From NATO to stalemate in Ukraine: the "common European home" is still a long way from being realized

This is a 15-minute analysis and polemic from Abby Martin, giving a distinctly left view of NATO (1):




This is a case where a “left” view overlaps quite a bit with various shades of “realist” treatments of foreign policy.

The one historical point she mentions (after 8:41) that is not well-founded is her claim that the US promised Soviet negotiators in 1990 that it would not extend NATO further east into other Moscow Pact countries other than East Germany. Mary Elise Sarotte has explained in detail why the claim is not tenable. (2) At least so far as any specific binding agreement was concerned.

A 2017 study by the National Security Archive concluded:

The documents reinforce former CIA Director Robert Gates’s criticism of “pressing ahead with expansion of NATO eastward [in the 1990s], when Gorbachev and others were led to believe that wouldn’t happen.” The key phrase, buttressed by the documents, is “led to believe.” (3)

NATO did defend liberal democracies in Western Europe. But Martin had plenty of material on which to draw to illustrate that NATO has not been a flawlessly democratic organization. It was there primarily to contain the Soviet Union and now Russia, even when that meant involving itself with some unsavory characters, a fact that certainly doesn’t surprise foreign policy realists. And the US has always called the shots, though diplomatic nicities require that governmental representatives be delicate in how they discuss that fact.

Since some NATO members were notably still colonial powers (Great Britain, France, Portugal) when the alliance was formalized in 1949, it also had a role in supporting various colonial regimes. Martin comments (after 7:35), “When the US won the Cold War, and the Warsaw Pact disbanded, it seemed that NATO’s mission too would come to an end.”

She recalls the public posture stated in the 1990 Charter of Paris by the OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe), a broader European grouping which included the USSR, the country which would go out of existence within a couple of months of the document’s publication:

We, the Heads of State or Government of the States participating in the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe, have assembled in Paris at a time of profound change and historic expectations. The era of confrontation and division of Europe has ended.

We declare that henceforth our, relations will be founded on respect and co-operation. Europe is liberating itself from the legacy of the past. The courage of men and women, the strength of the will of the peoples and the power of the ideas of the Helsinki Final Act have opened a new era of democracy, peace and unity in Europe.

Ours is a time for fulfilling the hopes and expectations our peoples have cherished for decades: steadfast commitment to democracy based on human rights and fundamental freedoms; prosperity through economic liberty and social justice; and equal security for all our countries. (4) [my emphasis]

This reads now like some quaint diplomatic ephemera from the dim past.

But Martin uses it to call attention to the hopeful aspirations in Europe at the end of the Cold War. Although she ends her commentary with this rhetorical flourish: “Now, as NATO’s expanding ambitions raise tensions to a boiling point on several fronts, it has become imperative to challenge its violent mission and dismantle the war machine. This is how we prevent World War Three.”

Unfortunately, dismantling the world’s war machines is a very long-term project.

Ironically for Abby Martin’s topic of NATO, there were actually not-totally-unserious hopes around that time that NATO might eventually be expanded to include Russia. Or that NATO could be replaced with a different alliance including Russia. Here’s another now-nostalgic moment from Gorbachev himself in 1989, in what is known as his “Europe as a Common Home” speech:

I am convinced that it is high time the Europeans brought their policies and their conduct into line with a new common sense — not to prepare for war, not to intimidate one another, not to compete with one another either in improving weapons, or, especially, in attempts to offset the initiated reductions, but rather to learn to make peace together and to lay jointly a solid basis for it.

If security is the foundation of a common European home, then all-round co-operation is its bearing frame.

What is symbolic about the new situation in Europe and throughout the world in recent years, is an intensive inter-state dialogue, both bilateral and multilateral. The network of agreements, treaties and other accords has become considerably more extensive. Official consultations on various issues have become a rule.

For the first time contacts have been established between NATO and the Warsaw Pact, between the European Community and the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA), not to mention many political and public organisations in both parts of Europe. (5) [my emphasis]

But that moment in history, like the end of the Second World War, is still an important reference point for aspirations of a more peaceful Europe and for reducing the danger of nuclear war.

With all the justified attention now to climate change as a major threat to humanity, the biggest one still remains nuclear war. The destructive effects of a major nuclear war would in part manifest themselves as new and very rapid climate changes. But the immediate deaths and injuries would be massive. And, as Gerhard Mangott recently pointed out:

The new ice age between the US and Russia [over Ukraine] is also having an impact on nuclear disarmament agreements. In recent decades, almost all disarmament and arms-control treaties have been terminated by the United States and Russia; there is only one treaty left, the "New START” of 2011, which provides for a limitation on both sides of warheads and delivery systems. Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin renewed this contract for another five years in February 2021. A follow-up agreement was supposed to be negotiated during this period.

These talks have been suspended since the war. What's more, Russia has suspended [its] “New START” [obligations] (even though this option does not exist in treaty provisions); it no longer allows inspections of its own nuclear arsenal and no longer exchanges technical data. Strictly speaking, Russia is thus in breach of the treaty. So far, however, both sides seem to be adhering to the upper limits of operational warheads and delivery systems. It is hardly realistic that the US and Russia will be able to sign and ratify a successor agreement in the remaining time until 2026. (6) [my emphasis]

This really should be the main headline on every newspaper in the world and the main story on every news program at least once or twice a week: There’s one US-Russia nuclear arms treaty left and it’s on death watch!

Mangott closes his book on this note:

The [Russo-Ukraine] war is a tragedy, in any case, first and foremost for the victims, but also for Russia, even though as the aggressor country it chose it for itself. But the European security order is also a victim of the war. The prevailing view here is that it is no longer a question of seeking security with Russia, but security from Russia. Not now foreseeable is when Russia can actually become a pillar of European security again. Currently, Russia is a threat. But even this condition has its history.

Notes:

(1) How to Stop WORLD WAR III with Abby Martin. Jacobin YouTube channel 03/05/2024. <https://youtu.be/FfSS-dzucsU?si=chQXk3ofHZ0QfTaU> (Accessed: 2024-10-03).

(2) Sarotte, M.E. (2021): Not One Inch: America, Russia, and the Making of Post–Cold War Stalemate. New Haven & London: Yale University Press. Sarotte, M.E. (2010): Not One Inch Eastward? Bush, Baker, Kohl, Genscher, Gorbachev, and the Origin of Russian Resentment toward NATO Enlargement in February 1990. Diplomatic History 34:1, 119-140. <https://www.jstor.org/stable/24916036> (Accessed: 2024-10-03).

(3) Savranskaya, Svetlana & Blanton, Tom (2017): National Security Archive Briefing Book #613 12/12/2017. <https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/russia-programs/2017-12-12/nato-expansion-what-gorbachev-heard-western-leaders-early> (Accessed: 2024-10-03).

(4) Charter of Paris for a New Europe. Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe 11/21/1990. <https://www.osce.org/mc/39516> (Accessed: 2024-10-03).

(5) Gorbachev, Mikhail (1989): Speech by Mikhail Gorbachev to the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, "Europe as a Common Home" 07/06/1989. Wilson Center. <https://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/speech-mikhail-gorbachev-council-europe-strasbourg-europe-common-home> (Accessed: 2024-10-03).

(6) Mangott, Gerhard (2024): Russland, Ukraine und die Zukunft, 131-132. Vienna: Christian Brandstätter Verlag. My translation from the German and my paragraph breaks.