Paul Craig Roberts
What is your focus for the further NATO enlargement? Would the organization manage to move towards building up the bases in the Baltics and Eastern Europe?
The purpose of the call from Washington to build up forces on Russia’s border with Eastern Europe and the Baltics is to restart the cold war. Washington needs a threat in order to continue to supply hundreds of billions of dollars annually to its military security complex. This complex is very important to Washington. It is very powerful and much of the money that the tax payers are required to give up in order to fund in armament industry and the security industry, returns to politicians in form of campaign contributions.
And so the reelection campaigns of US representatives, Senators and presidential candidates are dependent on these funds. And so what is happening with the draw-down of American forces in Afghanistan in the Middle East is the creation of a new threat. Russia is being the role formerly occupied by the Soviet Union and is presented as a threat to Europe, particularly to Eastern Europe and the Baltics, and Washington is lobbying to have its NATO member states help fund the NATO military buildup in order to keep the justification for the funding of the military security complex. So, that is what is really involved. It is dangerous to restart the cold war. It repeals the achievement of Ronald Reagan and Gorbachev and ending it in the cold war between countries armed with nuclear weapons, is always dangerous to the whole world. So, this is a very irresponsible action on the part of Washington and its purpose is not to contain any real threat from Russia but to create in people’s minds that such a threat exists so that they can continue tax-payer funding for the military security complex.
How did NATO change since 1949 and what are the main aims of the organization in 21st century?
The purpose of NATO was to defend Western Europe from a Soviet invasion. It was called the North-Atlantic Treaty Organization. So, when the Soviet Union Collapsed 23 years ago, there was no longer any purpose for NATO and the organization should have been disbanded. Instead Washington under the influence of the neo-conservative ideology that the collapse of the Soviet Union meant that Washington was chosen by history to exercise hegemony over the world and now NATO was transformed into an empower army to contribute to Washington’s ability to control and exercise hegemony so that we ended up in the 21st century with NATO forces fighting for Washington in Afghanistan, overthrowing the government of Libya and bringing in to NATO former constituent parts of the Soviet empire and of Russia itself such as Georgia and Ukraine, both of which are candidates for membership in NATO. So, the transformation of NATO is simply an enlargement of American military capability.
In your opinion is it reasonable to spend large amounts of money on the enlargement of alliance? Meanwhile, many members suffer from the decay of economy and social sectors? Why do these countries still agree with NATO’s policy?
Since the cold war Washington has achieved control over Western Europe. The governments of Western Europe are essentially puppet states of the US and they form their foreign and military policies in accord with Washington’s will. I believe this formed up historically because of the perceived Soviet threat and now it is just a tradition, it is just the way people are used to behaving that let Washington decide. Until the cost of this amount becomes more unbearable for Europeans and European government, it seems that European politicians are willing to sacrifice the wellbeing of their peoples in order to comply with Washington’s policy of world hegemony.
Is it possible that Ukraine could join NATO and what will be the consequences of this move?
If Ukraine stays aligned with the US or the government in Kiev stays aligned with the US, it can expect to become part of NATO, that will become part of European Union. This is a difficult thing for the Russian government to accept to have NATO bases and most likely American missile bases on the Ukrainian board of Russia. That increases the strategic threat that Washington is intent of bringing to Russia. When you take a strategic threat of that magnitude to a country that is well-armed and possesses strategic nuclear weapons, it is a very reckless act on the part of Washington and there is really nothing to be gained except to put pressure on Russia so that the Russian government is less able to resist American purposes in the world such as military action against Syria and Iran or the extension of NATO into former constituent parts in Central Asia of the Soviet Union itself. So, it is a reckless and dangerous act but unless the Ukrainians can somehow overthrow the American-allied oligarchs and reclaim their government, the likelihood of being stuck in the NATO is very great.
If we turn back to history, you know that in 1954 the Soviet Union expressed its will to join NATO, however, US, France and Great Britain rejected to ass USSR. In your opinion, what was the main reason for their refusal?
President Eisenhower warned the American people in his last public address to beware of the American military-industrial complex. He said that this complex had grown very powerful and had become a danger to democracy because at the end of previous wars, the US has dismantled its military and its military complex but this time because of the Soviet threat the US had expanded the military-industrial complex to the point that it had gained power over the government and therefore it was a danger like the Soviet threat itself. So, by 1954 I suspect this complex already head substantial influence and it clearly would not want Soviet Union to be seen as a non-threat. It was very important to the maintenance of the profits and the future growth and expansion of the military security complex that the Soviet be seen as an extremely dangerous threat. And so the consequence of rejecting the association with Soviet Union was that the Soviets formed the Warsaw block but this was a reaction, I think, to being excluded by Washington and it came 6 years after the formation of NATO.
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