I remember the other day, someone asked about NATO and was not very aware of who they were or what they do. We might think all communists are aware of such an important transnational military organisation, but we all had to start somewhere. With this in mind, I’m hoping to explain what NATO really is.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation was founded shortly after WW2, in 1949, in the context of the Cold War (really an anticommunist venture against the USSR like we’d seen many before).
The founding members were notably the USA, UK and France. In total 10 European countries joined NATO at its founding.
If you believe NATO, their goal is to safeguard the sovereignty of their members by invoking a mutual defence treaty.
In truth, and this was never unknown internally, the goal of NATO was to provoke the USSR into war. Even back in the 50s NATO readily admitted their goal was to help against an invasion of Europe by the USSR, something which the USSR was never interested in.
When that goal did not materialize, NATO, the “defensive” organisation, organised fascist paramilitaries around Europe, especially in Italy, to provoke tensions. In Italy, they were known as Operation Gladio, which encompasses all operations from NATO in Italy.
It’s no wonder then that the first general of NATO was an ex-nazi (Adolf Heusinger). Many more Nazis were later switched to NATO, such as Reinhard Gehlen or Albert Schnez.
With the United States as its biggest sponsor, it’s no wonder NATO is just a continuation of American foreign policy. For example, NATO troops were in Afghanistan starting in 2003. Which country of their “defence treaty” were they protecting? Afghanistan was not a member. Somalia was not a member either in 2009, when NATO invaded their country. NATO was present during the colour revolution in Libya in 2011. Yet if you listen to NATO and its liberal defenders, the organisation is solely focused on mutual defence.
In fact, new members of NATO are strictly European (+ Turkey since 1952, depending on your definition of Europe). Apart from the US and Canada, no non-European countries are members of NATO.
This American sovereignty over NATO even led France to leave the organisation in 1966, only to later come back under another president.
The big question that must be on everyone’s mind now: how does NATO tie in to the Russia-Ukraine war?
NATO promised the USSR, the ancestor of the Russian Federation, that they would not “move eastwards”, meaning they would not allow members to join past Germany (or West Germany at the time).
However, they did just that after the illegal dissolution of the Soviet Union : most of Eastern Europe joined after the dissolution in huge waves.
NATO installs bases in most of their members’ territories, and these are usually filled with US soldiers because the US is the biggest sponsor of NATO. Other military presence is always guaranteed. For example :
Russia, knowing the history of NATO and that they broke their promise of not moving east, saw the writing on the wall with Ukraine.
NATO has no more reason to exist as the USSR does not exist any more. However, they (North America and Western Europe) possess an incredible tool for imperialism that they can deploy against their enemies. This is the reason NATO exists today. NATO has nothing to do with self-defence; as we saw, they invaded countries they had no business invading. It’s all about being deployed for regime-change, pro-status quo and pro-imperialist ventures.
Quite the contrary. Michael Parenti once said that ‘the American Historical Association published a set of documents that were rather intriguing—that—which they got out of the State Department under the Freedom of Information Act, which shows… that people in the State Department never believed… that the Soviets had any intention, or any interest, or any capability of invading Western Europe… in the late 1940s, or in the ’50s, or ’60s, or today for that matter.’ Unfortunately, he was not more specific than that, but it’s a good place to start.
On the other hand, Daniel Ellsberg has confirmed that Moscow had no interest in invading Western Europe. Likewise, David Holloway confirmed that ‘[t]here is no evidence to show that Stalin intended to invade Western Europe, except in the event of a major war; and his overall policy suggests that he was anxious to avoid such a war, and not merely because the United States possessed the atomic bomb.’
And the claim is incredible just from the viewpoint of common sense: why would a country that just survived the largest invasion in all of history want to gamble with its existence and remaining resources invading Western Europe? The Soviets may have loathed the Western ruling classes, but they were not suicidal either.
So why the fearmongering? Because the Fascists wanted to finish the job, and their fellow anticommunists embraced them.
Top sources, thanks a bunch.