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- The arms industry—a form of monopoly capitalism
- This move can only be seen by the Russians as an escalation
- U.S. bases have many functions, none of which promote the security or human rights of host populations. For example
- NATO has become, in effect, Europe’s foreign policy ministry, dominating domestic economic interests.
| Tariqi 22 [Felice, 3-26-2022, "What is NATO? Why do we call for its dismantling?," IWL-FI, https://litci.org/en/what-is-nato-why-do-we-call-for-its-dismantling/, smarx, HHW]
The origins of NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) go back to 1948, when the United Kingdom, France, and the Benelux countries (Belgium, Netherlands, and Luxembourg) formed a military alliance out of fear of potential German and Soviet aggression after World War II. By 1949, the founding members began to see this as insufficient. Soon thereafter, the United States and Canada joined. Subsequently, the alliance formed three commands: Europe, the Atlantic, and the English Channel (the last dissolved in 1994). France withdrew from military participation in 1966, rejoining in 2009. When West Germany was admitted in 1955, the USSR responded by forming the Warsaw Pact, giving the lie to the original NATO founders’ perception of Soviet aggression. As Marxist geographer David Harvey explains, “Cultivating fear (both fake and real) of the Soviets and Communism was instrumental to this (cold war) politics. The economic consequence has been wave after wave of technological and organizational innovation in military hardware.” The arms industry—a form of monopoly capitalism often referred to as the “military-industrial complex”—has always been at the heart of NATO, as it sought to balance the numerical superiority of the Warsaw Pact’s armed forces with technological superiority, including medium range nuclear weapons. Article 5 of the NATO treaty states that an attack on any signatory would be regarded as an attack on the other members. This “collective defense” pact was first invoked in 2001 following the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States. Currently, 30 countries are NATO members, 28 of which are in Europe (the U.S. and Canada are the two non-European members). The most recent entrant is North Macedonia, a former Yugoslav province, admitted in May 2020. NATO’s courting of Ukraine—especially after the Western-supported 2013-2014 “Euromaidan” protests and the 2014 Russian annexation of Crimea—all the while maintaining that it refuses to directly militarily intervene there, has generated the ambiguity contributing to the current crisis. It also coincided with the increase of Ukraine’s debt with the IMF and the application of neoliberal austerity policies. After the collapse of the USSR in 1991, the Warsaw Pact was dissolved but NATO kept growing. Since the late 1990s it has expanded to 14 new countries. This military encroachment has been largely naturalized by U.S. and European governments as a guarantee of peace, but its root causes have not been really explained. In the United States, the likes of The New York Times and PBS have been among the worst in this regard, constantly drilling audiences with Pentagon talking points and focusing almost entirely on issues of logistics rather than the larger geopolitical context. Instead, we offer a materialist explanation, specifically contextualizing NATO’s aims both within U.S. imperialist ambitions and within the emergence of rentier capitalism since the 1990s. To summarize, as many have discussed, the U.S. regime rejected a “peace dividend” after the defeat of the USSR. This is puzzling only when we fail to consider how central to U.S. capitalist profits both the expansion of U.S. military bases since World War II and the military-industrial complex since the 1990s have been. At the time of this writing, U.S. President Joe Biden is visiting Europe for an emergency NATO summit, along with meetings of the G7 and the European Council, in what the bourgeois media is depicting as an “honor lap” of sorts after the shambolic Trump years. Read without the fog of bourgeois sentimentality, European capitalist politicians are welcoming Washington back as their prodigal king. This trip occurs in the immediate aftermath of Biden’s pledge to devote $3 billion from the $13.6 billion Ukraine “aid” package to increase U.S. NATO troops in Europe, and another $700 million to support Foreign Military Financing and to foster U.S. counter-espionage activities ISR (intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance). This move can only be seen by the Russians as an escalation. As of July 2021, the U.S. operates about 750 bases in at least 80 countries and spends more on its military than the next 10 countries combined. Since the Pentagon publishes incomplete data, the number of bases may be even be higher. A significant number of these bases are located in NATO member countries: Germany (119 bases), Italy (44), the UK (25), Portugal (21), Turkey (13), and Belgium (11). Moreover, the U.S. deploys approximately 173,000 troops in 159 countries. Again, NATO member states host a large proportion, at least 60,000, of these troops, with the following breakdown: Germany (33,948), Italy (12,247), UK (over 9000), Spain (over 3000), Turkey (1600+), Belgium (1000+), and Norway (700+). Interestingly, one of the agenda points of Biden’s summit with the Europeans will be to discuss NATO’s long-term deployment plans. In 1997 the U.S. and Russia signed an agreement in which the U.S. promised not to deploy troops permanently in frontline states. In 2014, after Russia annexed Crimea, the U.S. began to exert a military presence in both Poland and the Baltic states, but “in rotating deployments to honor the letter of that agreement,” as reported by the Guardian. However, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has voided the deal, in the eyes of the U.S. and its NATO allies. Now the U.S. is pushing for permanent basing, which has long been the desire of the Baltic states. The idea that U.S. bases and troops intervene in foreign countries to provide security and to promote human rights is belied by the real history of U.S. bases, as described in an excellent book, “Bases of Empire,” edited by the anthropologist and director of the Cost of War Project, Catherine Lutz. As Lutz shows, U.S. bases have many functions, none of which promote the security or human rights of host populations. For example: Basing comes with Status of Forces Agreements (SOFAs), not just with NATO countries but anywhere Uncle Sam goes. These grant U.S. soldiers immunity from local laws. Bases expand U.S. military capacity to wage war—for example, when the U.S. used its bases in Guam, Thailand, and Philippines during the Vietnam War. Bases provide “R&R” for invading U.S. soldiers, inflicting the misogyny and racism of many of these troops on local populations. The CIA used secret bases in Laos to ship heroine to U.S. troops in Vietnam. Bases facilitate the shipment of U.S. material to its theaters of invasion and intervention. Bases enable the U.S. to manipulate local governments and to exert influence on them to change laws in the interests of U.S. capital. Base agreements often come with U.S. investment and trade treaties tying countries into U.S. trade relations and forcing liberalization and privatization. The ultimate goal of NATO today is to secure the support of governments allied to the U.S. in the region, offer so-called “protection” and IMF/WB “financing” in exchange for austerity policies and privatization, as well as pushing forward imperialist policies abroad which benefit U.S. capital. It is a military alliance to back a concrete economic and political project. All of this helps explain why Biden and NATO see the Russia war on Ukraine as an opportunity to escalate imperialist intervention. However, it is not just old school military intervention and basing that is at play. Since the 1970s, U.S. imperialism has morphed into something more indirect yet equally sinister: the promotion of rentier capitalism. The decline in U.S. manufacturing generated a profitability crisis, going back to the early 1970s. To revive profitability, U.S. capitalism shifted toward “rentier” sectors such as the arms industry (aka. The military-industrial complex or MIC), finance-insurance-real estate (FIRE), and oil, gas, and mineral extraction (OGM). Rent-seeking capital, as opposed to surplus-value generating capital—for example, manufacturing or agriculture—seeks profits through monopolization of property, whether in the form of resources, financial assets, or so-called intellectual property. Often, rent-seeking capital is described as the search for profit without the contribution of social value (think of the activities of your typical sleazy landlord). Rent-seeking capital, specifically the MIC, FIRE, and OGM sectors, has risen to dominance in the United States over the past generation, and the promotion of these sectors has been the raison d’etre both of domestic national politics and of NATO in that time. Since 1991, the alliance has primarily served U.S. interests, shifting European and other U.S. allies’ focus from their domestic spheres toward that of U.S. “national security.” As economist Michael Hudson has explained, NATO has become, in effect, Europe’s foreign policy ministry, dominating domestic economic interests. Download 2.09 Mb. Share with your friends:
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