NATO turns 70 in 2019 and will celebrate its anniversary on 4th April 2019 in Washington DC. The international network No to War – No to NATO – of which CND is a member – calls for broad, creative and peaceful actions against NATO in Washington DC and worldwide. NATO is obsolete, it belongs in the dustbin of history!
NATO claims to strive for collective defence and for the preservation of peace and security. But, NATO has never been such a system. It is the largest military alliance in the world with the largest military spending and nuclear stockpiles. It is both the main driver for a new arms race and the main obstacle to a nuclear weapons-free world. Since the end of the Cold War, NATO has been transformed into a global alliance structured to wage “out of area” wars in Asia, the Middle East and North Africa, as well as to “contain” China. Having military troops at the Russian border, new nuclear weapons and a missile defence shield, it is a key driver for confrontation with Russia and a perpetrator of the corrosive “enemy” narrative.
NATO claims to seek to promote stability and well-being in the North Atlantic area. But, NATO’s heads of states agreed that military spending should amount to 2% of national GDP. Their unchallenged military spending – NATO members already spend almost 1 trillion US dollars per year – will be increased by billions of US dollars. This should instead be spent on the well-being of the people in the North Atlantic area and beyond. Raising living standards and improving people’s lives must be prioritised over weapons and war which create instability and exacerbate social injustice, deprivation and environmental destruction.
NATO claims to be determined to safeguard the freedom, common heritage and civilisation of their peoples, founded on the principles of democracy, individual liberty and the rule of law. But, NATO neglects these values and principles. It has been waging illegal wars in Afghanistan, Libya, and the former Yugoslavia and it provides its members with infrastructure for military interventions. In opposition to the International Court of Justice and the majority of the international community of states it adheres to nuclear weapons, nuclear “deterrence”, and the “right” to a nuclear first strike. NATO members’ agencies spy on its people in an unprecedented, almost all encompassing manner and
NATO members suppress population groups by “rule of law” or even with violence.
NATO claims to reaffirm its faith in the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations and its desire to live in peace with all peoples and all governments. But,
NATO sidelines and undermines the UN at several levels. It has expanded, via numerous partnership programmes, to a global network, creates “coalitions of the willing” to wage war, and ignores decisions of the UN Security Council.
NATO and a just, peaceful and sustainable world are incompatible.
NATO’s claims are dishonest. It is an unjust, undemocratic, violent and aggressive alliance trying to shape the world for the benefit of a few. On 3rd April 1968, one day before his assassination, Martin Luther King Jr. stated that “It is no longer a choice between violence and nonviolence in this world; it’s nonviolence or nonexistence. That is where we are today.” NATO’s choice is violence. 41 years later we state loud and clear: “it’s the dissolution of NATO or nonexistence. That is where we are today!”