THE North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) was created as a communal defence organisation to counter the supposed threat from a post-Second World War USSR. Things have changed dramatically in the intervening decades.
The USSR has collapsed and fragmented and its sphere of influence has diminished. At the same time, membership of Nato has grown and has 28 members, many being states formerly allied to the USSR. In effect, the border between Nato (good) and Russia (evil) has been pushed eastwards with Nato troops and equipment stationed hard against the Russian border.
The UK is sending troops and tanks to Estonia as part of this build up of Nato resources, supposedly a response to a perceived threat of Russian aggression. One can only imagine how Russia views this progressive build-up of mainly US troops, missile systems and other potentially offensive military equipment over the fence in its neighbour’s backyard.
Defence Secretary Sir Michael Fallon is unhappy that only five of the Nato members (the UK, the United States, Poland, Estonia and bankrupt Greece) spend two per cent of GDP on defence and 23 countries don’t. The two per cent GDP figure is something dreamed up by the North Atlantic Council of NATO itself. It boasts of being an organisation within which “there is no voting or decision by majority ... policies are supported by and are the collective will of all sovereign states ... accepted by all of them”. It doesn’t sound like it to me.
I am sure it is purely coincidental that those contributing most to funding Nato, the US and the UK, are major figures in the armaments industry and that, globally, since the end of the Second World War, these countries have been involved in almost every significant overseas military action since, either independently or masquerading as part of Nato.
How does Nato defence spending impact on UK democracy? What will we do if Nato decides that Brexit will destabilise Europe and leave it vulnerable to Russian attack and insists that we spend three or five per cent of GDP on defence? Will we close hospitals or schools to fund this or get the likes of Atos to hatchet more from the social services budget? Alternatively, we could insist that our politicians, just as 23 Nato members are currently doing, tell the organisation to get lost.
David J Crawford,
Flat 3/3, 131 Shuna Street,
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