NATO Summit in Prague

How much longer?

The Dismantling of Democracy, International Law and Human Rights

Towards the end of November, the heads of state and government of the 19 EU member states came together at the NATO Summit in Prague. One of the main topics on the agenda was the 'enlargement of the Alliance and its adjustment to the new security risks in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks'.

ro. Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Romania and Bulgaria are expected to be new EU member states from the year 2004. According to the Swiss newspaper Neue Zürcher Zeitung,'This historical step is so advanced that no further political discussions are expected in Prague on this matter.' (20 November 2002). And this is exactly what happened. But who really prepared this 'historical step'? What powers lie behind it?

In none of the new member states has there been any broad discussion on the consequences of NATO membership, let alone a referendum. NATO and the USA are not putting their cards on the table. The elites of Europe, and first and foremost the U.S. elites are fixing, as a tour de force, the basic lines of world policy, and they also control Nato. Let us not forget that as early as 1999, NATO became an offensive alliance. Yugoslavia knows very well that this step meant war, destruction, occupation and oppression (cf. the book review in this edition, p. 6, 'NATO Crimes in Yugoslavia'). Did this NATO aggression solve a single problem? Far from it. Numerous new problems have been created, and the civilian population is still suffering from it. And all this only to maintain and defend the interests of the single world power.

Since then, the role of NATO has changed in the eyes of the U.S.. In the war against Afghanistan the USA quickly activated the commitment to collectiv defence of the NATO agreement (article 5), but then ordered, as they saw fit, military support from various countries. And when the USA now threaten to intervene in Iraq at the head of a coalition, they are not primarily thinking of Nato, but of an ad-hoc alliance that can be more easily manoeuvred. As a result, the USA has already requested through secret diplomatic channels some fifty states (!) to provide troops or material in the case of a war against Iraq.

European vassals called upon to provide Rapid Reaction Force and 'modules'

The supposed NATO response to September 11 is a 20,000-strong rapid reaction force, the 'NATO Response Force' (NRF). The U.S. government has exerted such pressure upon NATO that the latter has now compliantly decided at the Prague Summit to place this rapid reaction force at their disposal. Once again, the USA is using September 11 to justify their new war plans. The NRF is to provide the Alliance with elite units, which depending on the particular war of aggression will include units of particular NATO members to form the right configuration. Thus, NATO will serve as a kind of 'toolbox' for global warfare.

In the last three years, the USA has built up such a huge military capacity that the enlarged Nato's only task will be to provide 'modules' for the global war. The U.S. national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, declared in the run-up to the NATO Summit that the USA did not expect the new member states to contribute in full to Nato, but instead merely to support NATO in various 'niches'.

Thus, the USA is only interested in a NATO whose members place individual military services at their disposal. The EU rapid reaction force is to function as a flexible 'tool' which will help to defend US interests beyond the territory of the Alliance.

If one relates all this to America's new national security doctrine, which legitimates preventive military strikes all over the world, one suspects what will happen to the world unless countermeasures are immediately taken at all levels. Why does virtually no one dare to expose the American and European power circles and call them to account? This is extremely necessary if the world does not want to be caught up in a whirlpool of violence.