70th anniversary of NATO
This
year marks the 70th anniversary of the founding of NATO with the
signing of the North Atlantic Treaty on 4 April 1949. Established as a
peacetime alliance between the United States and Europe to prevent
expansion of the Soviet Union, NATO has grown in size and changed
from a defensive force to an aggressive force implementing Western
policies of expansion and control.
NATO now has 29 members
ranging geographically east to west from the United Kingdom to countries
of the former Soviet Union and north to south from Norway to Greece.
NATO's intervention in the Bosnian war in 1994 signaled the beginning of
a new role for a force effectively made redundant by the collapse of
the Soviet Union in 1991. Since then NATO has escalated its presence on
the international scene taking on various roles in Afghanistan in 2003,
Iraq in 2004, the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean in 2009 and
culminated in the bombing of
Libya in 2011 with '9,500 strike sorties against pro-Gaddafi targets.'
The
main argument for the existence of NATO was for it to be a system of
collective defence in response to external attack from the Soviet Union.
Although during the Cold War NATO did not carry out military operations
as a defence force, its changing role has now implicated its members in
a culture of aggressive war which they had not originally signed up
for.
For former colonial powers the NATO culture of war on a
global scale is nothing new. The geopolitical agendas of expansionism
for Western elites that NATO serves is the modern form of the colonial
adventures of the past which have long passed their sell-by date. The
culture of war which passes for 'the white man's burden', 'bringing
freedom to other countries' or 'saving them from communism' legitimizes
aggressive action abroad while giving a sense of pride at home of a
worthwhile military doing a great job.
War as a means to an end and war as culture
The
culture of war then is different from culture wars (e.g. competing
forms of culture like religion). Since the Enlightenment, war has been
described as a means to an end, serving essentially rational interests.
The benefits of war at home like ending the feudal system, repelling
invaders, etc. were seen to apply abroad too by helping others through
systems of alliances, for example the Second World War alliance to end
Hitlerite fascism.
However, there are those who see war as an end in itself, as part of the human condition. Writers like Martin Van
Creveld have argues that:
"war
exercises a powerful fascination in its own right — one that has its
greatest impact on participants but is by no means limited to them.
Fighting itself can be a source of joy, perhaps even the greatest joy of
all. Out of this fascination grew an entire culture that surrounds it
and in which, in fact, it is immersed."
However, not all cultures
of war are the same. Van Creveld conflates the culture of war of
imperial nations with the culture of war of resistance to colonialism
and imperialism. Britain's wars were fought for the benefit of British
elites. But Ireland, for example, has a long history of opposition to
British colonialism and Ireland's culture of war has similar symbols and
traditions to Britain yet very different content. Over the centuries
generation after generation of Irish men and women have taken part in
wars of resistance to colonial domination. While the British culture of
war may have been a proud culture of successful militarism, in Ireland
it was a desperate fight for independence from an all-powerful enemy
always willing to throw its vast armory into the fight against
'treachery to the King'.
In other words, the culture of war was
imposed on a people as a way to survive military, economic and political
domination. Which brings up the question of whether war really is a
part of the human condition.
War and 'primitive tribes'
It
has been a Romantic trope to look back to the 'primitive tribes' as a
way of understanding our own society and how they may have looked before
feudalism and the burgeoning capitalism's 'satanic mills' were set in
motion. Yet, it is interesting to see the descriptions of 'primitive
people' from our history books, as
Zinn writes:
"When
Columbus and his sailors came ashore, carrying swords, speaking oddly,
the Arawaks ran to greet them, brought them food, water, gifts. [...]
These Arawaks of the Bahama Islands were much like Indians on the
mainland, who were remarkable (European observers were to say again and
again) for their hospitality, their belief in sharing."
Bartolome de las Casas, who, as a young priest, participated in the conquest of Cuba, wrote:.
"They
are not completely peaceful, because they do battle from time to time
with other tribes, but their casualties seem small, and they fight when
they are individually moved to do so because of some grievance, not on
the orders of captains or kings."
Their resorting to violence and killing was a form of defence which ultimately failed:
"On
Haiti, they found that the sailors left behind at Fort Navidad had been
killed in a battle with the Indians, after they had roamed the island
in gangs looking for gold, taking women and children as slaves for sex
and labor.[...] Total control led to total cruelty. The Spaniards
"thought nothing of knifing Indians by tens and twenties and of cutting
slices off them to test the sharpness of their blades." Las Casas tells
how "two of these so-called Christians met two Indian boys one day, each
carrying a parrot; they took the parrots and for fun beheaded the
boys." The Indians' attempts to defend themselves failed. And when they
ran off into the hills they were found and killed."
Thus, we can
see that while there was occasional violence against other tribes these
tribes lived in peace until faced with the extreme violence of their
invaders.
Development of warrior societies
Recent
research in archeology seems to suggest now that we don't need to look
to 'primitive tribes' abroad anymore but can see similar experiences in
research on our own ancestors here in Europe and nearby regions.
In an article by John Horgan,
Survey
of Earliest Human Settlements Undermines Claim that War Has Deep
Evolutionary Roots, he looks at the recent work of anthropologist Brian
Ferguson, an authority on the origins of warfare:
"Ferguson
closely examines excavations of early human settlements in Europe and
the Near East in the Neolithic era, when our ancestors started
abandoning their nomadic ways and domesticating plants and animals.
Ferguson shows that evidence of war in this era is quite variable. In
many regions of Europe, Neolithic settlements existed for 500-1,000
years without leaving signs of warfare. "As time goes on, more war signs
are fixed in all potential lines of evidence—skeletons, settlements,
weapons and sometimes art," Ferguson writes. "But there is no simple
line of increase." By the time Europeans started supplementing stone
tools with metal ones roughly 5,500 years ago, "a culture of war was in
place across all of Europe," Ferguson writes. "After that," Ferguson
told me by email, "you see the growth of cultural militarism,
culminating in the warrior societies of the Bronze Age.""
It
seems then that the history of the development of warrior societies and
their enslavement of peaceful peoples is the basis for our cultures of
war: the wars of those imposing slavery on people and the wars of those
resisting.
The idea of an inherent human condition of war
promoted by Van Creveld may be covering up for the felt need or desire
for a culture of war to dissuade those who may be thinking of imposing
slavery or dominance on a people, as a form of defence in an aggressive,
militarized world, for example, the Jews in Nazi Germany .
The
Irish people have a long history of resistance to British forces and
Ireland's long experience of foreign aggression has led it to be wary of
foreign military associations. Thus, today Ireland is still not a fully
paid up member of NATO. In the nineteenth century the British used
every form of simianism and Frankensteinism to depict the Irish people
who had the gall to combine against them.
Ridiculing resistance: "The Irish Frankenstein" (
1882) and "Mr. G O'Rilla, the Young Ireland Party" (
1861)
This
all changed during the First World War when Britain desperately needed
new recruits and issued posters now depicting a proud Irishman as a
country squire. Guilt was the weapon of choice in these posters as
Britain declared to be fighting for the rights of small nations like
Ireland, who was not participating.
WWI British Army Recruitment Posters: "Ireland "I'll go too - the
Real Irish Spirit"" and "Ireland "For the
Glory of Ireland""
Of
course, after the war was over and the main nationalist party, Sinn
Fein, won 80% of the national vote, the British government's reaction
was to send in soldiers and criminals to put down the rebellion instead.
This strategy failed, leading to negotiation and the signing of a
treaty which led to the creation of Northern Ireland.
Ireland's culture of resistance: the Wexford
Pikeman by Oliver Sheppard and IRA
Memorial, Athlone
Ireland and NATO
In
1949 Ireland had been willing to negotiate a bilateral defence pact
with the United States, but opposed joining NATO until the question of
Northern Ireland was resolved with the United Kingdom. However,
Ireland became a signatory to NATO's Partnership for Peace programme and the alliance's Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council in 1999.
In December 1996, the Peace & Neutrality Alliance (PANA) was established in Dublin. According to their
website,
'PANA seeks to advocate an Independent Irish Foreign Policy, defend
Irish Neutrality and to promote a reformed United Nations as the
Institution through which Ireland should pursue its security concerns.'A
wide range of groups and a growing number of individual are affiliated
to PANA. This wide anti-NATO sentiment was reflected in the attack on US
military planes in 2003. In February 2003 the Irish Times
reported:
“The
Army has been called in to provide security around Shannon Airport
after five peace activists broke into a hangar and damaged a US military
aircraft early this morning. It is the third embarrassing security
breach at the airport where US military planes are refuelling en route
to the looming war with Iraq.”
One anti-war activist Mary Kelly
was convicted of causing $1.5m in damage to a United States navy plane
at Shannon airport. She attacked the plane with a hatchet causing damage
to the nose wheel and electric systems at the front of the
plane.
In 2018 the First International Conference Against NATO was held in Dublin. The conference was
organised by the Global Campaign Against US/NATO Military Bases which itself is a coalition of peace organisations from around the world.
However,
there are still forces in Ireland pushing for full membership of NATO. A
recent article in an Irish national newspaper stated that 'Ireland has
been free-riding on transatlantic security structures paid for by
American and European taxpayers since 1949' and that 'very few
politicians think much about Ireland's security in any depth and even
fewer believe we should join NATO. None is likely to provide grown-up
leadership on national security.' A combination of realism and guilt
that has been tried on the Irish people many times before and rejected.
The writer
recognises that 'few people advocate such a course and most are quite attached to the State's long-held position of military neutrality.'
Conference on the 70th Anniversary of NATO
Getting
other nations to develop a similar attitude and leave NATO was the
objective of the recent International Conference on the 70th Anniversary
of NATO held in Florence, Italy, on 7 April 2019. During the conference
Prof. Michel Chossudovsky (Director of the Centre for Research on
Globalization) presented the The Florence Declaration which was adopted
by more than 600 participants. The Florence Declaration was drafted by
Italy’s Comitato and the CRG and
calls
for members "To exit the war system which is causing more and more
damage and exposing us to increasing dangers, we must leave NATO,
affirming our rights as sovereign and neutral States.
In this
way, it becomes possible to contribute to the dismantling of NATO and
all other military alliances, to the reconfiguration of the structures
of the whole European region, to the formation of a multipolar world
where the aspirations of the People for liberty and social justice may
be realised."
Caoimhghin Ó Croidheáin is an Irish artist, lecturer and writer. His artwork
consists of paintings based on contemporary geopolitical themes as well
as Irish history and cityscapes of Dublin. His blog of critical writing
based on cinema, art and politics along with research on a database of
Realist and Social Realist art from around the world can be viewed
country by country here. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.
