In April of 1949 the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was formed…..it was suppose to be a defensive move to block the Western expansion of the USSR after they engulfed most of Eastern Europe.
In the beginning a US Senator was opposed to the creation of NATO….
Sen Robert Taft (R-OH)…..made his thoughts known…..
Sen. Robert Taft arguing against the creation of NATO: “The building up of a great army surrounding Russia…means inevitably an armament race, and armament races in the past have led to war…[NATO] will do far more to bring about a third world war than it ever will to maintain the peace.”
Damn a very prophetic thought on the function of NATO…..
Since the collapse of the former Soviet Union more countries…..today there are 30 member states and others waiting for approval…..
So originally it was a defensive move by Europe and the US to counter the growing influence of the USSR.
My question now is NATO still defensive or has it become an offensive weapon?
NATO meanwhile is typically described as a defensive treaty organization of countries that have a mutual assistance pact to come to each other’s aid with military force if any member is attacked.
But NATO is hardly a “defensive organization.”
Indeed, from its founding NATO has been an aggressive alliance designed to hem in the then Soviet Union, and to to threaten it with destruction by US nuclear weapons which were and still are stored in member countries, sometimes actually mounted on missiles and available for rapid loading onto US and NATO bombers parked on air bases all over Europe. That hemming-in process today, following decades of further expansion of NATO following the Soviet Union’s collapse, includes adding members located right up on the Russian border in countries like Poland, Estonia and Latvia (where US rockets and nuclear-capable planes are minutes away from critical Russian targets like army and air bases, as well as major navy ports.
NATO was founded in early April 1949 when the Soviet Union didn’t even have a single nuclear weapon and was not expected by US scientists and security people to get one for another 5-10 years. Yet the organization was also founded at a time that the US, which was working round the clock to industrialize production of its new, initially hand-made atomic bombs, had already assembled and stockpiled over 200 of these city-destroying weapons. That is a pretty awesome arsenal for a country that at that time had no rival in destructive capability.
NATO is Not a Defensive Alliance
Remember Afghanistan?
In case your recent history knowledge is a bit fuzzy…..Afghanistan was a 20 year war….that was a NATO operation…..
Was it defensive?
To my mind it was not defensive….it began as retaliation and just kept spiraling from there into a 20 year war.
Now we have NATO in the middle of this fray in Ukraine….why? Ukraine is bordered by NATO members and the all important Article 5 must be protected…..an attack on one is an attack on all (the old musketeer call…one for all and all for one)
Ukraine will not be the end of the problems brewing…..and NATO will be ass deep in the fray.
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“lego ergo scribo”