NATO – a war alliance turns 75.

Talking about NATO I would like to start her in Norway:

As a founding member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization NATO, Norway has been an active participant in NATO since the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty in Washington on the 4th of April 1949.

Together with the member nations, Norway has played an active part in the creation of NATO as we know it today.

And the NATO wars we know today; was marketed as a defense of peace and civilians- but NATO have left bloody traces in:

Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and Syria.

Decades after NATO dropped bombs and toppled governments, affected countries continue living with instability, civil war and chaos.

United States president Franklin D. Roosevelt and British prime minister Winston Churchill discussed what would become the Atlantic Charter in August 1941 during a Conference in the Atlantic Placentia Bay,  in Newfoundland in Canada.

The Atlantic charter became a treaty of creating NATO in 1949 as a declared peace and defense alliance.

Today, we know that NATO, is anything but a peace and defensive alliance.

From its birth, NATO’s focus has been to pose a military threat to the socialist countries of the Soviet Union.

This was answered by creating WARSAW PACT in May 1955. –

6 years after creation of NATO.

So, there were no military threat to NATO from the socialist bloc when it was created in 49, as there was no socialist bloc.

The Warsaw Pact, so named because the treaty was signed in Warsaw, included the Soviet Union, Albania, Poland, Romania, Hungary, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, and Bulgaria as members.

The Soviet Union collapsed, and East bloc collapsed as well, and Warsaw PACT was dissolved in July 1991,

But NATO, which was formed as a defense of threats from East Block, continued to be active, but changed the major focus from socialist countries to other parts of the world.

The formal shift from defense alliance to attack alliance took place at the NATO Summit on 23 of April 1999 – where NATO celebrated its 50th anniversary.

Here, NATO adopted a new Strategic Concept that gives NATO the right to operate “out-of-area”  in the post-Cold War era.

What does that mean?

With the new concept, out-of-area, NATO gives itself the right –without a mandate from the UN Security Council – to go to war all over the world, including against countries that have not attacked or threatened NATO countries.

As a result, NATO moved from a defensive alliance to an offensive alliance.

From PEACE to WAR Alliance

NATO’s new strategy is contrary to the UN Charter, which – as a starting point – prohibits countries from going to war.

There are only two cases in which a country can legally go to war:

If it is attacked by another country and must defend itself,

or

if the UN Security Council decides to launch a military mission.

All other wars are illegal wars.

But that has not prevented NATO from going to war in violation of UN charter.

NATO uses consideration for civilians as a pretext for going to war.

This happened, for example, when NATO invented the term “humanitarian intervention” to legitimize its bombing of Yugoslavia in the spring of 1999.

Likewise, NATO bombed and justified it by wanting to prevent genocide in Yugoslavia.

And when NATO talks about preventing genocide, let us look at this:

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordered Israel on January 2024 to take action to prevent acts of genocide in Gaza. And that a genocide by Israel in Gaza is plausible.

But we see no NATO “ humanitarian intervention” to prevent genocide in this part of the world – Despite that 35 thousand Palestinian are killed until now

So, since 1999, NATO has launched many so called “humanitarian interventions” to prevent so-called genocide in several countries around the world.

Since NATO adopted its new “out-of-area” concept, the Alliance has been at war five times – in Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and Syria and now a proxy war in Ukraine.

NATO’s move from a defense alliance to an alliance of war is not empty words.

In March 1999, NATO –launches an illegal war against the then Yugoslavia without a UN mandate.

NATO sent 1,000 fighter jets over Yugoslavia and bombed targets in Serbia, Montenegro, and Kosovo.

The first NATO troops to enter Pristina in Yugoslavia on  June 1999 were Norwegian forces from the  ( Forsvarets Spesialkommando  and soldiers from the British Special Air Service.

The NATO bombers were flying so high, that they are out of range of the Yugoslav air defenses.

This, in turn, makes the bombing less precise, and hundreds of Serbs and Kosovo Albanians were killed in the attacks.

Following the extensive bombing, NATO was accused of committing war crimes.

A report by Amnesty International documented how a series of NATO bombings have killed civilians.

And Norway participated actively in NATO’s war in Yugoslavia.

When it comes to countries outside NATO Territories, let us shed a light on North Africa, and Libya.

In 2010, Libya’s economy was one of the largest in Africa. This is mainly due to the large oil deposits in the country – as well as the fact that 88 percent of the population was educated and had access to a range of welfare services, such as free education and free medical treatment. And life expectancy was 75 years.

Today, Libya is a collapsing society, and militias and clans are fighting for power.

How could it go so wrong?

In 2011, political crises and civil tensions broke out in Libya as part of the so-called Arab Spring, and pro-western, right-wing and religious groups launched attacks on the Government.

Here the UN Security Council adopted a Resolution, which imposes a no-fly zone over Libya, to prevent the Libyan leader Gaddafi’s government from cracking down the pro-western and religious militia groups.

Soon after the UN resolution, NATO decided to launch what they called:

“Operation Unified Protector”.

The official goal was to enforce the UN no-fly zone, according to NATO declaration.

But NATO goes much further than that.

NATO bombs target on the ground and supports the pro-western- and religious militias in Libya with weapons, training, and intelligence.

NATO’s official purpose of going to war in Libya was that Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi would commit genocide against his own people.

However, there was no evidence for this claim, and in 2016 the British Foreign Affairs Committee concluded in a comprehensive investigation that “the threat to civilians was overstated”.

Rather, the real explanation for why NATO went to war in Libya was, that Gaddafi was a thorn in the side of major NATO countries such as the United States, France and Britain because he was trying to unify Africa – the global south – against the West colonial dominance and had just terminated an agreement to supply oil to Europe.

In October 2011, NATO formally ends its bombing war in Libya.

And the then-NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen lands in Libya’s capital, Tripoli, to meet with Libyan rebel leaders who, with NATO’s help, have seized power in the country.

In a speech at  the time, Anders Fogh Rasmussen called the war “one of the most successful in NATO’s history“.

In the same speech, he says that now Libya has been “liberated” and now “a new Libya based on reconciliation, human rights and the rule of law. A democratic Libya for all its people” will be built.

When NATO began its war on Libya, NATO’s Secretary General assured that NATO’s goal is to “protect the civilians”.

In 2012, Amnesty International visited several of the places targeted by NATO bombs.

Amnesty published a report on NATO’s bombing of civilians. The headline of the report is “The Forgotten Victims of NATO Attacks“.

The human rights organization documents that 55 named civilians – including 16 children – have been killed in NATO bombings.

However, we know that Libya today, in the year of 2024 -more than 10 years after NATOs war in Libya, the country is still in chaos without a proper government and civil war is still going on. And Libya moved from being the strongest economy in Africa to one poor nation that cannot provide education, health care or any other welfare services to its citizens.

But the Libyan oil is back in the pipelines to Europe!

And NATO’s involvement in wars and conflicts around the world does not stop here.

NATO waged same wars on Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria from 2003 to 2021.

The alliance currently has soldiers in Iraq, where Denmark until recently headed NATO’s military mission, but has now withdrawn its soldiers to prioritize NATO’s armament in the east of Europe.

And the East is Ukraine

NATO countries in Europe have injected billions worth of weapons and military equipment into Ukraine.

At the NATO summit earlier this year, the alliance’s foreign ministers debated a five-year military aid package to Ukraine of up to 100 billion dollars.

At the same time, NATO is holding exercises right up to Russia’s border. And NATO has decided to permanently deploy troops to Eastern Europe, right up to Russia’s border.

When the Cold War ended, NATO promised Russia that it would not admit Eastern European countries into its military alliance.

NATO has broken that promise time and time again and admitted several Eastern European countries to NATO.

The promise not to expand NATO eastwards was made in 1990 when, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, negotiations were held on whether the reunified Germany should be part of NATO.

During a visit to Moscow on 1990, the then-U.S. Secretary of State James Baker guaranteed that NATO troops and “authority would not advance one inch to the east,” according to the classified transcript of the conversation between Baker and former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.

Since then, as mentioned, NATO has admitted several Eastern European countries to include Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic. In 2004, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Romania and Bulgaria joined the military alliance.

Albania and Croatia joined in 2009. Montenegro in 2017. North Macedonia in 2020.

Most recently, Finland has joined NATO in 2023 and Sweden in 2024.

With NATO’s admission of Finland, NATO’s border with Russia was extended by no less than 1300 kilometers.

So, what was the background of the change of NATO strategy and the focus of NATO Europe on Russia and Ukraine?

While US NATO policy has a focus on other places than Europe?

For the first time, NATO mentions China in its strategy paper as a security challenge, after a summit of NATO member states in Madrid, Spain in July 2022.

The new strategy of NATO as a turning point for the formation of a new international order, – that “NATO’s description of China as a security challenge is a danger to Europe.

This development “puts Europe in the barrel of a cannon, driven by an American desire to show greater toughness with China, which competes with Washington for global economic dominance,”

Europe was affected by the sanctions on Russia and now is moving in the direction of escalation with China, which has strong economic and trade relations with the Europeans, which means more damage to the economy of the old continent of Europe.”

But the current international developments – and her with NATO has a solid connection to each other.

And her I would like to look at the middle east and the war in Gaza.

 China has a plan to build a new Silk Road that will connect China to Central, South and Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Europe.

Russia participates in the New Chinese Silk Road process, and in 2015 China and Russia signed a Memorandum of Cooperation on the construction of the Joint Eurasian Economic Union and the Silk Road projects.

This new silk alliance between China and Russia is seen as a threat to U.S. influence in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East.

The United States is concerned that China will challenge and undermine American interests worldwide.

The New Silk Road is a major factor promoting the United States’ perception of China as a “growing threat.”

This plan is met with an alternative western Silk Road, which passes through Israel and Gaza.

Israel’s current war against Gaza will play a significant role in the construction of the western Silk Road.

The US concern led to the EU, the US, India and several other countries announcing plans at the G20 summit last year  (2023) for a project that will connect India, Asia, the Middle East, as well as Israel and Europe.

The project, which the initiators describe as historic, is a direct response to China’s plans for a new Silk Road.

Part of this Western-Israeli project is the construction of two transport corridors and a gas pipeline, as well as high-speed data cables between the countries involved.

Israel plays a key role in the construction of the transport corridors and the gas pipeline to Europe.

The Western Silk Road will also transport gas from the Gulf to Europe as a replacement for the Russian gas pipeline Nord Stream 2, which was blown up in September 2022.

And The connection with Gaza her is as follows:

This project of new western SilkRoad recalls an Israeli project from 1963 called the Ben Gurion Canal.

David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister who terrorized Palestinian villages and proclaimed the establishment of the State of Israel on May 1948, was the most influential prime minister in the country until 1963, when the plan became public knowledge.

The Ben Gurion Canals is to be built from the port-city of Eilat on the Red Sea and run through the Negev Mountain and desert to get by the Gaza Strip and connect the Red Sea to the Mediterranean Sea.

During his speech on September 22, 2023 – 2 weeks before 7^th of October, at the UN Assembly in New York, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu presented a map of the “New Middle East” that portrayed a Greater Israel without the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza.

He drew a red line to mark his plan for a connection between the Gulf, Asia and Europe.

Netanyahu’s line relates to the Ben Gurion Canal from 1963 and to the US, EU and India’s September 2023 plan to build an alternative to China’s New Silk Road.

The Israel – West SilkRoad is passing through Northern Gaza to connect Red Sea with Mediterranean.

HENS, Palestinian Gaza must be neutralized and become the Israeli Gaza, to host the end port for transportation of gas from Gulf and Asia to Europe.

And her I would like to mention a so-called Coincidence of events:

In March 2024 – 2 months ago

The US military launched the construction of a port in Gaza to get more humanitarian aid into the territory by sea, as President Joe Biden has announced.

The temporary port will increase the amount of humanitarian aid to Palestinians by “hundreds of additional truckloads” per day, as he says.

Until today, No humanitarian aid came through the port yet !

BUT the US is spending resources to build this port, which also can be used later as a hub for the new Western Israel Silkroad …

This can maybe shed a light on the changing focus of the US from Europe to Asia and China, the new economic superpower

While NATO Europe can take care of the European issues….and invest more resources in armament.

And regarding armament, and as I started by Norway in NATO I would like to finish my introduction to shed a light on Norway;

At its summit last July, NATO agreed to expand the number of soldiers on high alert from 40,000 to 300,000 soldiers.

The 300,000 soldiers are divided into two groups.

One must be ready to go to war within ten days, while the other part must be ready within 30 days.

NATO requires member countries to spend at least two percent of their gross national product on military and armaments.

According to NATO’s own archives, spending increased by 8.3 percent in the first half of 2023 compared to the same period in 2022.

NATO countries collectively spent no less than $1232 billion annually on the military in 2022.

By comparison, Russia spent $86 billion that year, according to the latest report on world military spending. This is equivalent to NATO countries spending more than 14 times as much on the military compared to Russia.

When it comes to Norway, Norwegian Armed Forces plans to increase military spending over 12 years until 2036 by 600 billion NOK.

The army in Norway is expanded with two brigades – one in Finnmark and a new brigade in the south of the country.

Today’s Norwegian army consists of only one brigade, Brigade Nord.

The army is also strengthened with long-range precision artillery, more tanks, air defense and helicopters for the army and special forces.

By 2036, the government is planning for around 4600 more recruits, 13,700 more reservists and 4600 more employees.

According to NRK, the Norwegian Navy will also have at least five new frigates and five submarines.

So huge number of resources are invested in war !

So, The European NATO is expanding north, while US NATO is changing the focus from Europe to CHINA and expanding EAST and that include the Middle East, and Israel.

Will NATO be part of new wars in southeast Asia? like they were in Yugoslavia, Libya, Iraq, Afganisatn and Syria?

This is a question that may be answered in the coming years!!!