The Heads of Governments of the 31 member states of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) met in Vilnius, Lithuania, on July 11-12. On July 12, the NATO Summit issued a Communique on behalf of the member countries. The Communique announced a road map for further militarisation of the economies of the member countries, and the escalation of the ongoing brutal war in Ukraine, targeted against Russia. It also revealed NATO’s plans to increase its area of operations in Africa and Asia.
NATO is a military alliance under the leadership of the US. Although the fictional notion is maintained that the NATO forces are under a joint command, in reality the armed forces of the member countries are under the command of the US armed forces. The NATO military alliance has been a vehicle to ensure US domination over the countries and peoples of Europe and to extend that domination to other parts of the world.
The NATO summit announced measures to escalate the war in Ukraine. It declared that “Ukraine’s future is in NATO“. While not giving Ukraine formal membership of NATO immediately, it put forth a roadmap to speed up the membership process of Ukraine. It set up a NATO – Ukraine Council, to ensure complete and close coordination of NATO with Ukraine in the ongoing war with Russia.
The war between Ukraine and Russia has now carried on for over 15 months. It has left a trail of death and devastation in its wake. Apart from soldiers, lakhs of civilians have died in this war. Over 2 crore people — half the population Ukraine —have fled to neighboring countries including Russia as refugees. However, the US does not want this war to end. Together with its allies it has sabotaged all efforts to stop the war and ensure peace. (See Diplomatic initiatives for negotiated settlement repeatedly sabotaged). The US and its allies have provided the Ukrainian armed forces with the most sophisticated arms to continue the war.
The NATO Summit of July 11-12 pledged to pour in more arms into Ukraine. France and Britain will send long range cruise missiles. Britain would also provide combat and logistical vehicles, ammunition for tanks, and $65 million for equipment repairs. Germany will send a $770 million aid package including Patriot missile launchers and additional infantry fighting vehicles. Norway will send $ 10 billion as military aid. A coalition of 11 countries would start training Ukrainian pilots to fly F-16 fighter jets in Denmark, a training center would be set up in Rumania. G-7 countries have decided to give long term security assurances for Ukraine against Russia.
Just days before the NATO summit, US President Joe Biden announced that the US would supply cluster bombs to Ukraine. Cluster bombs were used by the US in its wars against the people of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, and more recently in Iraq. Cluster bombs release hundreds of bombs over a wide area, indiscriminately targeting people. These cluster bombs have resulted in the death of thousands of civilians, including children, years after they were first dropped. 123 countries, including many NATO member countries, including the US have banned the use of cluster bombs. However, the NATO Summit did not oppose the US decision to arm Ukraine with cluster bombs.
The US has used a clause in the US law which allows the President to bypass the ban on cluster bombs. President Biden justified his decision with the argument that Ukraine and NATO had run out of ammunition for artillery, and there was “no choice”, but to use cluster bombs. On July 9, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said “Out of pity for the Ukrainian people, I call on the American president, as the supplier, and the Ukrainian president, as the recipient, not to use cluster bombs in the war because the real victims will be the Ukrainians”. He recalled the experience of his country, where the US had dropped millions of bombs in the 1970’s. Tens of thousands of people of Cambodia had died or suffered grievious injuries, in the succeeding decades, long after the war ended.
Leading representatives of the arms manufacturers of the US and Western Europe participated in the NATO Summit. They wanted a guarantee from the participating states for purchase of the arms they manufactured, in order to make maximum profits. The US ensured the agreement of all other member countries to increase their military budget to at least 2% of their GDP’s, with the threat that this could be further ramped up in the coming years. Furthermore, at least 20% of the defense spending would be on cutting edge technological development of military hardware. The heavy burden of this massive increase in military spending will be extracted from the working class and peoples of these countries.
The NATO summit decided to greatly increase the forward deployment of NATO forces in the countries bordering Russia. It announced that eight multinational battlegroups are already in place. It is preparing to have lakhs of troops ready at a moment’s notice to be hurled into the war with Russia. It is preparing for war with Russia, not just in Ukraine, but all across Russia’s border, from the Arctic region, to the Black Sea in the South, on land, sea and air. The Communique released by the Summit threatened Russia with nuclear weapons, as well as other weapons of mass destruction.
At the Summit, Finland joined as a new member of NATO. Turkey dropped its opposition to Sweden’s membership of NATO. The leaders of Georgia, Moldova and Bosnia-Herzegovina agreed to increase their collaboration with NATO. It is clear that the US is trying to get the whole of Europe under its military control.
The Summit revealed NATO’s plans to increase intervention in North Africa and West Asia. It blamed Russia for the civil wars raging in various countries of Africa, hiding the role of the US, France and Britain in these wars.
The NATO Summit was attended by the heads of governments of NATO “partners” from Asia Pacific — Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand. It revealed the US’s plans to extend the theater of operations of NATO to the Indo Pacific region.
While declaring that China is a challenge to NATO’s interests, the summit also revealed differences amongst various NATO powers at the present time, on how far to go against China. According to news reports, a French official said on July 9 that France “is not in favour of expanding NATO’s field of operations to the Asia Pacific as a matter of principle.” “NATO means North Atlantic Treaty Organization,” the official stated. He said France would not support Japan joining NATO.
An extremely dangerous situation is unfolding in Europe and the world. US imperialism is on an aggressive drive to establish its unquestioned domination over Europe, Asia and the whole world. It wants to destroy all states which are posing a block to achieve this aim. It has deliberately incited the war between Ukraine and Russia to destroy Russia and weaken Europe. The road it is pursuing can hurl humankind into a new world war, many times more devastating than the previous two world wars. The working class and peoples of the world need to stay the hands of the US led warmongering NATO alliance.
Diplomatic initiatives for negotiated settlement repeatedly sabotagedThe first diplomatic initiatives for a negotiated settlement in the Ukraine were the Minsk Accords I and II, 2014 and 2015. The Accords were signed between the government of Ukraine and the new independent republics of Donetsk and Lugansk, with France, Germany and Russia acting as guarantors. The leaders of France, Germany and Ukraine who signed those agreements did so only to buy time for the U.S., Britain, Germany and others to re-arm Ukraine. For eight years, only Russia, Donetsk and Lugansk stood by the Accords while Ukraine was armed to commit further crimes against the peoples of eastern Ukraine. Side by side with this, Ukraine was being encouraged by the US to become a member of the NATO military alliance. Russia approached the U.S, other NATO members and the European Union in December 2021 proposing to negotiate agreements respecting the security interests of all parties. Russia demanded an assurance that Ukraine would not join NATO. That request was rejected outright in the name of the “right” of any nation to join any military alliance of its choosing as a matter of “principle.” Once Russia launched the Special Military Operation in February 2022 with the aim of denazifying and demilitarizing Ukraine to make sure it poses no threat to Russia’s security, Belarus immediately, the same month, hosted negotiations between Ukraine and Russia. One member of Ukraine’s negotiating team, Denis Kireev, was publicly assassinated in Kyiv, allegedly by Ukraine’s domestic intelligence agency. The talks were aborted. Turkiye then hosted negotiations in March 2022. An agreement was almost reached. Zelensky walked away from it on the instructions of the US and Britain. Ukraine’s neo-Nazi militias openly threatened to march on the capital Kyiv and hang Zelensky if he reached a settlement with Russia. China set out its initiative in May 2023. Li Hui, a top Chinese diplomat, visited Kyiv, Warsaw, Berlin, Paris and Brussels, as well as Moscow to discuss China’s “Global Security Initiative” and “12-Point Plan for Peace in Ukraine”. The US, Britain and other NATO countries rejected the Chinese proposal. In June 2023, the leaders from South Africa, Zambia, the Comoros, Congo Brazzaville, Egypt, Senegal and Uganda came forward with a peace initiative to Ukraine and Russia. They called for:
Russia welcomed the African initiative. However Ukrainian President Zelensky stood by the NATO position and declared there would be no peace talks until Russian forces withdrew. |