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NATO militarism fuels war tension

Workers Power Britain

On the 4th and 5th of September, the Nato summit will be held in Newport, Wales. Leaders of all 28 member states will assemble to discuss how the world’s most powerful military alliance will prepare itself for a new round of militarisation and conflict in the post ‘War on Terror’ world.

Stop the War and many other working class and socialist organisations are calling for mass protests in the week running up to the Summit under the slogan No new wars! No to Nato!

Towards a new Cold War

The Nato summit will see 67 heads of state and government leaders discuss the adoption of a “Readiness Action Plan”. Their Summit Guide says an ‘arc of crisis’ surrounds the Alliance. This ‘arc of crisis’ is a euphemism for the wars and instability caused mainly by the wars and “interventions” which Nato has engaged in over the last 20 years.

Dominating the agenda at the Summit will be the supposed threat from Russia.

The only government leader to attend who is not a representative of a member state is President Poroshenko of Ukraine, a sign of Ukraine’s strategic importance in Nato’s developing confrontation with Russia.

On the 29th August, Ukraine’s Cabinet of Ministers introduced a bill to the Parliament which proposes to end Ukraine’s non-aligned status and open the road to joining Nato.

The instability in Ukraine, and the United States’ determination to thwart German and Russian attempts to impose a federal solution to end the civil war, is rapidly becoming a source of tension in the Nato bloc. The Franco-German wing, which has extensive economic and military relationships with Russia, is opposed to integrating Ukraine into Nato and the EU, seeing this as a provocation which will hamper their growing cooperation with Putin’s regime.

On the other hand, Poland and the Baltic states are pressing for greater Nato commitment and presence in the countries on Nato’s eastern frontier.

A new political period has opened up with the events in Ukraine, one that is marked by increasing imperialist rivalry not only in Europe and the Middle East but in Asia and Africa, too. A supremely aggressive USA with its ever-loyal servant, British imperialism, is hell-bent on encircling and weakening the recent graduates to the imperialist club: Russia and China.

In fact, their actions are driving Russia and China closer together, creating an alliance that will attract other states eager to free themselves from US bullying and economic domination.

Stop Militarism – no new wars

The Nato summit will see the USA and its allies, like Poland, trying to pressure European countries into ramping up their commitment to Nato, by increasing spending on weapons and troop deployments, allowing the USA to shift some of the burden of safeguarding its interests onto its allies.

Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the Secretary General of Nato, makes this clear in an interview for “Prospect” (May 15) where he stated:

“We can’t afford to disarm in Europe, while seeing Russia rearm and mass troops on the Ukrainian border.” To this he adds, “The cuts must stop”, by which he means defence cuts not those on social spending, which are “justified”.

He boasts that Nato has already mobilised “more ships at sea, more planes in the air, and more exercises on land” and has “agreed military-to-military co-operation including defence reforms and modernisation”.

The pretext for increased spending is the instability and military tension provoked by the US-sponsored overthrow of the pro-Russian government in Ukraine.

This has had the desired effect, with Nato’s announcement that its forces will take up positions in military bases in the Baltic states and Poland for the first time.

Nato’s propaganda promotes it as a vehicle for peace and stability in Europe. While no European member state has actually been invaded by anyone, Nato has itself invaded or attacked a number of countries far away from Europe.

In fact, Nato is a tool of US foreign policy. Its purpose is to bind countries to the agenda of the United States, an agenda which aims above all at pre-emptive military action to prevent the emergence of a powerful geopolitical rival to the USA.

20 years after the end of the first Cold War, we are witnessing a new round of military escalation and confrontation, a new Cold War that threatens to turn hot as rival powers compete to redivide the world into new spheres of exploitation.

We must oppose this new war drive and the threat it presents of devastating new wars.

The Nato Summit will see world leaders, who have collectively invaded more countries and killed more people than all the tinpot dictators put together, cynically posture about “peace” and “security”. The reality is that the only security they want is the security of their own domination of the world, and the peace they will impose is, for the millions killed by Nato bombs and bullets, the peace of the graveyard.

The situation today demands not only solidarity with the antifascist resistance in Ukraine, but exposure of any claim that Ukraine is some sort of special victim of Russian imperialism, just at the moment when it is actually being seized by US and EU imperialism.

Above all it means revitalising the anti-war movement, around Europe and the world. It needs to be like the one we mobilised against the US and Nato wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

No to US bombing of Iraq!

No Nato membership for Ukraine!

Close the foreign bases – disband Nato!

Leaflet published August 30th, 2014

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