The New York Times published an article yesterday that denied that US officials promised Russia at the end of the Cold War that NATO would not expand membership to Warsaw Pact countries.
Unfortunately, the article misses the point. The point is that NATO should have been abolished when the Cold War ended, which would, needless to say, have meant that it would not have absorbed those former Warsaw Pact countries and would not have moved US bases, missiles, and troops inexorably closer to Russia’s borders.
The ostensible purpose of NATO was to protect Western Europe from an invasion by the Soviet Union, which, ironically, had been America’s partner and ally in World War II. At the end of the Cold War, the threat of such an invasion was non-existent. Therefore, NATO’s ostensible mission was over. NATO should have been disbanded immediately.
But like so many other Cold War programs and bureaucratic agencies, NATO bureaucrats were not about to let their bureaucratic agency go quietly into the night. Too many officials had become accustomed to and dependent on the taxpayer-funded largess that came with NATO.
Moreover, the NATO bureaucrats and the Cold War officials within the US national-security establishment were not ready to let go of their Cold War racket, which they had milked for some 45 years. They had to figure out a way to keep their racket going.
That’s why NATO began absorbing Warsaw Pact countries instead of simply going out of business. They knew that as they brought US bases, missiles, and troops closer to Russia’s borders, Russia would have to finally respond. And when that would happen, US and NATO officials and their Operation Mockingbird acolytes in the mainstream press could exclaim, “The Russians have committed aggression! They are the aggressors!”
The final straw was to be Ukraine. After US officials helped to orchestrate the regime-change operation that ousted a pro-Russia regime and installed a pro-US regime in Ukraine, the next step was to invite Ukraine to join NATO.
That would mean US bases, missiles, and troops on Russia’s border. It would mean the eviction of Russia from its longtime military base in Crimea and its replacement by a US military base.
The result was predictable. Russia invaded Crimea and took it over. Russia has also made it clear that it fiercely opposed NATO’s absorption of Ukraine and the US military bases, missiles, and troops on Russia’s border that would come with it.
Excerpted: ‘Abolish NATO’
Courtesy: Counterpunch.org