Contrary to what is written in its founding charter and press releases, or what its proponents claim, NATO is no ordinary defense and security organization. It is far more than that. It is a multidimensional, multifaceted organization driven by distinct ideological, political-economic, and class-based preferences. Moreover, as an organization born in the early stages of the Cold War, while its primary objective was ostensibly defined as “opposing the USSR and communism,” its actual function went far beyond this: it served as a mechanism to keep alliance members aligned with and under the control of the United States. Through NATO, the US has established immense influence not only over the defense, security, and foreign policies of member states, but also over their domestic politics, economic policies, educational institutions, universities, academia, think tanks, trade unions, and cultural industries.<\/p>\n
As the apparatus of aggression and occupation of US imperialism, NATO launched its first out-of-area military operation in the mid-1990s in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the Balkans. This was followed by the intervention in Kosovo in 1999. In the Gulf War of 1990\u20131991, during the US assault on Iraq, NATO was not directly involved as an alliance or a corporate entity. Instead, there was a US-led coalition that included numerous NATO members. At the time, NATO provided air defense systems to T\u00fcrkiye but did not launch a direct military attack on Iraq.<\/p>\n
In those years, with less than a decade having passed since the end of the Cold War in 1991, liberals and neoliberals alike were busy extolling the virtues of a single-centered, monocentric world order (note: not a “unipolar” world order, as a “pole” logically requires at least two opposites; to call it unipolar is incorrect both linguistically and logically). A tempest of liberalism, capitalism, postmodernism, globalization, and the “New World Order” was sweeping the globe. The United States had triumphed. The USSR had dissolved. The Warsaw Pact had collapsed. The Eastern Bloc had been consigned to history. The Berlin Wall had fallen. Socialism and communism had been defeated.<\/p>\n
Under those circumstances, since NATO’s raison d’\u00eatre had ceased to exist, it should logically have been consigned to history as well. Its utility was being questioned; people were asking whom it would protect, and against whom. Consequently, there was an active search for an enemy\u2014or enemies\u2014for NATO. And indeed, they were found.<\/p>\n
Weapons of mass destruction and weapons of mass persuasion<\/strong><\/p>\n NATO\u2014which stood idly by, biding its time and waiting for the right conditions while Yugoslavia was being torn apart, its people massacred, and ethnic cleansing and mass rapes were being carried out\u2014finally mobilized at the exact moment and under the specific conditions dictated by US imperialism, delivering a clear message to the world. It announced to the globe that its mandate now encompassed missions such as “peacebuilding, peacekeeping, and combating radical movements and terrorism.” This, of course, aligned seamlessly with the rhetoric of “human rights, freedom, democracy, and the civilized world” championed by the United States as NATO\u2019s founding leader. For the United States cast itself as the guardian of these values and concepts; yet in their name, and hiding behind them, it attacked, bombed, and occupied other nations. It would go so far as to first instigate disputes and conflicts in target nations, lay the groundwork for ethnic, religious, and sectarian strife, actively encourage and provoke these clashes, and then proceed to occupy those countries under the pretext of resolving these very problems and restoring stability.<\/p>\n And there were millions of people across the world who believed these American lies. In particular, the US media, along with global outlets, academics, non-governmental organizations, and think tanks supported by Washington, operated virtually as weapons of mass persuasion, designed to convince and deceive the public.<\/p>\n The United States grew so arrogant in this policy that US Presidents began to declare this mission to be far more than a mere political duty\u2014it was, they claimed, a religious, divine, and moral responsibility. The US peddled this falsehood in Iraq, as it did in Yugoslavia. As Yugoslavia was disintegrating\u2014or being disintegrated\u2014NATO sought to project an image and send a message that, as an alliance whose sole Muslim member was T\u00fcrkiye, it was defending Muslim Bosniaks and Kosovars against Christian Serbs, thereby shielding the righteous and oppressed from the unjust and tyrannical.<\/p>\n The collapse of the Atlantic system<\/strong><\/p>\n Years have passed. The global balance of power has shifted. The imperialist dominance and hegemonic capacity of the United States have eroded and continue to decay. Russia, particularly after Putin took power, staged a rapid recovery starting in the 2000s. It consolidated its influence, beginning with its near abroad. China, alongside its economic prowess, expanded its political, military, scientific, and technological power, emerging as the primary competitor and most worrisome adversary of the United States. Within the Atlantic system and the Western alliance\u2014whose rules and institutions were established by the US itself\u2014deep-seated divisions have emerged, running parallel to its fragmentation and loss of power. Under these conditions, the United States is both failing to manage its own deep internal fault lines and socio-class contradictions, and experiencing major friction with its allies. Its intent to reduce Canada to a mere province, its ambition to annex Danish-administered Greenland, its barbarism in Venezuela and Palestine, its joint aggression with Israel against Iran, and its threats directed at Cuba must all be interpreted through this lens.<\/p>\n In the past, an imperialist power would at least superficially fabricate lies to rationalize, justify, and legitimize its invasions, aggression, plunder, and barbarism. For instance, when the United States invaded Afghanistan in 2001, immediately following the September 11 attacks, it cited the presence of Osama bin Laden\u2014the Saudi leader of the Al-Qaeda terrorist network\u2014in Afghanistan as its justification for the invasion. Similarly, during its 2003 invasion of Iraq, the US propagated the lie that “Saddam Hussein possesses chemical weapons and weapons of mass destruction.” When the German dictator Adolf Hitler invaded Poland in 1939, and the Italian dictator Mussolini invaded Abyssinia (Ethiopia) in 1935, they too presented historical, political, and geopolitical pretexts, however fabricated, to justify their actions.<\/p>\n Today, US imperialism does not even feel the need to construct such lies or manufacture pretexts. US President Trump openly talks of withdrawing from NATO, while scolding member states and insulting European leaders with arrogant remarks.<\/p>\n For this reason, NATO must be analyzed not by reading the words written in its founding treaty, but by grasping the shifting needs of US imperialism.<\/p>\n \n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Contrary to what is written in its founding charter and press releases, or what its proponents claim, NATO is no ordinary defense and security organization. It is far more than that. It is a multidimensional, multifaceted organization driven by distinct ideological, political-economic, and class-based preferences. Moreover, as an organization born in the early stages of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":55,"featured_media":15217,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"gallery","meta":{"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[529,319,891,19275,288,207,683,409,822,1379],"class_list":["post-15215","post","type-post","status-publish","format-gallery","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion","tag-china","tag-donald-trump","tag-europe","tag-imperalism","tag-iran","tag-nato","tag-russia","tag-turkiye","tag-ukraine","tag-yugoslavia","post_format-post-format-gallery"],"yoast_head":"\n