This week, war industry employee Hans Binnendijk claimed in the weapons-advertisement conveyance Defense News that we all get five big benefits from NATO:
1) Russia refrains from seizing Eastern Europe.
2) The United States gets to have bases in Europe from which to attack the Middle East, and gets to trade stuff with Europe.
3) Europe’s militaries are united into one big happy military.
4) Asian countries refrain from cooperating with each other.
5) The world is at peace and governed by treaties and agreements.
Of the United Nations’ 18 major human rights treaties, the United States is party to 5, fewer than any other nation on earth, except Bhutan (4), and tied with Malaysia, Myanmar, and South Sudan, a country torn by warfare since its creation in 2011. The United States is punishing officials of the International Criminal Court for seeking to uphold the rule of law. The United States has torn up the Iran agreement and the INF treaty and removed itself from the Paris Climate Agreement. The United States has military operations active in 14 countries and has bombed at least 7 countries this year. The world is not at peace, and the rule of law is precisely what the U.S. government does not want.
So much for point #5 above. Understanding the fundamental dishonesty of point #5 ought to help us with the other four.
Russia spends on its military 7 percent of what NATO does, and Trump is pushing hard and mostly successfully for NATO to spend more, and for more nations to join NATO (as long as they aren’t Russia). Russia has been reducing its military spending each year. The best way to prevent attacks on countries would be to actually support the rule of law, diplomacy, cooperation, and aid, and to cease engaging in attacks on countries (Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, etc.)
While the United States has bases in and trades with dozens of non-NATO countries, the people of the United States and of the world would be better off without those bases and with fairer trade.
While Europe is perfectly capable of uniting its militaries, it and the world would be better off if it got rid of them.
While Asian nations are perfectly capable of starting their own wars, they and the world would be better off with former members of NATO pushing for peace.
Former members? Well, just imagine the benefits of a post-NATO world.
First and foremost, we would have more time to devote in the coming years and decades to drooling over the ever-imminent revelations of the holy Mueller Report.
I’m kidding.
But there would be some significant benefits. Here are five:
1) Fewer wars.
2) A Green New Deal beyond its advocates’ wildest imaginings with not a dollar needing to be taxed or created.
3) An end to starvation, the lack of clean water, and various diseases.
4) Global good feelings for the former-NATO members who accomplished #3 for loose pocket change.
5) Schools so well funded and well run that people learn the history of NATO.
David Swanson will be unwelcoming NATO to Washington, D.C., on April 4th. Will you?