Revival of NATO not in the German interest

According to the French president, NATO is “brain-dead”. When first taking up duty, US President Trump also considered NATO to be superfluous, until he discovered that the contributions to NATO would most notably benefit the US military industry. Since then he has, by blackmailing NATO members, increased their contributions by 130 billion dollars.

It is in particular the Baltic States that clamour for maintaining NATO, in the hope of its providing security on their border with Russia. It is, however, incomprehensible, why Chancellor Merkel wants to uphold NATO by all means and is now voluntarily contributing as much as the Americans are.

The reason for founding NATO was the fear of aggressive communism, especially in Europe, as well as the Americans’ interest in keeping the European economic area for themselves. A military alliance and the funding for its military can only continue to exist when there is a common enemy. Without an enemy, a military alliance does not hold together.

When the Russians allowed reunification in 1989 and even withdrew from Germany and the Eastern European countries, and when Putin kept signalling his willingness to reach an agreement, NATO lost its enemy and should have been disbanded. After the Second World War, the USA or rather the Anglo-Saxon financial syndicate created a dollar empire by unrestrained money printing and lending dollars in 156 states of the world. These loans resp. their interest and repayments were usually secured by the American military. In addition to this, worldwide US oil interests also had to be militarily protected, so that, to safeguard its world power, the US has a military budget of over 640 billion dollars, ten times that of the Russians. As this had become more and more difficult to justify, also from a domestic political point of view, the blowing up of the two towers in New York on 11 September 2001 was a welcome occasion to present “terrorism” as a new global enemy and to call for a “war on terrorism”.

So, the until then defensive character of NATO became offensive. Consequently, the Alliance had to be deployed wherever this terrorist enemy was: in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and everywhere else where the Americans wanted to defend their oil interests, and – outwardly – to fight terrorism.

Since the Europeans were reluctant to take part in these worldwide US adventures (e.g. Schröder refused to participate in the Iraq campaign), the voluntary annexation of the Crimea to Russia and the struggle of the Russian inhabitants in the Donetsk Basin against the American-appointed Ukrainian government offered welcome opportunities to once again present the Russians as an enemy to the Eastern Europeans and to demand that Europe arm itself against Russia. The war against Russia was started with economic and financial sanctions and political damage in all areas of life, including sports, and was pursued as a NATO war, even though it was precisely the European NATO states themselves that suffered most from these economic sanctions.

In the meantime, however, the political wind has turned once again in Europe, and Trump has frightened the Europeans with his brutal national egoism, so that they see less and less why they should join in the daily Putin smear campaign or pay the bitter penance of masses of refugees for the Americans’ war against the Arab countries.

In fact, the NATO doctrine of military defence deterrence is becoming increasingly difficult to justify as the European Community has now been consolidated by treaty, so no state is any longer the enemy of another, and the benefits of Europe lie more in peace than in conflict with Russia. And the USA’s battles for the world’s oil are not in defence of Europe but rather an attack, for which NATO was not intended.

Macron is therefore right: both NATO principles – hatred of Putin and the fight against terrorism - are absurd from a European point of view. They are not only not in the interests of the European states, but are instead harmful to them, especially since, as shown by the North Stream 2 sanctions, Russia is less of an aggressor to the European states than are the USA and NATO itself. So both of the NATO principles lead to unsuitable military objectives, NATO makes no sense and is increasingly damaging even to its member states, which are being forced to pay for it ever more.

What is driving Merkel to, as the ankle chomper of the USA, constantly stir up hatred against Russia and demand sanctions, thereby harming the German economy, and even to voluntarily pay the highest contribution (as high as that of the USA) to a NATO which no longer makes sense?

Instead of investing more than 40 billion of military contributions in the foreign interest, in foreign wars and in an army that has become a mercenary force, we should long ago have been extended the discussion about NATO’s loss of sense to include the real question: where are order and security needs to be found today, and is defence necessary to the national interest?

Futurologists (“Visions 2050”) have thought about whether, in view of the changed danger situation, we might not need a federal police force instead of Bundeswehr and NATO to secure our borders, our security, our order, and also to protect ourselves against crime, including imported crime. The loss of meaning of NATO, which Macron rightly noted, is therefore also an opportunity for a new beginning and for asking the questions: where do we find a need for order and security today and is defense necessary in the national interest?

Professor Dr Eberhard Hamer

(Translation Current Concerns)