Blog - The sad story of NATO and the international institutions

The sad story of NATO and the international institutions

“you are our vassals or our enemies.”

All of the systems of global collective security, especially the UN, now lie in ruins, except for paradoxically NATO. There are no longer any international security guarantees at all and it is getting worse.  With the surreal rise in NATO’s reach, scope and power just in the last decade, it also comes at a time when the UN is rapidly losing any credibility on the international scene.  There were once a time when multipolar methods were used, whether it was a succession of shuttle flights of UN envoys or the deployment of UN Peacekeepers in strife-torn places. Unipolar methods such as NATO’s intervention in Libya or that of the US in Iraq are now the norm. In most cases, the UN structure has been sidestepped or bullied. As Vladimir Putin said at the Valdai Discussion Club: “this system’s ‘founding fathers’ had respect for each other, did not try to put the squeeze on others, but attempted to reach agreements.” But now it has been thrown into disarray particularly by the US.

The balance of power has shifted mostly into NATO’s hands, which is reshaping the world into its own US made, NATO endorsed format. This is not based on negotiations, legal rulings, agreements but principally on dominance.  The US, along with a group of allied countries, ("Euro-Atlantic Bloc"),  have gone as far as re-branding themselves as the “international community”, of which NATO is a cornerstone. Article 5 of NATO is quoted like a mantra, but the original context for it has lost complete meaning since the demise of the USSR and the Warsaw Pact. But the NATO show of “collective security” has to go on. 

Just this week, NATO reported on “unusual”Russian military jets & bombers over “Europe" with 19 Russian military aircraft ‘intercepted’, by NATO in one day alone. Of course, the press exploited this  & went once more into panic mode. Many of the press failed to mention that the intercepts took place in international airspace, no cause for alarm since this also was fairly routine even in the Cold War days. Before that, the media circus was about a “Russian submarine” lurking in Swedish waters, and next week, who knows what it will be about.  Everyone is looking around & finding a scary Russian tree, forgetting the equally intimidating forest that they are in.  More Cold War rhetoric is added  weekly to scare the public by both NATO sources & the press.

In fact most of the NATO inspired media frenzy can be best seen as a smokescreen. It is in NATO’s genes to play fast & loose with warnings & briefings on threats from the ‘east’ & ‘south’. The stuff that they never mention is the nasty legacy that NATO leaves behind. NATO has intervened, under the guise of so called “humanitarian bombing”, in places such as Yugoslavia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Libya & now to a certain & less visibly in Ukraine. It has left a trail of death, destruction, bouts of lawlessness & human rights abuses in all of these places.   

 Take for example the interview with  Patrick Armstrong, former political counselor at the Canadian Embassy in Moscow:

“Mr. Kerry, a year ago you were telling us that you were absolutely certain that the Syrian government was using chemical weapons and that we had go bomb it. Today you are now telling us that we should go bomb the people that last year we would have been supporting. Please explain, discuss.” We all saw the photos of the militia cavorting in the US embassy swimming-pool in Tripoli. “Was armed NATO’s intervention in Libya a good idea or bad idea? Discuss.” A month ago we learned that the Kosovo Liberation Army that we supported -indeed we gave the entire country to it 15 years ago - was in fact a pretty nasty, criminal organization. Discuss."

Journalists in the pay of the "Euro-Atlantic Bloc" masters won’t even try to dig deeper into NATO’s legacy, in fact they often willingly take liberties with facts and ruthlessly trim to fit the current "Euro-Atlantic Bloc" ideological bias. Russia wants to look after its own interests, but according to NATO , it is up to no good and it's on it doorstep.  The reality is that NATO is in fact on Russia's doorstep; this is a blindspot for NATO leaders and unfortunately Russia serves as today’s EU bogeyman too. 


Notes:

 One noteworthy organisation that has effectively replaced UN peacekeeping missions, with mostly "ceasfire & disputes" monitoring is the OCSE. Recently, Lamberto Zannier, the OSCE’s secretary-general, talked about the conflict in Ukraine: “We are a civilian mission with a task that is increasingly resembling a peacekeeping action, and operating in an environment where there is constant exchange of fire.”


Links

http://valdaiclub.com/valdai_club/73300.html

http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/page/world/two-days-of-russian-aircraft-intercepts/1422/

See also:

‘Russian tanks’ NATO ‘s soapbox: http://lepontduhadu.blogspot.fr/2014/11/blog-tanks-russians-ukraine-image.html

Pentagon press conference video: http://lepontduhadu.blogspot.fr/2014/11/dialogue-de-sourds-entre-letat-major-us.html

“Russian planes & ship” NATO’s anguished wails of discontent: http://lepontduhadu.blogspot.fr/2014/11/blog-blowing-story-out-of-water-russian.html

Stockholm’s sub syndrome: http://lepontduhadu.blogspot.fr/2014/10/blog-mad-stockholm-submarine-story-or.html