Nato embraces new members

[Oceans11]

Tick tock tick tock
the countdown continues.

"Nato itself is changing, taking on new missions in Afghanistan and possibly in Iraq and is looking towards its southern flank with North Africa amidst growing concerns about terrorism, our correspondent says.
And Washington is already eyeing the territory of some of the new Nato members as potential locations for military bases from which to project US power into the greater Middle East, our correspondent adds. "


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Seven former communist countries of eastern Europe have formally joined Nato, during a ceremony in Washington.
Bulgaria, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia were welcomed as new members by US Secretary of State Colin Powell.

It is the biggest expansion in the history of Nato, created in 1949 to defend Western Europe against the Soviet Union.

A second ceremony will be held at Nato's HQ in Brussels on Friday.

Challenges ahead

US President George W Bush will later welcome to the White House the prime ministers of all seven new members as well as Nato Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer.

But first, in a ceremony at the state department, Mr Powell welcomed "dedicated and true" allies to the 55-year-old organisation.

US calms Russia's 'Nato fears'
Quick guide: Nato

"To the seven heads of states here assembled, I say to you and to your people: Welcome to the greatest and most successful alliance in history," Mr Powell said.

He said the new members would form the vanguard of Nato's determination to support the "yearning for freedom" of people around the world.

With the admission of the seven new countries, Nato now has 26 members.

Romania and Bulgaria have been two of the most enthusiastic pending Nato members, with the majority of the population in both countries supporting admittance to the alliance.

National rejoicing

In Bulgaria, there will be a national holiday on Friday when the Brussels ceremony takes place.


Nato: Plans to expand operations in countries such as Afghanistan

Albania, Croatia and Macedonia are also seeking to join the alliance and Mr Bush will also meet the prime ministers of those states on Monday.

Since the end of the Cold War, Nato's frontiers have moved steadily eastwards; first taking in Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic, now extending to Romania and Bulgaria's Black Sea coast and - with the three Baltic republics - northwards almost to Finland.

The Baltic republics - Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia - used to be part of the Soviet Union and Russia has expressed irritation over their inclusion, fearing threats to its security and US interference in the region.

Nato has agreed to include the Baltic states under its air defence shield and is planning to enforce it by stationing four F-16 fighter planes in Lithuania.

New US bases

The BBC's Central Europe correspondent Nick Thorpe says that despite its resistance to the inclusion of the Baltic states, Russia has done little more than grumble and its complaining has not caused significant debate.

BBC defence correspondent Jonathan Marcus says that alliance membership is a rite of passage, providing the new member countries with a confirmation of their own transformation into democratic, market-orientated states.

Nato itself is changing, taking on new missions in Afghanistan and possibly in Iraq and is looking towards its southern flank with North Africa amidst growing concerns about terrorism, our correspondent says.

And Washington is already eyeing the territory of some of the new Nato members as potential locations for military bases from which to project US power into the greater Middle East, our correspondent adds.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3578837.stm

 

[Phaedrus]

How is NATO even relevant anymore, let alone in a position to expand?

A classic example of the ever-expanding, never-contracting state: an organisation absorbing countries the defence from which was part of the original argument for the formation of said organisation.

I can't decide what's worse, NATO itself or the great majority of the sheeple not noticing that NATO has been irrelevant for more than a decade and has no justifiable reason whatsoever for expansion.


Phaedrus

 

[DarrylParsons]

I think the sheeple situation is much worse than NATO itself. Democracy is the problem IMO because it breeds mediocrity. I wish I knew the solution, though.

 

[Phaedrus]

Congressmn Ron Paul writes at AntiWar.com ...

Further expansion of NATO, an outdated alliance, is not in our national interest and may well constitute a threat to our national security in the future.

More than 50 years ago the North Atlantic Treaty Organization was formed to defend Western Europe and the United States against attack from the communist nations of Eastern Europe. It was an alliance of sovereign nations bound together in common purpose – for mutual defense. The deterrence value of NATO helped to keep the peace throughout the Cold War. In short, NATO achieved its stated mission. With the fall of the Soviet system and the accompanying disappearance of the threat of attack, in 1989–1991, NATO’s reason to exist ceased. Unfortunately, as with most bureaucracies, the end of NATO’s mission did not mean the end of NATO. Instead, heads of NATO member states gathered in 1999 desperately attempting to devise new missions for the outdated and adrift alliance. This is where NATO moved from being a defensive alliance respecting the sovereignty of its members to an offensive and interventionist organization, concerned now with "economic, social and political difficulties...ethnic and religious rivalries, territorial disputes, inadequate or failed efforts at reform, the abuse of human rights, and the dissolution of states," in the words of the Washington 1999 Summit.

And we saw the fruits of this new NATO mission in the former Yugoslavia, where the US, through NATO, attacked a sovereign state that threatened neither the United States nor its own neighbors. In Yugoslavia, NATO abandoned the claim it once had to the moral high ground. The result of the illegal and immoral NATO intervention in the Balkans speaks for itself: NATO troops will occupy the Balkans for the foreseeable future. No peace has been attained, merely the cessation of hostilities and a permanent dependency on US foreign aid.

The further expansion of NATO is in reality a cover for increased US interventionism in Europe and beyond. It will be a conduit for more unconstitutional US foreign aid and US interference in the internal politics of member nations, especially the new members from the former East.

It will also mean more corporate welfare at home. As we know, NATO membership demands a minimum level of military spending of its member states. For NATO’s new members, the burden of significantly increased military spending when there are no longer external threats is hard to meet. Unfortunately, this is where the US government steps in, offering aid and subsidized loans to these members so they can purchase more unneeded and unnecessary military equipment. In short, it is nothing more than corporate welfare for the US military industrial complex.

The expansion of NATO to these seven countries, we have heard, will open them up to the further expansion of US military bases, right up to the border of the former Soviet Union. Does no one worry that this continued provocation of Russia might have negative effects in the future? Is it necessary?

Further, this legislation encourages the accession of Albania, Macedonia, and Croatia – nations that not long ago were mired in civil and regional wars. The promise of US military assistance if any of these states are attacked is obviously a foolhardy one. What will the mutual defense obligations we are entering into mean if two Balkan NATO members begin hostilities against each other (again)?

In conclusion, we should not be wasting US tax money and taking on more military obligations expanding NATO. The alliance is a relic of the Cold War, a hold-over from another time, an anachronism. It should be disbanded, the sooner the better.