NATO has celebrated its 75th anniversary with much pomp and fanfare. Founded as a defense organization, NATO acclaimed the Western Alliance’s unity and its strategy of forward defense and deterrence. Yet NATO’s statement makes it clear that its support of Ukraine is binding, its enmity to Russia is irrevocable and its determination to contain and challenge China is irremediable.
NATO is adamant about supporting Ukraine to defeat Russia. Its statement highlights that “To that end, we intend to provide a minimum baseline funding of 40 billion euros within the next year, and to provide sustainable levels of security assistance for Ukraine to prevail, taking into account Ukraine’s needs…”
NATO emphasizes that “The PRC has become a decisive enabler of Russia’s war against Ukraine through its so-called ‘no limits’ partnership and its large-scale support for Russia’s defense industrial base. This increases the threat Russia poses to its neighbors and to Euro-Atlantic security… The PRC continues to pose systemic challenges to Euro-Atlantic security…”
Clearly NATO is extending its foothold to the Indo-Pacific by linking through partnerships Euro-Atlantic security to Indo-Pacific security. The statement asserts that “The Indo-Pacific is important for NATO, given that developments in that region directly affect Euro-Atlantic security. We welcome the continued contributions of our Asia-Pacific partners to Euro-Atlantic security.” In much the same vein, NATO is also extending its presence to the Middle East, expanding its operations in Kuwait and establishing a liaison office in Jordan.
Significantly, NATO acknowledged that “nuclear deterrence is the cornerstone of Alliance security,” only reinforcing China and Russia’s determination to further expand their nuclear arsenals. In fact, a global nuclear race has zealously begun! That’s an ambitious global plan for NATO guaranteeing that China and Russia (along other states) will face off NATO’s plans and actions. Surely NATO’s politico-military expansive plans and actions reflect that it has dedicated itself to preserve and oversee the international order, which has been transitioning to a multipolar world. This enlargement and expansion of NATO will force many non-Western states to join the Russian and Chinese-led politico-security organization Shanghai Cooperation Organization [and BRICS], which will become the de facto “Warsaw Pact” of the Global South.
Neither Russia nor China will accept their defeat or containment respectively. The prospects of a NATO-Russia war, war in the Indo-Pacific and employment of nuclear weapons have ominously increased! In retrospect, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, who was the first NATO supreme allied commander, shortly after assuming that post, he wrote these words in February 1951: “If in 10 years, all American troops stationed in Europe for national defense purposes have not been returned to the United States, then this whole project [NATO] will have failed.”
One can only wonder at his reaction today if he learned that 75 years later, the United States is still the dominant force in Europe, expanded NATO to the Baltic states, Finland and Sweden, is paving the way for Ukraine to become a NATO member, has created partnerships from across the world making them ipso facto NATO members, and moving in the direction of linking Europe’s security with that of the Indo-pacific! NATO’s responsibilities, risks, costs and threats
of global war has all increased exponentially.
For the sake of historical facts, which few in Washington would like to revisit, on June 26, 1997, distinguished former and current officials, diplomats and scholars penned a letter to President Clinton emphasizing that “We, the undersigned, believe that the current U.S. led effort to expand NATO, the focus of the recent Helsinki and Paris Summits, is a policy error of historic proportions.”
That’s the world we are looking at in the forthcoming months and years, a policy error of historic proportions. And yet, not even a whiff for organizing an international peace conference has been uttered. Surely, an enormous tragedy is being written making Oedipus tragedy one of immaterial lip service.
Robert G. Rabil, Ph.D. is a professor in the Department of Political Science Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters at Florida Atlantic University.
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