This week, the 31 member states of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) met in Vilnius, Lithuania. Ukraine’s status as a potential 32nd member was high on the agenda, but the growing rifts within the Alliance produced few tangible commitments.
While the media focused on whether the US and UK thought that Ukraine was sufficiently “grateful” for the many billions in military aid the country has received, NATO doubled down on its dangerous vision of a polarised world that reasserts its role as global policeman.
As in Madrid in 2022, the 28 European, two North American and one state that straddles Europe and Asia (Turkey) were joined by the governments of Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand at the Summit. At last year’s meeting, the Alliance articulated a sweeping vision of a “Global NATO”, which the Progressive International Cabinet condemned in a statement.
The new Cold War, the statement warned, risks not only direct confrontation with Russia or China, but could also turn third nations “into sites of indirect proxy conflict, creating new ‘sacrifice zones’ in the name of security for those who are last to bear the brunt of war.”
This year, the invitees from outside the North Atlantic and the communiqué the NATO states issued at the Summit doubled down on the organisation’s strategic posture outlined at last year’s summit: China’s “stated ambitions… challenge [NATO] interests, security and values” necessitating a NATO pivot from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
The Chinese government condemned these pointed criticisms in NATO’s communiqué. “NATO, having destabilized Europe, must not try to destabilize Asia-Pacific and the world,” the spokesperson of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said. "More than 30 years after the end of the Cold War, NATO — as a legacy of the Cold War — remains trapped in a zero-sum mindset.”
NATO insists that it is a defensive alliance. But its bloody record — including the unprovoked full-scale wars against Afghanistan and Libya — contradict that position. Now, with plans for NATO Liaison Offices from Japan to Jordan, it is clear that NATO’s expansionist agenda does not stop at Europe’s borders. Indeed, NATO’s communiqué ominously warned that it would now seek to combat foreign influence in what it calls its “southern neighbourhood”, Africa and the Middle East, where NATO has a sordid colonial history.
The drive towards and perils of a new Cold War should be clear for all to see. The nations of the world now spend over $2 trillion annually on armaments — with the US accounting for nearly half of that amount. As tens of thousands die on the battlefield, precious resources are being diverted from the great challenges facing humanity: hunger, poverty, illness, and climate change. With the threat of nuclear annihilation looming over our societies, the imperative to challenge NATO’s agenda of war has never been greater.
As the Cabinet stressed in last year’s statement: “Lasting peace can only be won by a common security framework that does not allow for the domination of one country by another, or one bloc over any other — but rather succeeds to demilitarise the planet, fight its poverty and pool common resources to secure social and environmental justice. In standing against these existential priorities, NATO has revealed a preference for domination over the imperative of our survival.”
In solidarity,
The Progressive International Secretariat
Related Readings
AUKUS - Australia locked into an US anti-China coaltion
NATO Expands, again Vijay Prashad (1-hour)
AUKUS and the drive to war with China (The Johnmenadue's suite of articles, 2023)
Looking East - the case of China [The Nato paper 2022]