Naked
Aggressive
Terrorist
Organisation
In two weeks time NATO will celebrate its fiftieth birthday in Washington. NATO leaders hope by then to be celebrating victory in the Balkans. Present at the birthday party will be the three newest members of NATO: Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation was founded in April 1949. During the Cold War NATO claimed to be fighting on behalf of ‘the Free World’. From its very formation that claim was a lie. Among the twelve founder members was Portugal. The fascistic regime of Salazar ran one of the most oppressive states in Europe and fought some of the most brutal colonial wars in Africa. The right to self-determination of the peoples of Angola, Mozambique and Guinea Bissau was clearly not part of NATO’s concept of a ‘free world’.
Nor was Portugal an exception. Although Spain did not formally become a member of NATO until the 1980s, as early as 1950 NATO was regularly in discussions on mutual military aid with the fascist government of General Franco.
NATO was the military accompaniment to the Marshall Plan – not least since the author of this plan, General George Marshall, was a key military figure in the Truman administration. The devastation of the Second World War had left western European economies seriously weakened.
In France, Italy and virtually all west European countries except Britain and Ireland, (and obviously Portugal and Spain) Communist parties had come into government at the end of the war. For the US this was an extremely worrying situation. Economic recovery was only possible on the basis of vast amounts of American capital. Economic aid, however, went hand in hand with political and military measures.
At American insistence the Communists were pushed out of government in France. In Italy the US waged a massive campaign to prevent victory for the Communist Party - Socialist Party (PCI-PSI) electoral alliance in 1948. Huge amounts of money were sent to the Christian Democrats, arriving on ships announcing ‘a present from America’. The US made it plain that in the event of a PCI-PSI victory such ‘presents’ would immediately stop.
The Catholic Church threatened excommunication for anyone who voted for the Communists or Socialists. US warships patrolling off the Italian coast made more tangible threats.
Old Labour
A number of Mafiosi, of whom Lucky Luciano is merely the best known, were released from US jails and sent to Italy to aid the anti-communist campaign. Not surprisingly Frank Sinatra, and a number of other American entertainers, added their voices to the anti-communist chorus.
The British Labour Party and TUC also did their bit to prevent a left-wing electoral victory. The TUC played a central role in breaking up the united trade union federation that Italian workers had created after the fall of Mussolini, while the Labour Party was instrumental in engineering a right-wing split from the PSI.
The Labour government played a central role in the establishment of NATO. Labour was in the forefront of setting up the Brussels defence Pact in early 1949, which within a few weeks had been transformed into NATO.
The severe post-war economic crisis meant Britain could no longer function as the world’s policeman. In 1947 Attlee’s government had been forced to announce that its troops could no longer continue to suppress the developing revolution in Greece (while Stalin for his part was also doing his utmost to sabotage the revolution). The virulently anti-communist Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin demanded that the US step in. President Truman duly obliged.
It was the economic and military weakness of the western European states that allowed Truman to side-step strong isolationist tendencies in the US. But equally Truman had to take into account a Soviet Union that had emerged as a rival super-power, and strong Communist and Socialist movements in the west.
American capital was necessary to rebuild shattered economies: but Europe could not be rebuilt in America’s image. Unfettered capitalism, especially if it was seen as US domination of the European economies, was likely to lead to massive working class struggles. Welfare states were, therefore, the order of the day throughout western Europe.
NATO was the military counterpart to this. Marshall aid was designed to allow the European economies to develop to head off working class demands and isolate communists and socialists.
NATO was designed to allow the Europeans to defend themselves, with American backing, against perceived Soviet threats by preventing military conflicts among the European powers. (Such threats were, of course, the product of fevered anti-communist brains, but were, nevertheless, seen as real by many people).
Throughout the Cold War NATO did, indeed, remain primarily a defensive alliance. It was not involved in trying to regain eastern Europe for capitalism. When Soviet troops invaded Hungary and Czechoslovakia, NATO issued instructions that its troops should not interfere.
The end of the Cold War has changed all that. Without the Soviet ‘enemy’ NATO has had to rethink its role. It is no longer an organisation of states pledged to defend one another if they come under attack: it has adopted a more aggressive stance and greatly expanded its field of operations.
But that is not simply a result of the military collapse of the Soviet Union. Today capitalism feels itself triumphant. The dominant capitalist power, the United States, no longer needs to rebuild shattered European economies. Welfare states are obstacles to unfettered capitalism.
The US is, after all, only interested in defending the interests of US capital.
The new, aggressive, role of NATO goes hand in hand with a new aggressive capitalism. While the US was, perhaps reluctantly, dragged into NATO in 1949 today it is absolutely determined to impose its policies and needs on its European ‘partners’.
Shortly before NATO’s attacks on Serbia the US was engaged in a trade dispute with Europe over sales of bananas. The war in the Balkans may have removed that dispute from the headlines but it hasn’t eliminated it.
NATO bombs only boost power of Milosevic
From "Voices of democratic Serbia", a group of activists who participate in the pan-European Marches against Unemployment
"Bombing will only strengthen the present disastrous regime. The military intervention will be misused by the regime’s media to create a "stampede" of xenophobia and give additional impetus to the fast-growing extreme forms of nationalism.
The UN sanctions only helped the Milosevic clique to accumulate greater financial and property power over the rest of society.
Human suffering and disaster will continue. Evil cannot be opposed by a negative action of bombing and more sanctions.
A better strategy would be to engage positively in improving communication and free media in Serbia, and by greater support to democratic forces and individuals inside the country – those groups which kept alive solidarity and support with similar groups in the other ex-Yugoslav republics, even during the most dramatic moments of the recent wars.
The only effective way towards a real democratisation is not through diplomacy "from above", with bombing and hi-tech action from a distance."
The war in the Balkans may have removed that dispute from the headlines but it hasn’t eliminated it.
Similar economic disputes are bound to arise in future as the US tries more and more to impose its vision of uncontrolled capitalist competition on the rest of the world.
In the past the Europeans have been largely content to let the US run NATO. Only France has occasionally protested. However the EU now has its own agenda – it would like to expand to the east. Alongside that goes an expansion of NATO. The US, however, is essentially worried about the cost: that is why they limited the expansion of NATO to Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic – against European protests.
The US is, after all, only interested in defending the interests of US capital. It uses whatever vehicle it feels best defends those interests. Sometimes this is the UN, sometimes NATO, sometimes direct American intervention.
The latest awesome display of military power in the Balkans is above all a warning to anyone who dares to challenge the interests of US capital.