NATO

IGOinternational, military

NATO  link () Powerbase Sourcewatch Spartacus Website
File:NATO.png
Abbreviation	NATO, OTAN
Motto	Animus in consulendo liber (In discussion, a free mind)
Formation	4 April 1949
Headquarters	Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe, Mons, Belgium
Leaders	Secretary General of NATO, Supreme Allied Commander Europe
Type	international, military
Subgroups	North Atlantic Council, Defence Planning Committee, Nuclear Planning Group, Allied Clandestine Committee, Clandestine Planning Committee, NATO/Headquarters, NATO/Permanent Representatives and National Delegations, NATO/International Staff, NATO/Support and Procurement Agency, NATO/Standardization Agency, NATO/Communications and Information Agency, NATO/Science and Technology Organization, NATO/Air Traffic Management Committee, NATO/Military Committee Meteorological Group, International Board of Auditors for NATO, ...
Interests	Illegal drug trade, Operation Gladio, Encirclement of Russia, Tripwire force
Sponsor of	European Leadership Network,Canadian Global Affairs Institute,European Atlantic Group,Prague Security Studies Institute,The Alphen Group,GLOBSEC
Membership	Albania, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, France, Finland, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Montenegro, Netherlands, North Macedonia, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States
The world's largest military alliance. "Take five broken empires, add the sixth one later, and make one big neo-colonial empire out of it all."

The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) is a military alliance set up after WW2. During the Cold War it was balanced by the Warsaw Pact. In the 2010s, during the new Cold War and despite the Ifs attempts to limit the spread of "Russian propaganda", a 2020 study showed that the population of some NATO member states and especially bordering countries do increasingly look negatively at NATO.

Official narrative

NATO's original justification and cold war official narrative about "defending the free world against communist aggression", while mendacious from the outset, was a lot clearer than the current position. Since 9/11 particularly, the fallback justifications for war have been "humanitarian intervention" (aimed at the political Left) and fighting 'terrorism' and its 'state sponsors' (aimed at the political Right), both of which are wearing increasingly thin. Some NATO activities, such as Operation Gladio in particular, were never intended to come to light, and have incoherent and/or self-contradictory official narratives - indicative of the strong support given by commercially-controlled media.

History

NATO was set up after World War II. The Soviet Union applied for membership in 1954, but was refused. In 1966 De Gaulle made the decision to downgrade France's membership in NATO and withdrew from the NATO Military Command Structure.

"On 10 March 1966, in a memo addressed to the 14 other NATO nations, the French government announced its intention to withdraw French personnel from the NATO integrated military headquarters, to terminate the assignment of French forces to international commands and to request the removal from French territory of NATO's headquarters, Allied units, and other facilities and bases which were not under French authority."

Officially this was due to souring relations between Washington and Paris because of the refusal to integrate France's nuclear deterrent with other North Atlantic powers, or to accept any collective form of control over its armed forces. Some authors, like Richard Cottrell, connect the decision to the assassination attempts on his life; in Cottrells view, Gladio structures were involved in some of these.

Operation Gladio

Full article: Operation Gladio

In October 1990, Le Cercle member and Italian Prime Minister, Giulio Andreotti, accused NATO of involvement in Operation Gladio. After almost a month of silence on the matter, senior NATO spokesman Jean Marcotta categorically denied Andreotti's allegation, stating at SHAPE headquarters in Mons, Belgium that "NATO has never contemplated guerrilla war or clandestine operations; it has always concerned itself with military affairs and the defence of allied frontiers." The next day a different NATO spokesman retracted NATO's denial. Although established at or very near the start of NATO, it only emerged to become part of the historical record in 1990 after an investigation in the Italian parliament - by which point it had already lead to many violent deaths of civilians in false flag operations in a range of European countries.

Operation Gladio B

Full article: Operation Gladio/B

The post 1989 decline of the Soviet empire and consequent lack of a clear enemy caused something of an existential crisis for NATO, which appears to have lead directly to the "war on terrorism" and another round of terror against populations of member states, the Operation Gladio/B plan.

NATO expansion

With the end of the Soviet Union and the cold war, NATO expanded across several countries of the former Warsaw Pact. While it is now much closer to Russian borders, Mikhail Gorbachev as the leader of the SU at the time, received a lot of assurances from western leaders that nothing of the sort would happen; U.S. Secretary of State James Bakers famous “not one inch eastward”. Some historians point to later comments by Gorbachev that "The topic of ‘NATO expansion’ was not discussed at all", but the memoranda of the 1990/91 period leave little room for doubt that this is what he was given by heads of state and special envoys. {{#subobject: |Has superobject=NATO |Has objectClass=Quotation |Has author=Jeffrey Sachs|+sep=, |Has text=“[...] the US had promised, unequivocally, to the Soviet Union, in the context of German reunification, as of February 1990, that NATO would not move one inch eastward. This remains, by the way, highly contested to this day. But if anyone wants the information, you go on something called the National Security Archive of George Washington University and you can read the dozens and dozens of statements and all of the archival material, making completely, absolutely, unequivocally clear that the United States and Germany promised that NATO would not move one inch eastward.” |Is about=NATO,|+sep=, |Has wikipediaPage= |Has location=|+sep=, |Has publicationDate=Jun 11, 2025 |Sourced from= |Has sourceDetails=Jeffrey Sachs: The Dark Forces Pushing Trump Into War With Iran, & Ukraine/Russia New Escalation / ca 27 minutes in |Has sourceTitle= |Has sourceName= |Has sourceURL=https://youtu.be/677g2SsetMs

}}

“[...] the US had promised, unequivocally, to the Soviet Union, in the context of German reunification, as of February 1990, that NATO would not move one inch eastward. This remains, by the way, highly contested to this day. But if anyone wants the information, you go on something called the National Security Archive of George Washington University and you can read the dozens and dozens of statements and all of the archival material, making completely, absolutely, unequivocally clear that the United States and Germany promised that NATO would not move one inch eastward.”
Jeffrey Sachs (Jun 11, 2025) 

With the following reign of Yeltsin, the US exploited the circumstances of a drunken president who was not really interested in the fate of his country and moved ahead with their plans, while telling the Russian side that the future European security system would include, not exclude them. Yeltsin may still had voiced complaints on some level. Gorbachev appeared to disagree in 2014 when interviewed by German historian Ignaz Lozo, that he was lied to, but agrees that NATO was never meant to have expanded in this way. In 1990 he reportedly said that inviolability of the postwar borders and military equilibrium are a condition for the reunification of Germany. In 2009 Gorbachev said that the Americans pulled a fast one on Russia with the break of their promises. {{#subobject: |Has superobject=NATO |Has objectClass=Quotation |Has author=Brookings Institution, RBTH|+sep=, |Has text=“Russia behind the Headlines has published an interview with Gorbachev, who was Soviet president during the discussions and treaty negotiations concerning German reunification. The interviewer asked why Gorbachev did not “insist that the promises made to you [Gorbachev]—particularly U.S. Secretary of State James Baker’s promise that NATO would not expand into the East—be legally encoded?” Gorbachev replied: “The topic of ‘NATO expansion’ was not discussed at all, and it wasn’t brought up in those years. … Another issue we brought up was discussed: making sure that NATO’s military structures would not advance and that additional armed forces would not be deployed on the territory of the then-GDR after German reunification. Baker’s statement was made in that context… Everything that could have been and needed to be done to solidify that political obligation was done. And fulfilled.”

Gorbachev continued that “The agreement on a final settlement with Germany said that no new military structures would be created in the eastern part of the country; no additional troops would be deployed; no weapons of mass destruction would be placed there. It has been obeyed all these years.” To be sure, the former Soviet president criticized NATO enlargement and called it a violation of the spirit of the assurances given Moscow in 1990, but he made clear there was no promise regarding broader enlargement.” |Is about=NATO,NATO, Nato/Expansion, Russia/Encirclement, Germany, Gorbachov, Russia, James Baker, U.S Secretary of State, Soviet Union|+sep=, |Has wikipediaPage= |Has location=|+sep=, |Has publicationDate=November 2014 |Sourced from=Brookings Institution, Russia Beyond The Headlines |Has sourceDetails= |Has sourceTitle= |Has sourceName=Brookings Institution, Russia Beyond The Headlines |Has sourceURL=https://www.brookings.edu/articles/did-nato-promise-not-to-enlarge-gorbachev-says-no/ - http://rbth.com/international/2014/10/16/mikhail_gorbachev_i_am_against_all_walls_40673.html

}}

“Russia behind the Headlines has published an interview with Gorbachev, who was Soviet president during the discussions and treaty negotiations concerning German reunification. The interviewer asked why Gorbachev did not “insist that the promises made to you [Gorbachev]—particularly U.S. Secretary of State James Baker’s promise that NATO would not expand into the East—be legally encoded?” Gorbachev replied: “The topic of ‘NATO expansion’ was not discussed at all, and it wasn’t brought up in those years. … Another issue we brought up was discussed: making sure that NATO’s military structures would not advance and that additional armed forces would not be deployed on the territory of the then-GDR after German reunification. Baker’s statement was made in that context… Everything that could have been and needed to be done to solidify that political obligation was done. And fulfilled.” Gorbachev continued that “The agreement on a final settlement with Germany said that no new military structures would be created in the eastern part of the country; no additional troops would be deployed; no weapons of mass destruction would be placed there. It has been obeyed all these years.” To be sure, the former Soviet president criticized NATO enlargement and called it a violation of the spirit of the assurances given Moscow in 1990, but he made clear there was no promise regarding broader enlargement.”
Brookings Institution, RBTH (November 2014) 

At the 43^rd Munich Security Conference in 2007, Vladimir Putin laid out that Russia perceives the eastward expansion of NATO as a threat, saying that enlargement was a provocative factor that does lower the level of mutual trust and accused the West of breaking its word. In 2022 he tried to halt the expansion of NATO by placing 100,000 troops at their Ukrainian border (which developed into the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine). Putin demanded the US to cease all NATO activity in every country joined since 1997.

Finland became the 31st member of NATO, doubling the alliance's border with Russia, at Finland's request, with Sweden trying the same but being blocked by Turkey to force them to ban and extradite Kurdish-Turkish politicians and liaisons working in Sweden.

Alliance Duty

The 1949 NATO pact, Article 5, states that an armed attack against one or more of them...shall be considered an attack against them all. NATO invoked this article for the first time in its history on September 11th, 2001 when the U.S. claimed to be under military attack and called the other NATO members to assist its self-defence. NATO's treaty requires that the other members investigate the truth of this claim. As of 2016 it is unclear:

1. Whether this is still the case;
2. If so, what consequences this has in terms of national sovereignty of NATO members;
3. Whether any investigation has ever been carried out.

While Article V (collective defense) protections only extend to actual NATO members, the Charter's Article IV allows the umbrella of NATO protection to be extended to those non-NATO members whom the alliance views as an ally - for example the Ukraine. NATO's military interventions against Serbia in 1999, Afghanistan in 2001, Iraq in 2004, and Libya in 2011, were all done under Article IV of the NATO Charter. Seen in this light, the premise that NATO is an exclusively defensive organization, committed to the promise of collective self-defense, is baseless.

Organisation

NATO has an extensive civilian structure, under the Secretary General of NATO, as distinct from its military structure, commanded by the Supreme Allied Commander Europe.

Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR)

Full article: Supreme Allied Commander Europe

The SACEUR (Supreme Allied Commander Europe), NATO's top military executive, is always an American. As of 2022 NATO's SACEUR is Christopher G. Cavoli. Every NATO member has its own ambassador. According to Daniele Ganser "these channels function like this: NATO - and here predominantly the USA - says 'here are the facts and you have to do that'."

Secretary General of NATO

Full article: Secretary General of NATO

The Secretary General of NATO has no power in the military command structure, but chairs several of the senior decision-making bodies of NATO, including the North Atlantic Council, the Defence Planning Committee and the Nuclear Planning Committee, the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council, the Mediterranean Cooperation Group and serves as co-chair of the Permanent Joint Council and the NATO-Ukraine Commission. No publicly acknowledged selection procedure exists for this position; since the Bilderberg group arranged to reorganise NATO in 1966, all permanent holders of this position have been prior attendees of this conference.

Nuclear weapons

Full article: Nuclear weapons

On 6 October 2017, when it was announced that the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) had won the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg denounced the Nuclear Weapon Ban Treaty, the accord promoted by ICAN aimed at eliminating all nuclear weapons:

"NATO is committed to preserving peace and creating the conditions for a world without nuclear weapons,” Stoltenberg said. “We share this goal with ICAN and I welcome the attention given to this issue by the Nobel Committee. However, the NWBT does not move us closer to the goal of a world without nuclear weapons. In fact, it risks undermining the progress we have made over the years in disarmament and non-proliferation.”

"What we need is verifiable and balanced reduction of nuclear weapons,” Stoltenberg said. “The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which all NATO Allies have signed, remains the cornerstone of international efforts to do so. Since the end of the Cold War, NATO Allies have dramatically reduced the number of their nuclear weapons. But as long as nuclear weapons exist, NATO will remain a nuclear alliance.”

Activities

File:CameronTerrorQuiz.jpg

NATOs military activities provide not only huge profits for the military industrial complex but also provide a cover for other business such as the organising of deep events.

Operation Gladio

Full articles: Operation Gladio, Operation Gladio/B

Since just after World War II, NATO established a network of terrorist cells. Officially for use in case of a communist invasion, this Was used for a range of purposes, such as promoting the strategy of tension through false flag attacks, probably also for political assassinations, and in the 21^st century especially (Operation Gladio/B) for promoting the "War on Terror".

Illegal Drug Trade

Full article: Illegal Drug Trade

It is possible that senior figures in NATO are involved in the global drug trade. Circumstantial evidence surfaced in 2003 with the arrest of Willem Matser, a senior advisor to the NATO Secretary General, George Robertson, whom he saw on a daily basis. Matser was charged with money laundering, along with Pietro Fedino, an Italian crime boss connected to the Columbian Cali cartel. The failure of the commercially-controlled media to report any follow ups on this story supports the conjecture that this was no isolated enterprise, but part of a plan under deep state control.

Criticism

The argument that NATO is merely for defence has drawn criticism, in particular in their role in the encirclement of Russia.

{{#subobject: |Has superobject=NATO |Has objectClass=Quotation |Has author=Scott Ritter|+sep=, |Has text=“We had a moment in history, between 1988 and 1991, where we could have worked with Mikhail Gorbachev to make his vision of perestroika succeed. Instead, we allowed him to fail, without any real plan on how we would live with what emerged from the ruins of the Soviet Union. Save for a short period of time during the Second World War where we needed the Soviet Union to defeat Germany and Japan, we have been in a continual state of political conflict with the Soviet Union. Even after the Soviet Union collapsed, we viewed the Russian Federation more as a defeated enemy that we needed to keep down, than a friend in need of a helping hand up.” |Is about=NATO,NATO, 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Mikhail Gorbachev|+sep=, |Has wikipediaPage= |Has location=|+sep=, |Has publicationDate=2021 |Sourced from=Dissident Voice |Has sourceDetails= |Has sourceTitle=What Are The Prospects For Peace? |Has sourceName=Dissident Voice |Has sourceURL=https://dissidentvoice.org/2021/12/what-are-the-prospects-for-peace-4/

}}

“We had a moment in history, between 1988 and 1991, where we could have worked with Mikhail Gorbachev to make his vision of perestroika succeed. Instead, we allowed him to fail, without any real plan on how we would live with what emerged from the ruins of the Soviet Union. Save for a short period of time during the Second World War where we needed the Soviet Union to defeat Germany and Japan, we have been in a continual state of political conflict with the Soviet Union. Even after the Soviet Union collapsed, we viewed the Russian Federation more as a defeated enemy that we needed to keep down, than a friend in need of a helping hand up.”
Scott Ritter (2021)  What Are The Prospects For Peace?

Watch on YouTube

'NATO is the Greatest Threat to Peace on the Planet' - a video by James Corbett. (archive)

The wisdom of NATO's leaders may be questioned by Western commercially-controlled media, but their good intentions are not. Following the "humanitarian intervention" in Libya. One critic asked the rhetorical question "When was the last time that any war, anywhere, amounted to anything more than a swindle for the benefit of the bankers and the war industry, or anything less than a bloodbath for the average man or woman in the target country?"

In 2019, Emmanuel Macron was quoted as saying that "What we are currently experiencing is the brain death of NATO".

See Also

• Category:NATO

References