The NATO axiom: 2 + 2 = 5
By
Saul Landau Read Spanish Version
One
of many relevant questions the ABC moderators neglected to ask
Hillary and Obama in the mid April televised debate: Why does NATO
continue to exist after the Soviet Union collapsed? Indeed, the
entire media accepts NATO as one of the several military axioms that
remain from Cold War days.
For
those who don’t remember, in April 1949, Washington initiated a
military alliance, supposedly to counter Soviet military power, which
bound the United States to defend Western Europe against a supposedly
imminent Soviet invasion. By the early 1950s, The North Atlantic
Treaty had grown far beyond North Atlantic European nations, and
included Canada, Portugal, Italy, Greece and Turkey. SAC (Strategic
Air Command) bombers flew 24/7 missions with nuclear payloads,
turning around when the planes reached the Soviet borders. Land-based
intercontinental nuclear missiles and submarine-based ballistic
missiles triangulated NATO’s atomic arsenal. The Soviets relied
initially on land-based missiles.
By
1954, the Soviets — getting worried — offered to join NATO to
dispel invasion fears. Instead of accepting this peace offer, NATO
brought West Germany into its fold. In 1955, the Soviets responded by
initiating the Warsaw Pact — an alliance of its Eastern European
“satellite” states. Thus, the Cold War advanced with two rival
military alliances — until one dissolved in 1990 through its own
weaknesses.
When
the USSR imploded, the entire world saw a pathetic skeleton of an
empire with only a military and space program, but no economy or
culture with which to spread its influence. Even its many thousands
of nuclear weapons may not have worked due to the overall state of
disrepair that characterized Soviet society.
By
logic, NATO members should also have disbanded their own costly
(military spending to stop a Soviet invasion was not cheap)
partnership. Instead, the NATO anachronism not only survived the
Soviet demise, it expanded — into the former Soviet Republics.
Poland,
Bulgaria, Romania et al might soon be joined by Georgia and Ukraine
and other former Communist republics.
In
recent meetings, NATO survivalists have declared a new role for the
once threatening Germany. Instead of limiting itself to peacekeeping
roles, the German military should morph itself into a front line
fighting force to meet the new Russian threat as well as the older
Taliban and Iranian menaces.
In
Bucharest in late March, leaders at a NATO summit meeting tried to
convince German leaders that they had serious enemies. The Wehrmacht
had not assumed its fair share of the troop burden in Afghanistan.
The lion’s share of the Afghan onus had fallen on the poor United
States, and the noble Britain, Canada and Holland. Germany, Italy,
Spain and other NATOites had refused to place their troops in harm’s
way. Didn’t “these cowards” understand the purpose of the NATO
alliance, asked a U.S. delegate — off the record — in the
corridors? He answered his own question. “Whatever our cause is at
any given period we can’t go it alone. Even Bush has learned that
even though the neo cons haven’t.”
Six
decades ago, American leaders pointed in alarm at the Red Army troops
poised to launch a surprise attack on the innocent and righteous
Western Europe. (One did not read in the mainstream media in those
days facts about how the Soviets had suffered more than 20 million
dead, another 40 million wounded, lost 200 major cities, had no
housing, little food or boots for their troops. The CIA knew but
didn’t make public the fact that the Soviets didn’t coincide
their railroad gauges to match the size of those in their satellite
countries of Eastern Europe. How would they then stage a rapid and
surprise offensive? They would have had to unload their supply
trains, transfer the arms and other material to trucks, drive them
across borders and re-load them on trains.) The Soviet threat —
despite facts to the contrary — became the axiom for the Cold War
and the justification for NATO.
Now,
U.S. alarmists point to “the rise of China as a great power,
combined with a resurgent Russia across Eurasia,” and demand “an
American-European alliance.” (Robert Kaplan, NY
Times
op-ed March 27, 2008) It’s as if the arm chair war intellectuals
fear that terrorism might prove a fleeting phenomenon and they need a
real nation to justify the permanent military economy and culture.
For
the time being, NATO serves as the acceptable and unchallenged world
military force, an international police agency that the United States
tried to drive into its fights. But the 26 Members will not easily
get drawn into nasty affairs like front line fights in Afghanistan
and Iraq. Washington will, as usual, take the military leadership,
but expects other NATO nations to buy its useless and very expensive
aircraft and other modern weapons. And all NATO nations have some
presence in Afghanistan. But they have directed their national
interests, rightfully, in the more important issues like environment
and climate change and the maintenance of economic stability in
Europe.
Europeans
remain intimidated by U.S. power, but
an Italian Senator (Green) wondered how Saddam
Hussein or the Taliban posed offensive threats to Western Europe. To
the extent that such forces, and those in the Iranian theocracy did
alarm European, the best response would not be a missile defense,
which U.S. leaders insist on.
In
early April, Bush spoke to the assembled NATO audience and told them
they had to add Darfur to the list of urgent issues NATO had to deal
with. “It is no longer a static alliance focused on defending
Europe from a Soviet tank invasion,” Bush explained. “It is now
an expeditionary alliance that is sending its forces across the world
to help secure a future of freedom and peace for millions.”
According to a friend who was present, a French observer remarked:
“Perhaps NATO should send a contingent to rebuild New Orleans.”
As
the U.S. empire struggles to keep afloat in Iraq and Afghanistan
while those wars bleed its Treasury, it demands from Europe similar
commitments for global military escapades.
Think
of a world in which European, Canadian, Australian and U.S. forces
engage native fighters in the
various
“Stans”
as well as in Palestine, the Congo, Somalia, Darfur, Yemen, and Sri
Lanka. Terrorism holds more promise for real fighting than communism
ever did. The only problem with such a scenario is the public. In
Europe, it doesn’t buy into such plans.
As
columnist William Pfaff aptly concluded: “They also won’t agree
because the effort simply is not serious. It is constructed on
political fantasies and counter-verities, and half-baked ideas. It’s
like George Bush’s announcement before leaving Washington that
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki’s sending his national army to
Basra was “a defining moment in the history of free Iraq,”
restoring central government authority in Basra and ridding it of
“criminal elements.”
NATO
has become absurd in the post Cold War world, with global warming and
food shortages transcending the antiquated security notions
associated with armies. But so has the U.S. military budget. It’s
time to revive the warning of an old anti-communist. “We must guard
against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or
unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the
disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must
never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or
democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an
alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of
the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our
peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper
together.” Eisenhower’s farewell words should resonate ever more
loudly so the media might occasionally repeat his alert and offer
some antidote to its poisonous fascination with flag tie pins and the
sound of the word “bitter.”
Saul
Landau was awarded the Bernardo O’Higgins decoration by the
government of Chile. He is an Institute for Policy Studies fellow, an
author (A
BUSH AND BOTOX WORLD)
and filmmaker (WE
DON’T PLAY GOLF HERE)
— email roundworldproductions@gmail.com
