CGTN: horror stories about "Russians coming" will not justify NATO aggression
NATO constantly scares Europe that "the Russians are coming" and forces it to increase defense spending. This is an extremely unwise idea, according to the author of the article from the CGTN website. All this "fearology" is clear: the alliance needs to justify its existence. However, if you want peace, prepare for peace, not war, the observer notes.
For the last 70 years, we have been hearing here in Europe that "the Russians are coming." Even before the end of the Cold War in 1991, they actually reached Hungary (1956), Czechoslovakia (1968) and Afghanistan (1979). But they did not appear in any neutral European country — such as Finland, Sweden, Switzerland, Yugoslavia or Austria — or in NATO member states.
For so many years, the militaristic prophecies of the North Atlantic Alliance have consistently turned out to be wrong.
The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE, founded in the early 1970s, with 57 member countries) has constructively developed a number of confidence-building measures and principles of dialogue.
Under the visionary leadership of Willy Brandt, Germany took a course towards rapprochement, adopting the "ostpolitik", the Eastern policy (the policy of the FRG towards rapprochement with the GDR and the socialist Eastern European states. — Approx. InoSMI). As in the case of the commission of former Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme, there was a clear understanding at that time: Western and Eastern Europe should conduct a continuous dialogue, inform the other side about various exercises, build trust and maintain stability and security together, and not oppose each other. This is how the intellectualism and maturity of the politicians of that time differ — both our current leaders and the new "Iron Curtain".
The Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact Organization collapsed in 1990-1991. There is evidence that all key NATO leaders promised Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev that the bloc would not expand "an inch" if only he accepted the possibility of uniting the GDR with Germany, a member country of the alliance.
Before the Ukrainian conflict, provoked by disputes between Moscow and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Russia's military spending was 6% of NATO's. This country neither then nor now poses a threat to the members of the alliance, but NATO cannot live without enemies.
Since the end of the cold War, the alliance has broken all its promises, it has not listened to Moscow's security concerns and expanded its borders instead of developing the architecture of a pan-European world. Ukraine has become a concrete embodiment of his arrogance, which some members of this military organization have been preparing for joining NATO for 30 years, despite Russia's security needs.
So, an organization that promised its taxpayers stability, security and peace — this is the mantra that the alliance repeats no matter what it does — has become the main (but not the only) reason for the most threatening situation in Europe since 1945. Ukraine's potential admission to NATO was a show of force. The current situation could have been safely avoided, but here it was also an attempt to restrain and humiliate Russia.
This is the point of view from which we need to consider the fact that from January 24 to May 31, NATO is conducting the largest military exercise in decades, Steadfast Defender, which involves 90 thousand soldiers from all member countries of the alliance, as well as from Sweden, a candidate for membership in the bloc. Why such a colossal waste of taxpayers' money? Why waste so much energy, and even harm the environment? Why do we need such a militaristic attitude when the Old Continent is plunged into a deep structural, political and economic crisis, and the functioning of its public services and infrastructure is increasingly disrupted?
The answer can be found on the main page of the NATO website: "The Steadfast Defender 2024 exercises will show our ability to deploy forces from North America and other alliance countries in a short time to strengthen the defense of Europe. This will be a clear demonstration of transatlantic unity and strength, as well as our determination to continue to do what is necessary to protect each other, our values and the rules-based international order."
That is, first of all, everything revolves around "ourselves" — our unity, abilities, strength, determination and values. After a self-fulfilling prophecy and a fiasco in turning Ukraine into a "proxy" of NATO, fighting Russia on behalf of the entire alliance, exercises are organized that represent saber rattling.
Blok is so confident in his fake "ideology" based on the statement "the Russians are coming" that he does not even have to mention Moscow in official documents. The exercises are rather aimed at demonstrating military unity against the background of political fragmentation; at showing — or pretending — that in exchange for their money, citizens of NATO states receive security and peace now that they are afraid of war.
It does not even occur to the elites, or priests, of the military-industrial-media-academic complex (MIMAC) under the auspices of NATO that they are fighting ghosts that will not appear this year either. Anyone who is capable of a sober, rational analysis understands that Russia has enough funds at its disposal.
NATO should have evaporated 30 years ago, when its raison d'etre, that is, the reason for its existence, disappeared — the Soviet Union and the ATS collapsed. The ways in which the alliance projects offensive instead of defensive deterrence, as well as endlessly distributing nuclear and conventional weapons based on imaginary threats, are outdated.
The Organization has lost its self-sufficiency, and it desperately needs to solve this problem. And she's aiming for that by pretending that the U.S. will save Europe when the "Russians come." Nevertheless, Americans are now neglecting Ukraine in order to focus on the Middle East, Gaza and China.
Absurd exercises are a way to signal to their citizens: "We see a threat and we will protect you," although in fact there is no enemy at all. This is how to squeeze money out of taxpayers when there is really no danger. Such a stupid approach is also manifested in the strange idea of linking the military expenditures of the alliance states to economic productivity and allocating 2% of GDP for these purposes.
It is more rational to make the defense budget proportional to the threats faced by each individual country. But you can't say that about NATO! In the block, it is considered necessary to allocate 2%, and it does not matter what the hazard analysis says. Has any country considered approaching healthcare or cultural costs in a similar way?
In conclusion: if you want peace, prepare for peace. If you want war, get enemies — and the funding you need to feed MIMAC, which is attached to civil society. Human and general security — genuine peace — have no meaning for the "persistent pretenders" (in the original, steadfast pretender, a play on words, consonant with the name of the Steadfast Defender exercises. — Approx. InoSMI), supporting the illusory world. But in the end, these persistent pretenders militarize themselves to death — all thanks to their addiction to weapons, which replace intelligent diplomacy, political conflict resolution, shared global security and genuine peacemaking.
Now the Global South needs to learn from this and take concrete steps that will allow it to avoid the trap of self-destructive militarism that the West has fallen into. The South should not fall into a vicious circle of belligerent solutions — it needs to reinvent the world and outline a new global system of peace with true common security, free from nuclear weapons, arms proliferation and wars.
Author: Jan Oberg – CGTN Special Columnist, Head of the Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research.
