At 75, NATO sees reasons to rejoice, facts suggest otherwise

Five waves of the alliance’s expansion since 1991 despite assurances to the contrary and the transformation of Ukraine into the springboard against Russia have become the greatest provocation of all time. Russia, for the record, had shown remarkable restraint but, alas, NATO does not care. Obviously, it is not going to celebrate the appalling record of its misadventures, as is evident from the vicious reaction to the anniversary of the bombing of Yugoslavia.

The stark reality is that the Atlantists, verbally proclaiming their peaceful aspirations, go in for war or threaten to attack any state that refuses to accept the decadent liberal “rules-based order”. In this sense, NATO’s military potential stands as an effective tool for maintaining the West’s hegemony over the nations that are not viewed as a military menace. No wonder an increasing number of countries consider it a continuation of the ugly colonial practices in a modern avatar under the slogans of democracy, human rights and freedom as prescribed by the Euro-Atlantic rulers.

The alliance dismantled dialogue mechanisms with Russia and adopted the Strategic Concept at the 2022 NATO summit in Madrid by which Moscow is proclaimed to be the most significant and direct threat to allied security, peace and stability in the Euro-Atlantic — which Russia has never been, but that is trivia. Russia is to be countered across the entire geographic and operational environment.

The coalition’s capabilities are being built up in outer- and cyberspace. NATO’s “eastern flank” is pumped with new assets and forces to gear up for the adjusted regional military plans. NATO’s aggressive behaviour expands beyond Russia. The search is on for new “foot soldiers” in Africa, Asia and Latin America. The Atlantic radar has turned towards the post-Soviet space and Eurasia at large to create more alienation lines and damage the traditionally close ties between countries in this part of the globe.

A new manifestation of the block’s expansionism can be seen in NATO’s attempts to extend its responsibility over the entire eastern hemisphere under the crafty slogan of indivisibility of security in the Euro-Atlantic and Indo-Pacific regions. To this end, Washington has been busy creating pocket minilateral formats, such as AUKUS, US-Japan-South Korea troika, and the Tokyo-Seoul-Canberra-Wellington quartet to drag them into practical cooperation with NATO. To justify NATO’s presence in the region, the Americans are putting out the fire with gasoline openly or surreptitiously encouraging tensions and territorial disputes in Asia-Pacific.

The above-mentioned facts explicitly reveal that NATO is devoid of a positive agenda or intention to contribute to the maintenance of global and regional peace and security. On the contrary, it deliberately undermines international stability and challenges emerging centres of power, using far-fetched pretexts, including the absurd narrative of the “inevitable” Russian invasion of Europe.

Russia is closely monitoring the development of the situation at its borders and takes appropriate measures to safeguard national interests and protect its people, as any sober political leadership would do. In the foreseeable future, it is hard to imagine any normalisation of Russia-NATO relations. At the same time, Moscow has never rejected constructive dialogue and believes in the concept of a sustainable system of European and global security, which cannot be attained without taking into account Russia’s legitimate concerns. Only equal cooperation and mutual accommodation of interests can become the basis for this endeavour. NATO’s jubilee slogan “All for one, one for all” will read more like “The West against the rest” unless NATO changes its approach to achieve its security at the expense of others.

The writer is Russia’s Ambassador to India