NATO exists to respond to Conflicts caused by its own Existence

Exactly 75 years ago, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization was founded by the US, Canada, and several Western European nations, with the main aim of deterring and confronting the USSR, their former Second World War ally against the Nazi’s.

After the Soviet Union’s collapse in December 1991, the conditions for a new inclusive security architecture in Europe and beyond emerged, according to Glenn Diesen, professor of international relations at the University of South-Eastern Norway.

After the Cold War, we developed the format for a new inclusive security system, Diesen told Sputnik.

The Charter of Paris for a New Europe in 1990 and the establishment of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in 1994 were both based on the [1975] Helsinki Accords, and embraced the principles of sovereign equality, indivisible security, and ending the dividing lines in Europe.

The Helsinki Accords, signed during the Cold War by the US, Soviet Union, and several European countries, led to greater cooperation between Eastern and Western Europe.

Even though the agreements weren’t binding, they significantly contributed to the détente between the East and West. Over the last 30 years, NATO has lost its veneer of a defensive alliance, turning into an overtly expansionist and interventionist military bloc

Instead of building on that momentum, the USA saw the end of the Cold War as the beginning of its uni-polar moment, according to the professor: in 1992, George H.W. Bush proudly declared that the USA had won the Cold War during his State of the Union address.

The USA also developed a security strategy based on hegemony, which required expanding NATO and thus cancelling the pan-European security architecture, Diesen said.

NATO therefore transitioned from a status quo power to a revisionist power. NATO required a new purpose, which became ‘out-of-area’ military interventionism and expansionism.

The next 30 years saw a string of NATO overseas military campaigns, neither of which has seen a comprehensive resolution, resulting in the creation of hotbeds of instability instead.

During the 1990’s, NATO turned from a conceptually defensive organization into an openly aggressive organization when it entered the Yugoslav wars and waged a massive bombing campaign there.

More generally, the United States was at this time preparing NATO to move out of its core geography in Europe and to assist US regime plans for global domination in the Middle East in the succession of regime change operations and open invasions that the United States planned and led.

Doctorow highlighted that these out-of-region NATO operations were one disaster after another, ending in the withdrawal from Afghanistan after participation in a 20-year-long war directed by Washington.

NATO exists to respond to the conflicts caused by its own existence, Diesen explained.

The problem now is that NATO is returning to great power conflicts with the same disastrous approach to security, based on hegemony rather than mitigating security competition.

Despite the Western mainstream media claims that the North Atlantic Alliance is united like never before amid the Ukrainian conflict, it is in fact not true, according to the professor.

There are great tensions within NATO that simmers below the surface, and I do not think the hatred of Russia is enough to ensure unity after the war is over.

NATO victory in Ukraine is imperative as it had the stated objective of permanently weakening Russia and thus knocking it out from the ranks of great powers.

This would revive the uni-polar moment and collective hegemony of the West. Once NATO’s defeat is evident the cracks will emerge in the military bloc. NATO is in treading water, waiting for the tsunami that will send it to the bottom.

That tsunami will either take the shape of a [US presidential candidate Donald] Trump victory in November or it will take the shape of an imminent collapse of the Ukrainian army or both phenomena simultaneously, the international relations analyst concluded.

Sputnik / ABC Flash Point News 2024.