For all of its 65 years of existence, NATO has been an aggressive, imperialist alliance. It is the largest military organization in the world, committed to the doctrines of first strike and preemptive strike. NATO interventions regularly include the use of toxic weapons containing depleted uranium or white phosphor, and the alliance has repeatedly stated that nuclear weapons are a fundamental part of its military arsenal and strategy.
NATO is also an illegal alliance under international law. Article 52 of the United Nations Charter permits regional military organizations, but only if their activities are “consistent with the Purposes and Principles of the United Nations.” The most important principle of the UN is the prohibition of the use of force. Since NATO’s membership has always been beyond any commonly identifiable region, and since its primary activity has always involved the use of military force, its foundation contravenes international law.
Firmly dominated by US-imperialism, NATO is also a pillar of the European Union’s military strategy. Since the end of the Cold War, NATO has aggressively expanded both its membership and its theatre of operations. Currently, there are 28 NATO member states across North America and Europe, another 22 countries in the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council (EAPC), and a further 19 countries engaged with NATO through programs such as the Mediterranean Dialogue, the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative and the Partners Across the Globe Initiative. This expansion reveals NATO’s fundamental character as the key military tool of Western imperialism.
NATO membership carries profound military, political and economic consequences for individual states and their peoples. By compelling its members to adopt, support and enact its mutual clause, NATO draws them into wars of aggression in the pursuit of imperialist expansion. Through the alliance’s nuclear weapons sharing policy, NATO countries become de facto nuclear weapons states, active participants in the development, testing, proliferation and use of weapons of mass destruction. Through NATO, officially nuclear-free countries such as Canada become components in imperialism’s multilateral nuclear strike force, usually without the consent or even knowledge of their people.
As the global economic crisis has continued and deepened, Western imperialism has also seen its global might increasingly challenged from emerging economic powers such as the BRICS countries and, more profoundly, from the peoples of the world. Partly in response to these developments imperialism has become increasingly aggressive, using new and old pretexts and instruments for the purposes of intimidation, provocation, aggression and war. As part of this, NATO’s eastward expansion has been intensified, with the immediate purpose of encircling and isolating Russia. NATO’s aggressive efforts to integrate countries such as Georgia and Romania, as well as its accelerated construction of missile defense installations in Eastern Europe, have poisoned the region with a political backdrop of intimidation and provocation that is aimed at Russia in particular. This drive for the expansion of imperialism’s military apparatus has occurred alongside a similar drive to expand its economic institutions, in the form of the EU. This two-pronged expansion culminated in the criminal interference and intervention in the internal affairs of Ukraine, through the spring and summer of 2014.
Imperialism’s aggression against the sovereignty of Ukraine included recruiting, training and arming fascist and neo-nazi organizations, and using those organizations to terrorize and murder the Ukrainian people. The crisis has now developed into a war that has cost nearly 3000 lives, displaced many thousands more, and destroyed social and economic infrastructure. It has also facilitated Ukraine’s economic and political dependence upon Western imperialism, placed openly fascist groups in government, provoked a new Cold War, and sparked a new global arms race.
The recently concluded NATO Summit in Wales confirmed that NATO will develop a multinational rapid response force, that it will construct new bases and deployments in Eastern Europe near the Russian border, and that it will pressure its member states to significantly increase their own military spending. Furthermore, the NATO Summit was the key forum in which the United States pressed its military allies to commit to multinational military operation in Iraq. These initiatives are clearly in the service of imperialism, but they will clearly be paid for by the working classes of those member states.
While Canada has been a member of NATO since its founding, under the Harper Conservative government it has emerged as an aggressor state. Harper both supports NATO aggression globally and facilitates NATO-friendly policies to guide Canada’s economic, social and political development. NATO’s priorities have become so deeply entrenched in Canada that there is near unanimity among the political parties in Parliament that Canada’s foreign policy should reflect NATO interests. The priorities and needs of the vast majority of the people of Canada are ignored, marginalized and, in some cases, crushed by force.
In this 65th anniversary of NATO’s founding, and the 100th anniversary of the beginning of the First World War, the Communist Party of Canada reiterates its longstanding demand for an independent Canadian foreign policy based on peace, international cooperation and solidarity. As a necessary first step in developing such a policy, we call for Canada’s immediate and unilateral withdrawal from NATO.
Furthermore, the Communist Party encourages all labour, peace and progressive organizations to work toward Canada’s withdrawal from NATO and for the dissolution of that military alliance.
Statement by the Central Committee, Communist Party of Canada, September 13-14, 2014