Too Many Questions Than Answers About NATO Today

What and who is Nato? Importantly, what is its purpose today? The question is pertinent because it appears that the United States of America, through a variety of organisation’s that straddle the Globe, such as the IMF, G7, EU, UNSC, ICC, etc and of course Nato, is bent on putting its imprint on all aspects of international affairs. In fact, it is determined to control the international relations and, even the foreign policies, of most countries.

In 1949 the US cobbled ten other countries- ie, UK, Belgium, Canada, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Norway and Portugal- to establish the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allegedly to protect their security against the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (the Soviet Union). This was only four years after the end of World War II during which Nazi Germany, through its blitzkrieg across Poland and Soviet Ukraine almost obliterated the Soviet Union, which suffered some 27million casualties as a result of the Nazi depredations.

At Stalingrad however the Soviets beat back the Nazis and drove them back to Berlin and contributed greatly to the dismantlement of the German War machine in 1945. Hitler’s body till today is not known where the Soviets deposited it. Strangely Nato was formed four years later to “protect ” the West from the Soviet Union,⁹but not to protect the West from a Germany that laid waste to Poland, France, Belgium, United Kingdom, etc let alone the USSR. Thus the heroic resistance of the Soviet Union and eventual defeat of Nazi Germany from the Eastern flank was rewarded by the West as the brand of Soviet enmity.

This 1949 formation of Nato is today colouring the world even though the Soviet Union no longer exists regardless that it never defined itself as the enemy of the West, but rather it is the West, led by the US, which defined itself as the enemy of the Soviet Union. The death of the USSR merely led the US and “its friends and allies” to shift their enmity to today’s Russia under its leader Vladimir Putin. It has already been noted that Nato began in 1949 as an eleven member organization. Now it numbers some thirty two (32) members and other countries are being cajoled or coaxed to join and encircle Russia, before China becomes the new target. Joe Biden, the US president and emperor of the West, isn’t only Chief Zionist, as he recently refererred to himself, went to Japan and South Korea and discussed the prospects of these countries being informal members of Nato. China and North Korea, as well as the Russian Eastern flank (Vladivostok) were the menu on the Biden table.

Australia was also roped in by Biden into something called AUKUS – Australia, United Kingdom and United States- to look after the South Pacific. The Philippines had, of course been placed under some sort of US suzereignity. The US military bases in the Philippines are part of the 750 in over 80 countries. What does this Nato leader do with 750 military bases around the globe? Is China also not correct when she says that the US is a threat US State Department Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, Victoria Nuland, aka “Regime Change Karen” inadvertently revealed the West’s true intentions against when she told the CNN that Putin’s Russia was “not the Russia we wanted”.

Who is this “we”? Whether it is the US, the West, G7, ICC, Nato, the European Union or US “partners and friends”, in Biden’s favorite phrase, does not matter. They are one and the same thing. They are, after all, the custodians of the “rules-based international system”, whose “rules” are known only to themselves. Using both the military might (Nato) and the Dollar the US-led Nato and international payments system the US has subjected the entire world to its suzereingnity and dominance. Both the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact have collapsed.

The Pact was a collective defense Treaty established in 1955 by the Soviet Union and 7 seven other other states in Central and Eastern Europe, namely Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland and Roumania. Poland, Hungary, Albania and Czechoslovakia (which has broken into several independent states) are now strongly against Russia interms of the Nato diktat. The Warsaw Pact then was only formed as a response to the formation of Nato. There was thus no desire to become an enemy of the West. It is Natoised West that defined itself as the enemy of Russia. So, when Tesla and SpaceX CEO, Elon Musk, argued that after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Nato lost its reason to exist and yet embarked on an expansion spree to fill the void, where is a reasonable person to gainsay that? Similarly, in such a Natoised world can we doubt China’s apprehension that the US poses great danger to security in space? Is there any wonder that the Global South is beginning to doubt the wisdom of agreeing to a US-led Nato world? The New York Times reported that there are 12 secret CIA bases in Ukraine almost invariably directed against Russia.

This figure is in addition to other Nato activities by the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Poland in Ukraine also directed against Russia. Again, no reasonable person would doubt the testimony of the US Defence Secretary, Lloyd Austin, when he told US Congress recently that “if Ukraine fails I genuinely believe that Nato will be fighting Russia. ”

It is clear that Nato, as the US intimates, regards Ukraine as its territory. Afrerall, the US is a perpetual warring machine and so would Nato follow its leader in fashioning the world according to its image. We are headed to a future of uncertainty under the leadership of this doddering but bellicose octogenarian , Joe Biden. It is time Nato must dissolve like the Soviet Union did. In that case reason and peace would return to the international system.

Prof. Themba Sono *Sono has taught at several universities in South Africa, US, Canada, Europe, East Asia and North Africa for the past forty years. He is the author of a number of books and journals. He has published countless articles on politics, international affairs and economics. He served for a decade as a MPL at Gauteng Legislature.