said he wanted to “lay down a marker”, NATO extended an “open door” invitation to Ukraine and Georgia to join the alliance.
As The New York Times reported:
A senior American official, briefing reporters, said…that all parties agreed on the importance of keeping the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s door open to Ukraine and Georgia.
Mr. Bush, entering his last NATO summit meeting as president, was described by the official as wanting to “lay down a marker” for his legacy and not wanting to “lose faith” with the Ukrainian and Georgian peoples and the other former Soviet republics.
According to the Times, the Eastern European members “supported the American position”, while the Western Europeans (from “Old Europe”) opposed the idea of inviting Ukraine and Georgia to join.
The Americans, of course, won the argument.
“NATO welcomes Ukraine’s and Georgia’s Euro-Atlantic aspirations for membership in NATO. We agreed today that these countries will become members of NATO. Both nations have made valuable contributions to Alliance operations”, NATO said in a Joint Statement.
The Americans and the Eastern Europeans, it seemed, were anxious to provoke Russia.
Indeed, the “New Europeans” from the East remain extremely bellicose even today. While Germany and France may be hesitant to poke the Russian bear, the New NATO countries in the East are constantly calling for escalation over Ukraine.
“The Bucharest Nine”
Following the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014, the newest members of NATO in Eastern Europe decided to form a dedicated NATO faction of former Warsaw Pact and USSR member nations.
Led by the Prime Ministers of Poland and Romania, the leaders of nine countries from “NATO’s eastern flank” joined together in 2015 to create what they called“NATO’s enhanced forward presence, from the Baltic to the Black Sea”.
The members of the Bucharest Nine (aka “B9”) are: Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Slovakia.
Together, they form a nearly seamless encirclement of Russia’s western border. Indeed, the most obvious “gap” in that encirclement is the “absence” of Ukraine.
But the fact that Ukraine is not an official member of NATO appears to mean nothing to the members of the Bucharest Nine.
As Sergiy Gerasymchu, Regional Director for the Ukrainian Policy Council writes in his white paper about the Bucharest Nine:
Those states in the region which were once occupied by the USSR or experienced Soviet influence in the so-called Eastern Bloc were concerned about the revanchist steps taken by Russia. Although most post-Soviet states are now members of the European Union and NATO, Moscow’s brutal behaviour and neglect of the basic principles of international law forced the states in the region to come up with additional — supporting — formats of unification and interaction.
What is more, potential regional cooperation among states with shared views on risks and threats in the region can create regional security mechanisms which will be tasked with deterring further Russian aggression.
One such “format” became the Bucharest Nine.
Gerasymchu continues:
Sensing the menace emanating from the Russian Federation and having the negative historical experience of interaction with Moscow…the states of the Baltic-Black Sea region realised that it was necessary to form a regional alliance of like-minded countries on NATO’s eastern flank and took appropriate political steps.
The first B9 Summit took place in (of course) Bucharest, Romania, in July 2015, and culminated in a joint declaration by the nine leaders pledging to cooperate closely to “face the aggression of Russia”.
The declaration said that Russia’s actions undermine the European security architecture, and that Russia’s annexation of Crimea was unacceptable, and that Russia was in violation of international law. The declaration also demanded the immediate accession of Ukraine to NATO.
Is the B9 doing an “end run” around NATO rules?
Gerasymchu explains that the formation of the Bucharest Nine opened the way for increased “security cooperation”:
Potential regional cooperation among states with shared views on risks and threats in the region can create regional security mechanisms which will be tasked with deterring further Russian aggression.
But what does that look like, exactly?
Firstly, it means military cooperation. The first B9 Summit in 2015 didn’t just result in a joint declaration — it also yielded the official formation of the “Lithuanian–Polish–Ukrainian Brigade”, according to Gerasymchu.
This combined military force, known as LitPolUkrBrig, had been in the makings since 2006, but the formation of the Bucharest Nine galvanised the countries to quickly formalise the unit and start financing and arming it.
They also recruited US and UK military advisors and trainers.
There are other such groups. The “Multinational Engineer Battalion Tisa” is another joint military force under the auspices of the B9, made up of Ukrainian, Romanian, Hungarian and Slovak armed forces.
There can be no doubt that these units are currently on active duty in Ukraine. While we know of many Polish “volunteers” fighting with Ukraine’s International Brigade, the Lithuanian-Polish-Ukrainian Brigade, which itself is comprised of many thousands of troops, also has its “boots on the ground”.
Wargames for real
Ukraine has hosted the Sea Breeze joint exercises in this format since 1997. The Sea Shield exercise is also a regular one which brings Ukraine and NATO forces together. Ukraine also trains with Romania in the Riverian drills.
Gerasymchu boasts:
…even before B9 was formed, Ukraine developed fruitful cooperation with some of its participants. In recent years, the regional component of cooperation with NATO has been maintained, while the global one has been strengthened, which, along with Ukraine’s aspirations to join NATO enshrined in the Constitution and given the shared perception of Russian threat, creates conditions for deeper cooperation with B9.
The B9 countries are thus a means by which Ukraine can integrate with NATO “unofficially” but effectively — especially when it comes to opposing Russia.
Exerting power and influence in Washington
In addition to serving as a means to build up military power aimed at the Russians, the B9 also wants to exert power in Washington on behalf of Ukraine, according to Gerasymchu:
Cooperation with the like-minded B9 countries extends Ukraine’s cooperation with NATO and provides Kyiv with the additional leverages of influence on Brussels and Washington.
Since its foundation, B9 has held 19 meetings: eight of them at the highest level (heads of state and government), six at the level of the foreign ministries and five at the level of the B9 defence chiefs.
These meetings were almost always attended by high-ranking US, NATO and EU officials.
Rubber-stamped by Biden
At the 22 February 2023 summit, the heads of state of the Bucharest Nine countries, as well as US President Biden and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, signed a declaration which issued a condemnation of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and called for an enhanced military presence of NATO on the eastern flank of the alliance.
The B9 group was finally getting respect from “The Big Guy”.
Why NATO exists — The Economic Factor
NATO is, in many ways, like a mafia racket. In this scenario, the US is like a mafia “don” who provides “protection” while extorting his victims for money.
In NATO, the US extends its “nuclear umbrella” and massive military presence as “protection” to its vassal allies, keeping the Russian Bear at bay thanks to the NATO Article 5 clause that says, in short, “an attack on one is an attack on all”.
Turning vassals into customers
On the economic front, NATO exists in order to create a ready-made market for Western weapons systems — especially those produced by America’ massive Military Industrial Complex (MIC).
Most people may already be aware of the NATO precept requiring all member countries to spend at least 2% of their country’s GDP on defence. Many liberals in the US were aghast when Donald Trump upbraided his fellow NATO leaders, scolding them for not spending the requisite 2% and threatening to pull out of NATO if they didn’t “pay up”.
In this way, Trump really did don the mantle of a mafia godfather to browbeat, pressure and extort — a role he was comfortable with. But — as in so many other areas — Trump’s greatest offense was that he “said the quiet part out loud”.
He knew the real purpose of NATO was to generate arms deals for the US, and he didn’t mince words, or try to cloak his actions with window dressing like “arsenal of democracy” or “freedom through strength”.
No, no — with Trump, the message was simply:
“You gotta buy more of our weapons”.
Who are the biggest buyers?
The B9 countries have an economic section of their joint declaration. The members all promise to increase their military spending to at least 2% of GDP, with some members, like Lithuania and Latvia, pledging to go to 2.5% of GDP. In order to reach these levels, the B9 members have achieved double-digit increases in defence spending, with Lithuania increasing their defence budget by an astonishing 156% from 2009 to 2018.
Weapons systems “Made in USA”
The Bucharest Nine members also pledged to “switch” from Soviet and Russian weapons systems to Western (US) systems. Countries like Bulgaria and Slovakia started replacing their MIG fighter jets with F-16s.
B9 countries are going on a buying spree, purchasing not just jets, but also American armoured vehicles, HIMARS and Patriot missile systems — not to mention all the Stingers, Switchblades and Javelins that are now “battle-tested” thanks to Ukraine.
Poland is by far the most ambitious: their plans to buy American gear includes aircraft, armour, helicopters and even submarines.
It’s no wonder, then, that Joe Biden thought it so important to meet with the “Bucharest Nine” leaders in Warsaw — they are, after all, some of his biggest customers!
Ukraine - “the gift that keeps on giving”
The West’s proxy war against Russia is also a huge source of profits for American industry. While US financial giants like BlackRock will profit from Ukraine’s reconstruction, and US chemical and agribusiness giants like Monsanto, Dupont and Cargill will profit from the grain, the Military Industrial Complex is profiting enormously from all the weapons deals.
Ukraine feeds the US MIC in two ways: first, as the war grinds on and more Ukrainians die, more and more weapons are being destroyed and otherwise lost on the battlefield. This means that, aside from the initial weapons and gear supplied, the US will have to supply replacements to the Ukrainians as well.
And that‘s not the best part.
As America’s NATO allies “deplete their stocks” of ammunition and weapons, they will need to replenish them.
That means buying more weapons from the US.
On 20 June 2023, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told an industrial conference in Germany:
“Our weapons and ammunition stocks are depleted and need to be replenished. Not just in Germany, but in many countries across NATO.”
Indeed, when Stoltenberg gets going in front of an audience, it’s easy to see why the US wanted him as the head of NATO:
“…we must further strengthen our own defence. After Russia’s full-fledged invasion of Ukraine, everyone understands much better why we need strong defences”, Stoltenberg said.
“This costs money”.
But wait — there’s MORE!
The war in Ukraine serves a third economic purpose: it allows those Bucharest Nine countries to sell or “donate” their old Soviet and Russian-made weapons, tanks and fighters to Ukraine, so they are free to BUY AMERICAN ONES.
Priceless.
Why NATO exists — The Political Factor
For the American hegemon, one of the most important reasons for keeping NATO around is the geopolitical advantage it gives the US vis-a-vis its strategic rivals: Russia, the EU — and lately, even China.
As TIME Magazine observed in 2019:
After the collapse of the Soviet Union though, NATO began to redefine its purpose. Vesko Garcevic, a former Montenegro ambassador to NATO, says the new mission became to ensure the democratization of newly post-communist republics, which the alliance considered crucial to guaranteeing a stable Europe. After joining NATO, most of the countries then became E.U. members. “It was no longer not just about security. It was also political. That’s why the alliance has survived for so many years,” he says.
Europe’s Defense Force — “Made in USA”
Garcevic makes a good point: NATO has indeed become the de facto military wing of the European Union. As he suggests, membership in NATO increasingly reflects the membership of the EU.
There are, of course, European NATO members such as Norway, the UK, Albania and North Macedonia who are not members of the EU.
On the other hand, Austria, Cyprus, Ireland, Malta and Sweden are the only EU members that are not in NATO — and this is mostly due to military neutrality being part of their constitution, not because they “oppose” NATO. Those countries actually maintain strong ties to the alliance through NATO’s Partnership for Peace Programme (PfP).
In fact, every country in Europe — regardless of their political stance or EU member status — belongs to this Programme, a sort of “NATO Auxiliary”. Even the defiantly neutral Swiss belong.
Keeping the Russians “out”
Most people may have heard the story about how Russia at one time wanted to join NATO:
In fact, in 1990, as the Cold War drew to a close, President Mikhail Gorbachev proposed the Soviet Union join NATO. At the time, Gorbachev was negotiating German reunification with the then U.S. Secretary of State James Baker. “You say that NATO is not directed against us,” [Gorbachev] said, referring to the rival Warsaw Pact, an alliance between the Soviet Union and Communist countries in Eastern Europe, “that it is simply a security structure that is adapting to new realities. Therefore, we propose to join NATO.”
Baker reportedly dismissed the proposal as a “dream”. But the Russians kept asking. President Boris Yeltsin reiterated Gorbachev’s request in 1991.
Russia eventually had to settle for joining the Partnership for Peace Programme , which Bill Clinton said at the time was “a track that will lead to NATO membership” — but that was never going to happen for Russia.
Maintaining a “Cold Peace”
Yeltsin warned Western leaders at a conference later that year that “Europe, even before it has managed to shrug off the legacy of the Cold War, is risking encumbering itself with a cold peace.”
Yeltsin was proven prescient six years later, when Vladimir Putin, upon taking office, once more asked Bill Clinton if Russia could join NATO. He was rebuffed.
With the collapse of the Soviet Union, NATO became ever more political and economic in its scope, and more closely tied, as Garcevic suggests, to the European Union.
There was never any place for Russia in the EU, so — ironically — the fall of the USSR meant that the Russians, more than ever, STILL had to be kept “out”.
After the fall of Communism, NATO became a mechanism for the US to CONTINUE to isolate and weaken Russia, both politically and economically.
Keeping the EU down
As mentioned above, the original raison d’être of NATO was to “keep the Americans in, the Russians out and the Germans down”. The purpose of today’s NATO is to keep both Germany and the European Union “down” in terms of their economy and their political sovereignty.
The US suppresses EU sovereignty through a variety of means, using a combination of carrots and sticks. Prior to the arrival of Trump, one big carrot was the fact that the US would do all of the heavy lifting in terms of defence.
For example: the US is the one who is providing the tactical nuclear deterrent against Russia. Today, U.S. tactical nuclear weapons remain at six bases in five NATO member countries, Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Turkey. All told, there are 100 B61 tactical nuclear bombs that can be dropped from either US or NATO allied aircraft.
The US, of course, pays handsomely to maintain the weapons, train the personnel, and outfit and upgrade the necessary delivery aircraft.
So there is no need for an “independent” European Security Force. There have been several attempts over the years — usually led by France — to try and create an EU security framework, but they all failed.
Eastern member states — such as the Baltics and Poland — were particularly reticent to such common policy despite the illegal annexation of the Crimean peninsula by Russia in 2014. These countries are heavily reliant on NATO and feared spooking the US which has many boots on the ground as part of the transatlantic alliance but also because of additional bilateral agreements.
It wasn’t until Russia invaded Ukraine that a deal could be struck, and the EU’s “Strategic Compass” security framework was created in March 2022.
But even that small step has already run into problems. Dealing with non-EU members such as the UK and Norway, for example, is proving highly problematic.
Moreover, the 40-page agreement sounds more like a polemical attack on Russia specifically, rather than a unifying defense pact.
To put it bluntly, when it comes to defence, the EU has an identity problem:
The fact that Europeans periodically return to the need for an EU-level strategic document demonstrates that they have never really managed to solve their existential conundrums. Then as now, they are still trying to find themselves. They have not yet understood the EU’s identity and role on the international scene. And when they are confused and don’t know what to do, Europeans tend to want to write strategies in the hope that they will create some clarity.
Ukraine is the “proof in the pudding”
The current crisis in Ukraine has proven that 70 years of subservience to the US’s NATO regime has left the EU unable to define its own role in international affairs.
Yes, after decades of failed attempts, the EU has managed to sign document that purports to define its own security framework, but even that initiative is flawed and is already seeming increasingly bootless and irrelevant one year later.
In fact, since signing the Strategic Compass, EU leaders like Germany’s Annalena Baerbock and Olaf Scholz, Mark Rutte of the Netherlands, and even the Italian “populist” Giorgia Meloni have defined themselves on the foreign stage by parroting the talking points and the political posturing coming out of Washington.
France’s Macron is, in a way, even more pathetic due to his on again, off again fair weather calls for EU “independence” from the US — calls which invariably wither away into oblivion under the outrage they engender among his fellow Europeans.
In short — the war in Ukraine has only served to highlight the impotence of the EU as a group. It has also exposed the vassal status of the individual member states, as they subvert their national priorities under the “common interests” of the EU bloc, which are now 100% subsumed under the interests of NATO, which are in turn subsumed completely and utterly under the strategic goals of the United States.
When it comes to the EU’s international strategy, it’s better — and easier — to let Uncle Sam and NATO handle everything.
Why NATO exists — The Strategic Factor
The fact that the US has successfully leveraged NATO to politically castrate the EU in terms of foreign policy is just a part of the strategic benefit the American hegemon gleans from the alliance.
Everyone against Russia
As mentioned above, the so-called EU “Strategic Compass”, in order to gain approval, had to become a political white paper that was little more than a US-centric diatribe against Russia, which is mentioned in the first sentence of the document and a total of 19 times throughout.
Every aspect of the agreement is framed around the demonisation of Russia and the danger it poses to Europe — a danger that does not actually exist beyond Ukraine.
But this framing serves US interest. It feeds into the general epidemic of Russophobia that the US has conjured up, and which now defines the “collective West” more than any other thing.
In the space of a few years, “Western values” have been distilled to a grotesque sludge of the most virulent forms of xenophobia and racism — all directed at America’s “great power adversary” — RUSSIA.
NATO has gone global
In addition to the full NATO members, NATO has an extensive network of “partnerships” that allows it to exert influence and military cooperation literally around the world.
Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council (EAPC)
This NATO organisation is comprised of 50 members: the 31 full NATO members plus 19 “Partners” who are in the Partnership for Peace programme.
These partners include many states in Central Asia, such as Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.
It also includes Ukraine and Georgia — both of which are STILL pushing for full NATO membership as George W. Bush promised in 2008.
The increasingly ironically named Partnership for Peace also contains countries in the former Yugoslavia, such as Bosnia and Herzegovina and even Serbia (despite the current tensions).
Neutral in name only
Most surprisingly of all, the EAPC includes constitutionally — and supposedly militarily — “neutral” European countries such as Austria, Ireland, Malta, Moldova, Sweden and Switzerland.
That’s right — even “neutral” European countries like Switzerland and Austria are STILL part of the US’s global military alliance.
How does that work?
Well, Ireland, for example, is constitutionally mandated to be neutral, but nonetheless put its Shannon airport at the disposal of the United States military for staging its troop deployments in the Iraq War. Even after the war, the US continued to use Shannon as a de facto military base.
The airport was also used in the CIA’s illegal “extraordinary rendition” program as a refuelling stop on the way to torture chambers in third world countries.
NATO expansion as a propaganda tool
The US has been aggressively expanding NATO since 2000 for the express purpose of overpowering and attacking Russia not just militarily, but also perceptually. The “Information War” is best fought when one controls all the communications outlets.
NATO’s Article 5 has a wide-ranging applicability, it seems. Forget about an actual “attack on one” being “an attack on all”.
When it comes to NATO, any country perceived as an enemy by the US becomes the enemy of all.
And so it means that we want as many countries as possible in NATO, so that we can have that many more “allies” piling on Russia, alienating Russia, opposing Russia, condemning Russia. And Russians.
For example, of the 45 countries worldwide that have imposed sanctions on Russia, 36 are in NATO (either full member or in the Partnership for Peace).
That’s 80%. Four out of five.
This shows that NATO is America’s ready-made “coalition of the willing” for any cause they deem worthy. And the more, the merrier. It doesn’t matter how large they are, how many people they have, how big their military is, or even how big their economy is.
What matters is that they will play “follow the leader” when the time comes.
Why NATO poses a global threat to peace
As described above, NATO has gone from being a Cold War defensive alliance between existing WWII allies to an aggressive imperial military alliance that the US employs to recruit NEW allies to its cause — namely to threaten America’s perceived “great power adversaries”, Russia and China.
The B9 nuclear missile threat
It is only fitting that the Bucharest Nine should have been founded by Poland and Romania. These are the two countries in which the US (aka NATO) has decided to install nuclear-capable missile batteries.
In May 2016, the NATO missile base at Deveselu, Romania became operational. The base is built around the Aegis Ashore missile system, using the “modular” MK-41 launching system.
In Redzikowo, Poland, the US is installing another Aegis Ashore missile battery. With only a 1300km flight distance to Moscow, these missiles also pose a clear threat to the Russians.
These are “dual use” missile systems. The Aegis Ashore systems can easily be modified with a software update to go from defensive to offensive use, capable of launching nuclear tipped cruise missiles with a minutes-long flightpath to Moscow.
The MK-41 can launch a wide variety of ordnance, depending on which “capsule” is placed into it (sort of like a Nespresso or Keurig coffee machine).
One of those capsules, for example, can contain a nuclear-tipped Tomahawk cruise missile — and soon the Dark Eagle hypersonic missile.
In December 2021, Putin called out the MK-41 in his address to the Russian Defence Ministry Board:
It is extremely alarming that elements of the US global defence system are being deployed near Russia. The Mk 41 launchers, which are located in Romania and are to be deployed in Poland, are adapted for launching the Tomahawk strike missiles. If this infrastructure continues to move forward, and if US and NATO missile systems are deployed in Ukraine, their flight time to Moscow will be only 7–10 minutes, or even five minutes for hypersonic systems. This is a huge challenge for us, for our security.
B9 and its Nuclear Bear-Baiting
As part of this new “offensive posture”, the US has encouraged, exhorted, supported and otherwise instigated the development of entities such as the Bucharest Nine, comprised of ex-Soviet and Warsaw Pact states that lie in many cases literally share a border with Russia.
Nations like the Baltic States, Poland and Romania have made it a national priority to oppose, condemn and provoke Russia in every way possible — even to the point of allowing the US to deploy nuclear capable missile batteries on their soil.
Gerasymchu asserts that a fundamental animating belief behind the formation of the Bucharest Nine is, essentially, the highly contentious “Putin is Hitler” narrative:
B9 members are aware that Russian revanchism is gaining momentum, Moscow may not limit its appetites to Ukraine and will continue to try and destabilise the situation in the Central and Eastern European region as a whole.
The solution for this threat, they believe, is to FIGHT RUSSIA. They regard what is happening in Ukraine as necessary and righteous, and they are convinced that Russia needs to suffer a “strategic defeat” in this conflict.
In this, they are 100% in alignment with the Biden Administration and the Neocons in the US Deep State.
B9 becomes “NATO-Lite”
These ex-Soviet, Russian-hating states are the most bellicose, the most aggressive, the most anti-Russian members of the NATO alliance. Indeed, the formation of the Bucharest Nine seems to be a deliberate step towards bringing NATO itself into direct conflict with Russia.
Gerasymchu explains:
Based on the current military-and-political positioning of B9 member states, Ukraine could initiate negotiations on the preparation and signing of a framework agreement on mutual assistance in countering Russian military expansion.
B9 would become B9+1 or B10. The formation of B10 would, in some way, ease political tension within NATO in terms of its policy of containing Russia and, at the same time, would strengthen the security and defence positions of NATO states’ eastern flank.
In other words, the solution to resolving the dispute between “Old Europe” and “New Europe” would be to allow Ukraine into the B9 — a NATO subgroup, but technically “not NATO”.
As if that would make any difference once the missiles are flying.
“Lay down your life for Latvia”
The entirety of this article buttresses one central argument: that NATO has ceased to be a defensive military alliance but instead has become a military, political and strategic organisation whose only mission is to support US hegemonic aggression towards its superpower enemies.
But, the NATO treaty does still exist, and so one needs to realise the PRACTICAL MEANING of the Article 5 mutual defense pledge.
This exercise, more than any other, points out the absurdity of what the US is doing by expanding NATO.
When NATO was formed, it was not unreasonable to think that Americans would support coming to the aid of— perhaps even dying for— allies like the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Italy. These were, after all, America’s staunchest allies against the “Communist Threat”.
But now the US is using NATO to make “new old friends” — which, as the saying goes, is a practical impossibility.
And THAT is why the states in the Bucharest Nine permit themselves to be so provocative, so reckless, so aggressive towards Russia — they know that they are “shielded” by NATO Article 5 and the US nuclear umbrella.
But ARE they?
HERE’S THE QUESTION: would Americans be willing to go to war — and send their sons and daughters off to die — for North Macedonia? For Estonia? For Slovakia?
In other words — if the Russians marched into Montenegro tomorrow, would America REALLY go to DEFCON 1?
The answer may well be yes. But it’s a question we should not have to ask.
NATO says its mission is to “secure a lasting peace in Europe”, but it instead poses a dangerous threat to peace — not just in Europe, but around the world.
#End.
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