To mark the two-day NATO summit in Vilnius, which ends today, I wrote for UnHerd a myth-busting piece about the true nature NATO. The latter presents itself as a purely “defensive alliance… working for peace, security and freedom”. The reality, however, is quite different. Aside from the fact that its most powerful member and de facto leader, the US, has bombed more countries than any other nation, NATO itself has a rather violent track record. In 1999, NATO began its 78-day illegal bombing campaign of Yugoslavia, the first act of aggression against a sovereign state committed in Europe since the Second World War. Many civilian targets were hit, including 48 hospitals, 70 schools, 18 kindergartens and 35 churches. Overall, hundreds of civilians were killed, including 81 children. Since then, NATO has been involved in several other conflicts, most notably Afghanistan (following an illegal US-led invasion and bombing campaign) and Libya. None had anything to do with defending its members from external aggression; in all these cases, NATO was quite clearly the aggressor. It’s also far from clear how exactly NATO is providing “security” to Europe. On the contrary, there is ample evidence that NATO played a crucial role in unravelling Europe’s security architecture and creating the conditions for the war in Ukraine, the largest conflict in Europe since the Second World, by aggressively expanding eastward, systematically ignoring Russia’s warnings over the years. Read the rest of the article here.
Thomas Fazi 