The “new” NATO is a modernized tool of imperialist aggressiveness

Statement of the PB of the CC of KKE

An enemy of the people’s movement, of the right of the peoples to choose their own path of development

1. The NATO Summit in Lisbon (19-20 November) will formulate the “new strategic concept” of the imperialist union, 61 years after its foundation in 1949.

With the foundation of NATO, the capitalist states sought to overthrow the balance of forces which were created in Europe though the establishment of people’s democracies and were at the expense of imperialism. This was the result of the peoples’ antifascist victory led by the USSR, which played the central role in this titanic effort.

At the same time, the composition and the structure of NATO reflected the correlation of forces among the capitalist states, with the USA being the leading power while Great Britain, France and Germany had suffered serious losses.

NATO membership reinforced capital’s power in its member-states despite the unequal relations within the organization. NATO has functioned as the strongest mechanism exerting violence and repressing the workers’ and people’s movement in its member-states. In parallel it has been distinguished itself as the most reactionary, murderous, illiberal and repressive organization in the 20th and 21st century.

The foundation of the “Warsaw Pact” was the response to this aggressive political-military imperialist alliance that was aimed at the USSR and the other socialist states.

2.After the victory of the counterrevolution in the USSR and the other socialist states and the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact NATO elaborated its “new doctrine” in order to adapt itself to the new global balance of forces which was at the expense of the socialist powers and the anti-imperialist movement.

Under these conditions NATO had to alter the justification of its existence as both a repressive mechanism and as a mechanism for the maintenance of the supremacy of its leading group both among the new capitalist forces and the capitalist forces that seek the realignment of their alliances and the enhancement of their position in the international markets and agreements. The adaptations of the doctrine and the structure of NATO reflects the emergence or the intensification of new intra-imperialist contradictions e.g. between the USA and China, the upgrading of India and Brazil as a pole in Latin America. They reflect realignments in the balance of forces among the powers of NATO, a process which is already underway.

Thus, so-called “terrorism” and “extremism” were declared enemies in order to justify new imperialist wars and interventions and the so-called “humanitarian wars”, using as a pretext the protection of minorities from “humanitarian disaster”.

At the same time, NATO sought to integrate new capitalist states detaching them from their alliance with capitalist Russia especially in regions with rich in energy resources and of strategic importance for their transportation.

NATO achieved these goals through:

1. The accession of 12 states (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Albania, and Croatia). This process met the opposition of Russia especially when it embraced Ukraine and Georgia due the efforts of Russia to shape its own pole in the framework of the inter-imperialist rivalries.
2. the foundation of the so-called “Partnership for Peace” (1994) that included 23 new capitalist states (former socialist countries: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Bosnia - Herzegovina, Montenegro, FYROM, Serbia) as well as others that used to have a neutral stance during the conflict between NATO and Warsaw Pact, namely Austria, Finland, Ireland, Switzerland, Sweden. These countries have been integrated into the activity and plans of the imperialist organization without being members of NATO. Thus, a temporary alliance-balance was achieved between the member-states of NATO and the non-member capitalist states.
3. the agreements with the NATO and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe so as to legitimize the activity of NATO in the framework of “international law” which does not reflect the correlation of forces between the capitalist and the socialist system as it used in the period when the USSR existed. Due to the negative change of the correlation of forces after the counterrevolution, “international law” has been “transmuted” into a law that reflects the reactionary change in the balance of forces after the counterrevolution and the new intensification of the inter-imperialist rivalries.
4. New imperialist wars e.g. the war against Yugoslavia, the occupation of countries (e.g. Afghanistan, Iraq), the creation of protectorates (Kosovo, Bosnia) the establishment of new military bases (Bulgaria, Romania, Kyrgyz) the extension of its activity all over the world.

3. The “new strategic concept NATO 2020” that will be adopted in Lisbon seeks to institutionalize the aforementioned developments. On this basis NATO seeks:

• to legitimize the intervention against the people in case of an internal threat against the bourgeois power in a NATO member-state.
• to reinforce imperialist military operations beyond the zone of the alliance such as in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia etc. and yet as an activity legitimized by the UN (with whom it has signed a cooperation agreement) in cooperation with other forces formed by the EU as well as with the so-called “Partnership for Peace” that seeks to embrace all countries who pursue cooperation with NATO.
• to extend the control of the markets in cooperation with other imperialist countries beyond NATO presenting this goal as a way of combating new threats (cyber attacks, piracy, proliferation of ballistic and nuclear weapons, energy supply risks, ”energy security”, climate changes, immigration, water).
• to work for the formation of state mechanisms (police and military) in the countries which have already been attacked (Iraq, Afghanistan, Kosovo) so as to integrate them smoothly into the imperialist NATO plans.
• to extend so-called “pre-emptive wars” and increase the possibilities for the “first nuclear strike”.

4. Τhe balance among the imperialist powers under the aegis of the UN and the leadership of the US within the NATO, which is sought by the “new strategic concept”, cannot prevent the intensification of the intra-imperialist contradictions.

The potential restructuring of the allied and the rival poles is determined to a considerable extent by the intensification of the contradiction between the USA and China and the gradual convergence of Germany and Russia. We also underline the military cooperation between France and Britain, the contradictions in the French-German axis, the strengthening of the relationships between the EU and China, the recent effort of USA and India for convergence as well as the intensification of the contradictions between the USA and Japan. The various proposals concerning the structure of NATO and its cooperation with other imperialist powers reflect these contradictions.

At the same time they will seek to bridge the contradictions with Russia which is a rising imperialist power that has a considerable arsenal, expertise, energy resources, and infrastructure, which were inherited largely from USSR. In this framework NATO seeks to integrate Russia into several aspects of its activity such as the so-called “anti-missile shield” and the occupation of Afghanistan. Nevertheless, the course of the developments will show whether the exchanges that will be given can satisfy the bourgeoisie of Russia that has increased expectations due to the changes caused by the capitalist economic crisis in the international correlation of forces.

5. These developments show the dangerous and anti-people character of the choices of the governments of PASOK and ND that fulfill their class role involving our country in the imperialist plans of NATO in various regions of the planet as well as in the so-called “antimissile shield” that NATO is about to install in European countries including Greece. Furthermore, they are accountable to the people given the role that NATO plays in the Aegean pursuing its transformation to a “NATO-lake”. This development will have inestimable consequences for the sovereignty of our country as well as for the exploitation of its oil and natural gas reserves.

The KKE declares to the people that the “new” NATO cannot be improved; neither can it promote security in the entire world as is claimed by bourgeois propaganda. It still plays the dangerous and dirty role as the butcher of the people and a “war machine” against the peoples and the people’s movement.

The demand for disengagement from the imperialist plans, for the return of the Greek troops that participate in imperialist missions as well as for the disengagement of our country and of every country from NATO, for the struggle to weaken NATO in a line of rupture and counterattack linking the anti-imperialist antimonopoly struggle in each country with the struggle for people’s power is both relevant and necessary.

The demand for the dissolution of NATO promoted by several opportunist forces without being combined with the struggle for the disengagement of our countries from NATO sounds more like a priest’s prayer rather than a goal of struggle for the movement.

We call on the working class and the other popular strata to increase their contribution to the anti-imperialist struggle and reinforce the ranks of the anti-imperialist movement.

Athens 12th November 2010

The Political Bureau of the CC of KKE