“For the record, how many wars has NATO been involved in?”
Part II
US interest in seeing a united Ukraine does not seem to directly affect its security interest similar to what it did during the Cuban missile crisis in 1962 when it asked the Soviet Union to remove its missile base in Cuba, which is only 90 kilometers away from Florida. In the case of Ukraine, the US is using NATO as a front to advance its own hegemonistic ambition.
The world knows the Cold War ended in 1989. The decision made by the last President of the USSR, Mikhail Gorbachev, to disband the Warsaw Pact was sadly not reciprocated by the US. Gorbachev took the promise by then US State Department secretary James Baker that NATO will not move eastward after the unification of the two Germany.
Russia does not fear war with the West, but historically, it was the Soviet Union that carried the brunt of fighting the Nazis stopping them in the Battle of St. Petersburg and pushing them back to Berlin. An estimated 25 million Russians perished in that war.
NATO is based on the proposition that an attack on a member country will be treated as an attack on the alliance. This position at the outset exposed that it was not created for defensive purposes but as a springboard to enforce US interest in Europe. Thus, if Russia invades Ukraine, all the 30 members are blindly obligated to come to its defense. This position is based on the assumption Russia will attack that country.
Political analysts are puzzled that the automatic retaliatory clause seals off any justification that NATO was created for defensive purposes.
One must note that once war has commenced, nobody can assume with certainty that a member is defending an aggression.
For the record, how many wars has NATO been involved in? NATO fought in Serbia, Iraq, Libya, and Afghanistan, and certainly, it was not for a defensive purpose. This underscores why Russia is against the idea of an open-ended membership for NATO, for most likely some will be fighting to advance their own interest using the alliance as a shield.
There is a greater possibility that the US and UK will start a war in Ukraine. The question is for how long can Russia control this provocation?Could one not say the sending of $200 million in military assistance to Ukraine, UK supplying anti-tank weapons and Norway beefing up its forces near Ukraine’s border are not adding tension to the already tense situation? Can the US and UK say their action is not in anticipation of a Russian invasion?
In fact, before the tension was heightened, Russia has been warding off the US and UK navies in the Crimea. These moves of the US and UK explains why NATO is deeply divided. The more powerful and leading members like Germany, France and Italy are not supportive of the showdown. First, the three believe Russia is not going to invade Ukraine of which close to 40 percent of the inhabitants are Russians.
Second, Germany will lose much in the event of conflict. The multi-billion-dollar Nord Stream 2 project is already finished and just awaiting certification by the German government. Should German Chancellor Olaf Scholz allow his government to be persuaded by NATO, Germany would not only be throwing away billions of dollars but could create a fuel crisis for the EU. Both the US and UK are keen in wanting to stop the Nord Stream 2 pipeline which passes through the Baltic Sea. Discontinuing the pipeline could force German suppliers to look back to the US for natural gas but at a much higher price.
The three economic powerhouses of the EU are also against using the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications (SWIFT) to financially isolate the Russian economy. They know SWIFT no longer works. Besides, Russia has been preparing for the dollarization of its currency, and China is around to financially assist as what happened when the US and EU imposed economic sanctions in 2014 after it annexed Crimea.
Also, NATO members suspect the crisis in Ukraine was purposely generated by the US to give Europe a reason to unite against Russia and collaterally give the US arms manufacturers the opportunity to sell arms in the guise of deterring invasion. Indeed, the crisis is keeping alive NATO’s slogan as alleged peacemaker. Besides, all the wars in which NATO was involved were not sanctioned by the UN Security Council nor fought in defense of a member. In other words, NATO has become an instrument for the US to pursue its hegemonistic interest.
Rather, NATO is more interested in dividing states only to demand from them to join the alliance. US and NATO involvement in war includes countries outside the boundaries which the alliance geopolitically demarcated. But behind the fragmentation of Europe is to find justification to increase US arms export. In fact, the US has long been demanding from its members to increase by at least 2 percent of their GDP in the procurement of arms. President Trump has been complaining, not to mention that countries like Germany, Japan, and South Korea are already shouldering the expenses for the stay of the US bases in their country.
One must recall that Russia already put a red line for Kosovo not to join NATO after it was forcibly curved from Serbia. The US did not make a fuss to the demand of Russia fearing it could precipitate a crisis. To date, nobody wants to recall that issue.
The promise of NATO not to advance eastward is a guarantee that Russia will not invade Ukraine. Perhaps, we can say Gorbachev was gullible to take the word that the Americans will honor their promise. Russia was rather liberal not to demand for the dismantling of NATO in return for Gorbachev’s decision to disband the Warsaw Pact (WP).
As the world sees it, NATO today has become the jumping board of the US to implement its policies playing the role as unifier to a fragmented continent. From an original 12 NATO members when it was formed in 1949, it increased its membership to 30.
The US state secretary Anthony Blinken is practically hooping the capitals of NATO orchestrating support to its out-of-tune drumbeating for war with Russia. NATO’s secretary general Jens Stoltenberg, the man who has been talking loudly of possible war with Russia, was not allowed to participate in the conference. As usual, UK played the role of a maverick that in the words of George Galloway, “made the former colonizer a vassal state of the US”. Lately, Boris Johnson has been spreading the word that Russia is preposterously hatching a coup to install a puppet government in Ukraine. This shows just how desperate UK has become to play a big role in the alliance after exiting from the EU.
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