by Pepe Escobar, Strategic Culture:
We are the world. We are the people. We are NATO. And we’re comin’ to get ya – wherever you are, whether you want it or not.
Call it the latest pop iteration of the “rules-based international order” – duly christened at NATO’s 75th birthday in D.C.
Well, the Global Majority had already been warned – but brains under techno-feudalism tend to be reduced to mush.
So a gentle reminder is in order. This had already been stated in the first paragraph of the Joint Declaration on EU-NATO Cooperation, issued on January 9, 2023:
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“We will further mobilize the combined set of instruments at our disposal, be they political, economic, or military, (italics mine) to pursue our common objectives to the benefit of our one billion citizens.”
Correction: barely one million, part of the 0.1% plutocracy. Certainly not one billion.
Cut to the 2024 NATO Summit Declaration – obviously redacted, with stellar mediocrity, by the Americans, with the other 31 assorted vassal members duly assenting.
So here’s the main 2024 NATO “strategic” trifecta:
- Extra tens of billions of dollars in “assistance” to the upcoming rump Ukraine; the overwhelming majority of these funds will be slushing around the industrial-military money laundering complex.
- Forceful imposition of extra military spending on all members.
- Massive hyping up of the “China threat”.
As for the theme song of the NATO 75 show, there are actually two. Apart from “China Threat” (closing credits), the other one (opening credits) is “Free Ukraine”. The lyrics go something like this: it looks like we are at war against Russia in Ukraine, but don’t be fooled: NATO is not a participant in the war.
Well, they are even setting up a NATO office in Kiev, but that is just to coordinate production for a Netflix war series.
Those malignant authoritarians
The outgoing epileptic slab of Norwegian wood posing as NATO Secretary-General – before the arrival of his Dutch Gouda replacement – put on quite a performance. Highlights include his fierce denunciation of “the growing alliance between Russia and its authoritarian friends in Asia”, as in “authoritarian leaders in Iran, North Korea and China”. These malignant entities “all want NATO to fail”. So there’s much work to do “with our friends in the Indo-Pacific”.
“Indo-Pacific” is a crude “rules-based international order” invention. No one across Asia, anywhere, has ever used it; everyone refers to Asia-Pacific.
The joint declaration directly blames China for fueling Russian “aggression” in Ukraine: Beijing is described as a “decisive enabler” of the Kremlin’s “war effort”. NATO script writers even directly threaten China: China “cannot enable the largest war in Europe in recent history without this negatively impacting its interests and reputation”.
To counter-act such malignity, NATO will expand its “partnerships” with “Indo-Pacific” states.
Even before the summit declaration, the Global Times was already losing their cool with these inanities: “Under the hype from the U.S. and NATO, it seems that China has become the ‘key’ to the survival of Europe, controlling the fate of the Russia-Ukraine conflict like a ‘decisive power.’”
The tawdry rhetorical fest in D.C. definitely won’t cut it in Beijing: the Hegemon just wants “to reach more deeply into Asia, trying to establish an ‘Asia-Pacific NATO’ to help achieve the U.S.’ ‘Indo-Pacific Strategy.’”
Southeast Asia, via diplomatic channels, essentially agrees: with the exception of bought and paid for misguided Filipinos, no one wants serious turbulence across Asia-Pacific like NATO has unleashed across Europe.
Zhou Bo, senior fellow at Tsinghua University’s Center for International Security and Strategy and a retired PLA officer, also dismissed the Indo-Pacific shenanigans even before the summit: we had an excellent exchange about it late last year at the Astana Forum in Kazakhstan.
Whatever happens, Exceptionalistan will remain on overdrive. NATO and Japan have agreed to establish a “highly confidential security information” line, around the clock. So count on meek Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida to enhance Japan’s “pivotal role” in the building of an Asian NATO.
Everyone with a brain from Urumqi to Bangalore knows that the motto across Asia, for the Exceptionalists, is “Today Ukraine, Tomorrow Taiwan”. The absolute majority of ASEAN, and hopefully India, will not fall for it.
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