Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Western politicians have closed ranks around NATO while ramping up armament efforts. The military alliance is making a big push to encourage each of its members to reach a target of two per cent of GDP in military spending, a target that Justin Trudeau has pledged to reach by 2032. To justify this war footing, they have carefully sought to launder NATO’s history and reputation.
Canada’s Defence Department has sworn up and down that NATO is a “defensive Alliance that does not seek confrontation”. We’ve been told that NATO has never provoked a conflict and that NATO poses no threat to any nation. Prime Minister Trudeau says NATO exists to merely defend “democracy”, “sovereignty”, “peace”, and “freedom”.
But a study of NATO’s real history reveals what it is: an imperialist military bloc designed to defend our ruling class’s “freedom” to exploit and dominate the rest of the world—with guns, tanks and bombs. It is an enemy of the working class everywhere and must be swept away.
NATO’s real origin story
The creation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1949 arrived at a turning point in history. The Allied victory in World War II marked the rise of the United States as the dominant power on the planet. With its millions of soldiers, its massive navy, and its military bases spread across the globe, it sought to assert its imperialist interests.
Towards the turn of the 1900s, the advanced capitalist countries of Europe and North America, most prominently France and the United Kingdom, had colonized the planet in pursuit of raw material, cheap labour, markets, and spheres of influence. Capitalism had reached a stage which Lenin described as the “highest stage of capitalism”—imperialism. The world had been divided between a handful of wealthy exploiter countries and a majority of poor countries which they exploited ruthlessly through direct military might or more subtle means.
But European countries came out ravaged by the war and found it difficult to maintain their colonies. They were forced to regroup under the aegis of the new dominant power, the U.S. Their new patron, through the Marshall Plan, helped them rebuild quickly with massive subsidies and loans—which had to be spent on U.S. goods. To regain their footing, they also forged a military alliance with American imperialism.
WWII thus gave birth to a new imperialist order, led by the U.S. This is the origin of the fraying “rules-based international order” that our imperialist politicians vow to defend today.
Meanwhile, the other big victor of WWII was the Soviet Union, the only other power that could somewhat rival the United States. The U.S.S.R. came out of the war with massively increased prestige—having defeated Nazi Germany—and had advanced half way across Europe. This made the ruling classes in the West extremely nervous.
The Americans, on the one hand, were happy to see Europeans lose ground. Up until then, American imperialism had confined itself to the Western Hemisphere, dominating Latin America (the “Monroe Doctrine”). They were now breaking ground in the rest of the world and pushing the Europeans out, under the guise of supporting the “self-determination” of colonized peoples—provided they still accepted the rules of the capitalist world.
On the other hand, they could not allow Europe to decline too much, lest they fall under the Soviet sphere of influence. NATO served thus to stabilize Europe while keeping it under American watch.
Official history presents the creation of NATO as a way of “deterring Soviet expansionism”, as NATO says on its website. The central clause of NATO’s founding treaty, Article 5, talks of “collective self-defence”. In case one member is attacked, the treaty calls on each of them to intervene “as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force.”
But as George Kennan—one of the architects of the Cold War policy of “containment” of the U.S.S.R.—admitted, the founders of NATO knew that the Stalinist bureaucracy had “no intention” of attacking the West.
Rather, the danger was political. It came from the Soviet Union’s planned economy and the risk that other countries might follow. World War II had radicalized workers and the poor in country after country, who were increasingly looking to communist parties and the Soviet Union for liberation.
This was true in Europe but also in the colonies of the declining European powers across the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. The weakening of French and British imperialists in particular was breeding revolutionary struggles—which would culminate with the wave of victorious independence movements in the 1950s, ‘60s, and ‘70s.
Thus, NATO was born as an alliance of the second-tier imperialist powers of the West, under the aegis of the new great imperialist power, the U.S. Its objective was not to “defend” against any Soviet military threat, but to prevent Europe from going “communist” and to protect the imperialist interests of its members—especially to prevent colonies and ex-colonies from aligning themselves with the U.S.S.R. and overthrowing capitalism.
The Cold War
And so NATO was formed to strangle this danger of revolution and Soviet influence in its crib. As NATO’s first Secretary General described it, its immediate task was to make Western Europe “sturdier, politically, in their opposition to communist inroads.”
The first task was to rearm Europe and station troops there. The U.S. and Canada provided military advisors and billions in “mutual defense aid”. In 1962, with the building of the Berlin Wall, the U.S. had 400,000 troops stationed in Europe.
All told, NATO’s “mutual aid” amassed a force of 5,000,000 soldiers, 30,000 aircrafts, 250 “strategic bases”, and a fleet of warships by 1958. By 1970, NATO amassed a total nuclear warhead stock of 4,000 bombs, far ahead of the Soviet Union’s 1,800.
Canadian imperialism participated actively in the rearming of capitalist Europe. From 1949 to 1959, Canada supplied nearly $500 million in surplus military equipment and material to NATO as part of its mutual-aid agreements. Canada also trained roughly 5,500 pilots and navigators from ten NATO countries, to help them conduct military operations abroad.
In 1952, the bloc extended far past the North Atlantic into the Middle East, when Turkey joined. Its Incirlik military base was quickly filled with hundreds of NATO-commanded nuclear weapons and foreign troops. This was part of the U.S. policy of “containment” by strategic encirclement of the U.S.S.R. This base notably served to facilitate U.S. marines when they invaded Lebanon in 1958 to keep pro-Western president Chamoun from being overthrown.
This would be one of several instances of NATO helping its members as they attempted to crush anti-colonial movements during the Cold War, especially the ones perceived to be led by communists.
In its early years, through NATO’s “mutual defense aid”, bullets, warplanes, and other military equipment were provided to Western Europe’s armies, who then used them against colonial rebellions in Vietnam, Algeria, Kenya, Angola, and Mozambique.
NATO also sought to extend its “self-defence” pact to protect its imperialist members’ embattled client governments in the colonial world. It set up the Baghdad Pact between Turkey, the Shah of Iran, Iraq’s King Faisal II, and Pakistan.
NATO also set up the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) between Australia, Thailand’s King, the Philippines, and other pro-Western governments, in The Atlantic’s words, “as a response to the Communist victories in Indochina”.
That being said, during the period of the Cold War, NATO was comparatively passive. It stationed troops, built up its “nuclear umbrella”, and supported European countries in reestablishing their military might. But it wouldn’t be until after the fall of the U.S.S.R. that NATO took on a more active role.
NATO after the Cold War
According to NATO’s apologists, the military alliance was created in 1949 merely with the aim of countering the Soviet Union. And yet NATO obviously persists—and its scope is certainly wider.
In fact, NATO’s only direct military operations happened after the fall of the U.S.S.R. It has substantially expanded its conventional weapons arsenal and its “tactical nuclear weapons” roster. Its actions have, in short, completely belied the idea that it is a purely defensive alliance.
This is due, of course, to the fact that the fall of the Soviet Union meant that U.S. imperialism suddenly found itself as the sole superpower on the world stage. No longer did it need to worry about the risk of pushing countries into the arms of the Stalinists if it intervened too strongly. George H. W. Bush famously declared a “New World Order”.
This “New World Order” gave Western imperialism free rein to increase their exploitation of poor countries under the guise of “globalization” and “free trade”. There was an economic offensive on Third World countries, who were forced to reduce trade barriers for Western companies and to massively privatize utilities, cut services, and slash labour protections in order to facilitate their exploitation.
Western imperialism’s more-aggressive economic program has come with a far more belligerent display of military force, too.
The 1990s thus opened with the Gulf War, where the U.S. intervened massively when Iraq invaded Kuwait. The U.S. and other Western imperialists had closed their eyes to Saddam Hussein as long as he was executing communists in Iraq and helping them against Iran. But when the Iraqi dictator threatened Western oil interests in Kuwait, he crossed a line. For the first time, NATO participated directly in a war, supporting the U.S. through Operation Southern Guard.
NATO then moved eastward. The Stalinist states of Eastern Europe—against the will of their population—moved to capitalism, privatizing their economies and selling off state-owned companies for pennies to the cliques of the Soviet-bureaucrats-turned-capitalist-gangsters that led them. The result was a catastrophic economic collapse and massive attacks on the working class and its living conditions.
Western imperialists saw this and rubbed their hands, thinking of the juicy profits they could make. In the Balkans in particular, this created the economic conditions for ethnic strife.
First, Western imperialism supported Serbian chauvinist Slobodan Milošević when he was selling off the nationalized economy—“a man we can do business with”, said Richard Holbrooke, the U.S. envoy. Meanwhile, German imperialism also got involved, supporting the nationalists of Croatia and Slovenia—which were the most industrialized parts of Yugoslavia. Germany had a keen interest in stabilizing the countries of ex-Yugoslavia, considering it was the main trading partner of Yugoslavia.
But Milošević eventually fell out of favour with NATO. U.S. deputy secretary of state Strobe Talbott detailed later that this had little to do with human rights concerns. Rather, the U.S. took issue with the Serb nationalist’s “resistance to the broader trends of political and economic reform”—that is, Milošević wasn’t proceeding towards privatization fast enough.
Under the pretext of defending the Albanians of Kosovo who were being massacred by Serbian nationalists, NATO bombed Serbia—pulverizing civilian and military targets alike. The pretext used was particularly cynical considering it was their man Milošević who was doing the butchering.
The next NATO offensive happened in 2001, when the Mujahideen in Afghanistan turned against their former Western imperialist backers. The U.S. war on Afghanistan was the first use of NATO’s famous Article 5.
Previously, Canada, the United States, Britain and other NATO powers had all armed Afghanistan’s Islamist opposition (they were called the “brave Mujahideen fighters of Afghanistan”) to keep it outside of the U.S.S.R.’s orbit. After the fall of the left-wing government and the departure of the Soviets from Afghanistan in 1989, the West retained friendly relations with the Taliban to shore up their oil and trade interests throughout the early 1990s. But when the Taliban broke off ties with U.S. oil firms and frustrated U.S. efforts to capture Al Qaeda operatives, they became a “rogue” regime. The attack on the World Trade Center on Sep. 11, 2001, gave the U.S. the excuse they were looking for to get the Taliban out of their way.
NATO invaded Afghanistan and its powers occupied it for nearly 20 years, causing unspeakable destruction and suffering, and in the end failed to get rid of the Taliban.
It is quite symbolic of the role of NATO that the first and only use of the collective defense clause (Article 5) wasn’t used to collectively protect a small and weak country against a dangerous invader, but in reaction to a rag-tag group of terrorists attacking the strongest power on the planet.
NATO today: Decline and crisis
NATO has only expanded since the fall of the U.S.S.R., especially eastward. From 1949 to 1960, NATO was a 12-member alliance. NATO’s “nuclear umbrella” today, however, has 32 members—including most of the former Eastern Bloc.
During the Soviet Union’s dying days, the U.S. promised Gorbachev not to move NATO “one inch eastward” or to “expand [NATO’s] scope in any way.” That was a lie.
Eastern Europe instead was pillaged by the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and U.S. capitalism. The clique of capitalist gangsters that took control of Russia watched powerlessly as, one after the other, countries of Eastern Europe left their orbit and joined NATO.
It started with Czechia, Hungary, and Poland in 1999, followed by Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia in 2004. These were blows after blows to the interests of Russia. One incident that symbolized the humiliation of Russia in this epoch was the Pristina airport standoff in 1999, where Russian forces tried to carve out a Russian zone in Kosovo but had to back off before NATO troops.
Since the catastrophic fall in living standards in the 1990s and this humiliation on the world stage, Russia has rebounded, however. It has developed as an imperialist power with a reach not only in Eastern Europe but also Africa and the Middle East. Putin is keen on striking back at the U.S. Russia has, to this end, built up its own considerable military force, and it has forged its economic alliances as one of the world’s main oil and metal exporters.
With its new-found strength, Moscow is no longer willing to tolerate hostile foreign military buildups along its borders. This explains why, when NATO promised membership to Georgia in 2008, Russia invaded it.
This demonstrated the changed balance of forces between Russia and NATO, which could do nothing to prevent the invasion. But NATO continued on its Eastern advance, adding Croatia and Albania, then Montenegro and North Macedonia, as members.
And then, there was of course Ukraine. NATO promised membership to Ukraine in 2008, but Ukraine joining NATO is particularly intolerable for Russia: it would mean hostile troops of the most powerful military alliance on the planet on its doorstep. For Russia, it would be the equivalent of a situation where the U.S. would see Mexico accepting Russian military bases. It is anathema to the Russian ruling class.
When the West led a putsch against the Ukrainian government of Yanukovich in 2014, and then in 2022 threatened to go ahead with a membership for Ukraine, Putin invaded it too. Ukrainians are now paying with their lives in the hundreds of thousands for NATO’s aggressive expansion. And it has become increasingly clear that Ukraine and NATO cannot win this war.
The truth is that NATO in general, and U.S. imperialism in particular, are in crisis. After the long and costly wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, their capacity to intervene on the world scene is clearly diminishing. NATO’s bombing of Libya blew up in their face, only succeeding in creating greater instability and chaos. And the Americans were humiliated further in their failed war to dislodge Bashar al-Assad from Syria. The coming defeat in Ukraine will be another humiliation for the West.
Meanwhile, China has also become a force to reckon with, extending its influence in traditional U.S. playgrounds.
This has left the Western powers within NATO increasingly desperate to hold together and shore up their sole remaining allies. This explains why NATO pours millions of dollars in “lethal aid” into Ukraine to fight off Russia, while supporting Israel politically and militarily while it terrorizes the Middle East. This also explains why military spending is increasing at a rapid pace, as the West as well as its rivals are locked in an arms race.
Behind all the propaganda about defending Ukrainian “sovereignty” or backing Israel’s “right to defend itself” stand the real need of Western imperialism: to protect their position on the world scene to keep exploiting and looting the poor and the weak.
Our war is the class war
The existence of imperialist military blocs like NATO is further proof that the capitalist system is incapable of harmoniously developing the means of life. All capitalist governments are compelled to build up their armies, navies, airforces, and more to defend their position on the imperialist chessboard.
During the post-war boom, the U.S. could lead the capitalist world unchallenged against the U.S.S.R. But that boom has long passed. The crisis of the system has fragmented world relations into blocs, all striving to increase their share of the loot of imperialist exploitation. As capitalism slips further into decline, these blocs are compelled to fight all the more viciously to maintain their position.
One cannot precisely predict where these blocs will come to blows next. But we know who will suffer.
NATO’s bombs level working-class homes, schools, hospitals, and refugee camps. NATO’s bombs are paid for, in this period of crisis and decline, with cuts to the programs, jobs, and resources that working-class people need.
Workers and youth have no interest in supporting our exploiters and oppressors abroad any more than we do at home.
The workers’ movement must fight NATO imperialism. It must oppose every effort to increase Canada’s military spending. And it must mobilize to sweep away our imperialist ruling class.
Only in a communist world, with the wealth of society in the hands of the whole working class, would there be no need for military alliances, arms buildups, or wars. We would instead use the wealth that is currently wasted on war and killing to provide schools, houses, education, and jobs for all.
