{"id":102147,"date":"2017-11-20T12:00:13","date_gmt":"2017-11-20T12:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=102147"},"modified":"2017-11-19T17:57:36","modified_gmt":"2017-11-19T17:57:36","slug":"the-biggest-threat-to-world-peace-is-nato","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2017\/11\/the-biggest-threat-to-world-peace-is-nato\/","title":{"rendered":"The Biggest Threat to World Peace Is NATO"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

15 Nov 2017 – <\/em>On November 8th, Britain\u2019s Daily Mail<\/em> bannered \u201cNATO tells Europe to prepare for \u2018rapid deployment\u2019:\u201d<\/a> and sub-headed \u201cDefence chiefs say roads, bridges and rail links must be improved in case tanks and heavy vehicles need to be quickly mobilised\u201d (to invade Russia, but the newspaper\u2019s slant was instead that this must be done purely defensively: \u201cIn October, NATO accused Russia of misleading them, saying that Moscow had deliberately violated international rules of military drills\u201d).<\/p>\n

The article continued:<\/p>\n

Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg called for the infrastructure update across Europe as NATO is set to overhaul its command structure for the first time since the Cold War<\/em><\/p>\n

During a press conference in Brussels, Stoltenberg said NATO needs a command structure to ensure \u2018we have the right forces, in the right place, with the right equipment at the right time.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

He then added: \u2018This is not only about commands. We also need to ensure that roads and bridges are strong enough to take our largest vehicles, and that rail networks are equipped for the rapid deployment of tanks and heavy equipment.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018NATO has military requirements for civilian infrastructure and we need to update these to ensure that current military needs are taken into account.\u2019\u00a0<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The NATO military alliance against Russia has been continuing the Cold War, and is now intensifying it, after the voluntary end of the Cold War in 1991, by the Soviet Union, and by its mirrored military alliance, which was the Warsaw Pact.<\/p>\n

With that end of communism, and end of the communist military alliance, all of the constructive reason for NATO likewise ceased, and so NATO should have ended simultaneously when the Soviet Union and its military alliance did; but, instead, certain corporate interests in Western nations have prevailed; and, so, the Cold War is now ratcheting up even further on the U.S.-NATO side. This escalation, which is being done under false pretext (on the basis of lies)<\/a>, is forcing Russia to similarly increase its military budget and military exercises (such as the drills that are the pretext for NATO\u2019s latest aggressive move here) \u2014 and Russia\u2019s responses are being called by NATO \u2018Russian aggression\u2019, as if NATO hasn\u2019t actually forced Russia to increase its military defenses (including those \u201cdrills\u201d).<\/p>\n

The need that the NATO-supplying corporations, such as Lockheed Martin and BAE<\/a>, have \u2014 companies whose enormous profits depend heavily upon intensifying the Cold War instead of ending it (such as ought to have happened in 1991) \u2014 has become the mass-murdering and land-destroying corporate tail, which is actually wagging the governmental dogs, of Western nations\u2019 (especially of America\u2019s) foreign policies, so as to increase global expenditures into the mass-killing industries (most of which are U.S.-based<\/a>), in order to keep their war-profits high. Wall Street is heavily involved in this, and most of America\u2019s billionaires have these types of investments.<\/p>\n

Economic theory considers all purchases and sales to constitute \u2018economic growth\u2019; and, so, expenditures and purchases for mass-killing and bombing, and for defenses against same, are considered just as much \u2018economic growth\u2019 as if those expenditures had gone into building things, instead of into destroying things \u2014 and neoliberals are therefore just as supportive of the military-industrial complex as are neoconservatives \u2014 neoliberals merely view the matter from the perspective of internal domestic policies (\u2018growth\u2019), instead of from the perspective of external foreign policies (conquest). Both perspectives serve the aristocracy, the billionaires. This neoliberal-neoconservative consensus, in the West, keeps the profits going for the owners of all sorts of corporations \u2014 it\u2019s \u201cthe Washington Consensus\u201d<\/a> that\u2019s sold to vassal nations by promising that this path will allow them to join in the imperial nations\u2019 \u2018growth\u2019<\/a>. The leadership of the Soviet Union was sold a neoliberal bill of goods by the the Harvard economics department in around 1990, and the World Bank and Harvard\u2019s people took the Russians for all they could<\/a>, which was able to be done because Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev was naive and accepted neoliberalism \u2014 he didn\u2019t know about its neoconservative side, the aristocracy\u2019s pursuit of conquest. He had rejected Marxist economics, and thought that the only alternative would be capitalist economics.<\/p>\n

Back in 1991, when Gorbachev ended the Soviet Union and its military alliances, NATO had 16 member-nations<\/a>. Later in the decade, in 1999, NATO under U.S. President Bill Clinton, started expanding \u2014 taking on as new members, nations that had previously been allied with Russia.<\/p>\n

The Soviet Union had consisted of: Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Lithuania, Moldova, Latvia, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Armenia, Turkmenistan, and Estonia (the last of which was forcibly joined with it in 1940 so as to assist Russia\u2019s fight against the Nazis). NATO has since absorbed, into its anti-Russia ranks: Lithuania (2004), Latvia (2004), and Estonia (2004)<\/a>, and is seeking the additional admissions of Ukraine<\/a>, and of Moldova.<\/p>\n

The Warsaw Pact<\/a>, of Soviet-allied nations, had included: U.S.S.R., Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Eastern Germany, Hungary, Poland, and Romania. All of those except the Russian portion of the U.S.S.R. have since been absorbed into the anti<\/em>-Russian military alliance, NATO. In the brainwashed U.S.-allied countries, this growth of the anti-Russia alliance isn\u2019t considered \u201caggression,\u201d even though it\u2019s being done by NATO\u2019s adding former Russia-allied nations, and though Russia\u2019s former military alliance against NATO, the Warsaw Pact, ended in 1991. Aggression by \u201cthe West\u201d is not acknowledged by \u201cthe West.\u201d Even the U.S. group\u2019s blatant aggressions that destroyed Russia-friendly nations such as Iraq, Libya and Syria aren\u2019t. The fact that the U.S. is considered overwhelmingly throughout the world to be \u201cthe biggest threat to peace\u201d<\/a> is likewise ignored by the Empire\u2019s \u2018news\u2019media.<\/p>\n

Thus: 10 formerly Russia-allied nations have now been switched into the anti<\/em>-Russia military alliance. And NATO accuses Russia of \u2018aggression\u2019. Nobody talks about how the U.S. would react if Russia had a military alliance which included both Mexico and Canada, and called upon them to strengthen their bridges so as to be able to carry today\u2019s Russian battle-tanks. But, the people who are doing this, know very well what they are doing, and why, and to whom. They play dumb but they aren\u2019t.<\/p>\n

In addition, Yugoslavia was non-alligned, but now most of its parts have joined NATO: Slovenia, Croatia, and Montenegro. (Montenegro was brought into NATO on 5 June 2017, by U.S. President Donald Trump, who is being investigated by the rabidly anti-Russia U.S. Government, for allegedly being insufficiently hostile against Russia. His response to the accusations has been to try to out-do his domestic opponents\u2019 hostility against Russia \u2014 to up their anti-Russia ante, instead of to wage political war against America\u2019s military-industrial complex and its owners.)<\/p>\n

And, the other parts of the former Yugoslavia continue to be courted. On November 15th, Radio Free Europe headlined \u201cSerbia Hosts Joint Military Drills With U.S. As Bosnia Hosts NATO Delegation\u201d<\/a>. They reported: \u201cNATO chief Jens Stoltenberg, speaking at a joint news conference with visiting Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic in Brussels on November 15, said \u2018there is no doubt whatsoever that we absolutely respect the decision by Serbia to remain a military neutral country.\u2019\u201d Were Hitler\u2019s troops being allowed to hold military exercises in neutral Switzerland? Of course not. Obviously, this isn\u2019t any \u2018military neutrality\u2019. Instead, it\u2019s those small countries trying to avoid becoming targets of U.S. missiles and bombs.<\/p>\n

Most of the 13 new admittees to NATO after the 1991 end of the Cold War (on Russia\u2019s side, but not on America\u2019s), are located to the east of West Germany (closer to Russia than even East Germany was). In the negotiations to end the Cold War, the understanding that George Herbert Walker Bush\u2019s people communicated to Mikhail Gorbachev\u2019s people was that if the Cold War ends and East Germany becomes absorbed into West Germany to become again simply \u201cGermany\u201d and thenceforth a capitalist country (such as all did happen), then NATO would not move \u201cone inch to the east.\u201d<\/a> That\u2019s the basis upon which Gorbachev ended the Cold War. George Herbert Walker Bush lied \u2014 via his agents. Gorbachev was incredibly naive, and he didn\u2019t specify that NATO would need to end if the Warsaw Pact would end. He believed in the goodwill, and honesty, of Bush and of his agents. He accepted merely the vague verbal promise that NATO would\u2019t be expanded even \u201cone inch to the east.\u201d He didn\u2019t know that he was dealing with people who were negotiating on behalf of, and who were following the instructions of, a super-scoundrel \u2014 U.S. President Bush. Bush\u2019s dream, of encircling Russia with U.S. bombers, missiles. and tanks is now coming true. Would the U.S. tolerate Russia placing its invasion-forces on and near our borders, in Canada and in Mexico?<\/p>\n

If this isn\u2019t the time to end NATO, then when will be? And how much time to do it remains, before there is a WW III? Anyone who is supportive of the formation of a non-profit \u201cEnd NATO Now\u201d is hereby invited to indicate so, in a reader-comment to this article<\/a>; and, if enough people indicate there that they would be willing to donate time or money to such an organization, then I shall establish it. Because: if we don\u2019t end NATO now<\/strong>, then maybe NATO will end us all, surprisingly soon.<\/p>\n

\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of\u00a0 <\/em>They\u2019re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010<\/a>,<\/em> of\u00a0<\/em>Christ\u2019s Ventriloquists: The Event that Created Christianity<\/a>, and\u00a0of<\/em>\u00a0Feudalism, Fascism, Libertarianism and Economics<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 washingtonsblog.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

15 Nov 2017 – On November 8th, Britain\u2019s Daily Mail bannered \u201cNATO tells Europe to prepare for \u2018rapid deployment\u2019:\u201d and sub-headed \u201cDefence chiefs say roads, bridges and rail links must be improved in case tanks and heavy vehicles need to be quickly mobilised\u201d (to invade Russia, but the newspaper\u2019s slant was instead that this must be done purely defensively).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":102148,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-102147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-militarism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102147"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102147\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/102148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}