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NATO. Obituary to a Nukepool

Internationalist Observer | 27.01.2014 18:46 | Analysis | Anti-Nuclear | Anti-militarism | World

The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation was a military confederacy during the 60 Years Armistice. Historically, it is part of the fallout of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki attack, which among other things caused the unprepared separation of occupied Korea and the ensuing war on the peninsula. During the armistice period this brought about a new form of international diplomacy that expressed itself in military confederacies. Their formation followed the administrative structure of American imperialism, but of three regional branches positioned around Asia only the European one survived its first years. It turned out to be a mirror of the imperialist hierarchy involving its collaborators at a high profile. In the special case of Germany, it also became a pretext to resurrect an army that had been dissolved with the ultimatum against Japan. With the revocation of the 60 Years Armistice this informal anachronism now has become a formal anachronism. Although in an administrative sense the entity does still exist, it is already displaying its first significant fissures.

Maybe it is best to start with a few definitions of the problem at which Nato failed. Although it is not possible to draw a line which amount of radiation or activity related to the production thereof would have to be surpassed to make radiation become the supreme problem totally dominating any other aspect of human life, science leaves no doubt that there is such a point. It is of course possible to make assumptions localising that line, but they may be wrong in either direction. This value does exist, like the square root of a negative number, but it cannot be calculated with conventional mathematics. The rules are similar as for peak oil, which without transparency of resources will take a different value than in a transparent situation. It should be thought of as a tactical not a radiological limit - its purpose is to be a parameter for decisions rather than a display of something independent of decisions. Given an interest to maintain a situation where no supreme totality of radiation remains the case, this invisible line of disproportionately hampered return or even point of no return is to be recognised and avoided in advance. From some point onwards there is a total difference, but with the available scientific tools it is not possible to draw a reliable, enduring and definite line into the situation to avoid it. This is the threshold.

In Nato that condition was linked to a treaty article to be invoked by mutual decision. Interestingly this had happened in response to the New York trade towers attack in 2001 and lasted until recently, with the hypothesis that the failure of the Nonproliferation Treaty as diagnosed by this writer might have been the last straw to sink that lie. It is obvious that there was no source of radiation of any kind involved in that attack, but Nato´s alarm bell rang all throughout the Iraq war and the war against Libya, although it had only been involved against Afghanistan. It did not ring with Chernobyl though, nor was it renewed with Fukushima. Now the prognosis that this broken clock would only die off when Nato has become a shipwreck waiting for its obituary to be written seems to be backed by the observation that the end of the armistice is only closing a cycle which has already gone too far - all this should have happened much earlier, first and foremost the formal decommissioning of Nato and the final shutdown of its reenaction armies.

In its later days, Nato had been an issue of internal bickering. The imperialists would threaten to abandon their local followers, knowing full well that these knew populations would openly perceive them as the traitors they were as soon as incentives would fail to obtain the desired results. But that only led to further draindown causing the abandonment of any dream or ideal once associated with the confederacy by these outside its influence. Although Nato was not directly involved in Iraq, this was a breaking point where it was abandoned even by these who had sympathised with it after the trade towers attack, such as the war against Yugoslavia was the first major sign that it was not as harmless as the Warsaw Treaty Organisation which had mirrored it on the Soviet side. Nato could have survived if it had followed recommendations to transform itself into a group in which individual nations can entirely demilitarise in agreement with the others, both in an institutional and an economic sense. This would have given it a special experience to comment on disarmament mandates pursued by the United Nations or unilaterally. But instead it chose the militarism which has now brought it to the brink of existence.

People of the world look at this city - these words mark the zenith of the white star on the blue fabric, and it has gradually been going downwards from there. It requires to be remembered that the phrase was already coined as a reaction to a reaction to a reaction. The Americans had reacted to the 60 Years Armistice with the reactionary formation of Nato, and the Soviet side had responded with a fortification of the European armistice line on the Korean model, at which the words were meant to point. Subsequently the speaker died in blowback, the three pillar system of imperialist containment collapsed except for the one which had not been carrying the pressure of its load but instead provided the pretext for the "special German way" of Nazi rearmament, the Nonproliferation Treaty was introduced to try to compensate for the side effects, and once it had been established Nato was turned from a military structure into a weapon of the military industry against the civilian population, such as it later happened with the military command structure within Unitedstates in the war against Libya.

In Europe Nato was able to reap all the merits for the Soviet defeat in Afghanistan, where its soldiers now are known to leave behind training efforts whose child abuse records are horrifying even the on this issue not quite consistent United Nations. It never was able to rehabilitate itself from the blatant self-mutilation it imposed on its purpose when it contaminated European soil with depleted uranium in the war against Yugoslavia (which cannot all be blamed just upon one bad guy yelling to a beer hall some suggest doesn´t exist, but was the result of its counter-productive role after the Soviet capitulation). From the Chinese embassy bombing onwards, despite the vain shock and awe of the terror war, the grand coalition of military regimes has been in a steady decline both mentally and morally, even Israel would paint over its name on the ships it received. That is in stark contrast to the fact that after Nato was the only remaining first generation armistice period structure, it occasionally allowed Israeli military on its territory. But then the distortions of European history in the war on Yugoslavia sustainably deterred the Israelis from any idea of inclusion.

Part of this problem is that over the decades Europe developed a mirror structure designed to take over the assets of Nato in case it is slashed. This has lead into a vicious circle in which the North Americans do not reduce their occupation because they do not trust the EU, the Europeans cannot rid themselves of its speculations because military assets are not being reduced as necessary, and threats of abandonment within Nato do become increasingly empty as a heir is already intriguing, with the result that the only thing that can still bridge the mutual distrust of its members is their fear that without it they might be held accountable. Hence no significant change has occurred so far, and now even the basis in international law has been made obsolete by the formal end of the armistice period. Of course Nato can still function for an expensive while, in the sense that it might concentrate many rich an dangerous idiots in one spot, like so many other capitalist associations of names known and unknown are doing, but even to its participants it has lost its decisive role. Today it is only being maintained as an empty shell, eaten out by the same imperialist entities looting the rest of the world, which may go up in flames with big smoke clouds but can no longer take all of Europe with it in a catastrophic event.

* * *

See also:
- Why is the Nonproliferation Treaty Failing? (9.1.) -  https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2014/01/514650.html
- The Death of the Inclusion Policy in the East Asian Shelf Waters (16.1.) -  https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2014/01/514789.html
- Triple Treason in the Caucasus (23.1.) -  https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2014/01/514946.html

Internationalist Observer
- Homepage: https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2013/12/514459.html

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