Abolish Nato

By Jacob G Hornberger

January 15, 2022

The New York Times published an article yesterday that denied that US
officials promised Russia at the end of the Cold War that NATO would not
expand membership to Warsaw Pact countries.

Unfortunately, the article misses the point. The point is that NATO should have
been abolished when the Cold War ended, which would, needless to say, have
meant that it would not have absorbed those former Warsaw Pact countries
and would not have moved US bases, missiles, and troops inexorably closer to
Russia’s borders.

The ostensible purpose of NATO was to protect Western Europe from an

invasion by the Soviet Union, which, ironically, had been America’s partner and
ally in World War II. At the end of the Cold War, the threat of such an invasion
was non-existent. Therefore, NATO’s ostensible mission was over. NATO
should have been disbanded immediately.

But like so many other Cold War programs and bureaucratic agencies, NATO
bureaucrats were not about to let their bureaucratic agency go quietly into the
night. Too many officials had become accustomed to and dependent on the
taxpayer-funded largess that came with NATO.

Moreover, the NATO bureaucrats and the Cold War officials within the US
national-security establishment were not ready to let go of their Cold War
racket, which they had milked for some 45 years. They had to figure out a way
to keep their racket going.

That’s why NATO began absorbing Warsaw Pact countries instead of simply
going out of business. They knew that as they brought US bases, missiles, and
troops closer to Russia’s borders, Russia would have to finally respond. And
when that would happen, US and NATO officials and their Operation
Mockingbird acolytes in the mainstream press could exclaim, “The Russians
have committed aggression! They are the aggressors!”
The final straw was to be Ukraine. After US officials helped to orchestrate the
regime-change operation that ousted a pro-Russia regime and installed a pro-
US regime in Ukraine, the next step was to invite Ukraine to join NATO.

That would mean US bases, missiles, and troops on Russia’s border. It would
mean the eviction of Russia from its longtime military base in Crimea and its
replacement by a US military base.

The result was predictable. Russia invaded Crimea and took it over. Russia has
also made it clear that it fiercely opposed NATO’s absorption of Ukraine and
the US military bases, missiles, and troops on Russia’s border that would come
with it.

Excerpted: ‘Abolish NATO’

Courtesy: Counterpunch.org