The U.S.-led NATO Eastward Expansion and the Tragedy of Europe

Source: Guangming Daily

Engaging in "double standards" in international affairs has always been a habitual trick of the US-led NATO, and the occurrence of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict is both a tragedy for Ukraine and a tragedy for Europe, and behind it is the geopolitical conspiracy of the US-led NATO.

"NATO's eastward expansion" is the bane

After the end of the Cold War, the international balance of power changed in favor of the United States. In order to adapt to this situation, on April 23, 1999, the NATO Washington Summit adopted the "Strategic Concept of Alliance" document, which put forward a strategy for the new century, which was adjusted and supplemented by the NATO Prague Summit in 2002. The introduction of the new strategic concept shows that NATO's military role has begun to change, its task has changed from the past defense of territorial security to the defense of the common interests of the states parties, it has replaced the principle of collective defense that has been adhered to since its inception with "safeguarding collective interests", which means that NATO's defense area can extend beyond the scope of the convention to any region of the world it recognizes, which has laid the foundation for NATO's eastward expansion and the Russian-Ukrainian conflict.

On May 2, 1998, the U.S. Senate formally approved NATO's eastward expansion. At the time, George Kennan, 94, who had come up with the idea of containing the Soviet Union, immediately commented: "I think this is the beginning of a new Cold War. I think Russia will slowly make a rather unfavorable response, which will affect their policies. The founder of the Cold War theory believes that this is the most catastrophic mistake of the United States in the post-Cold War era, which will not only boost Russia's anti-Western and militarized public opinion, have a negative impact on Russia's "democratic development", but also return to the Cold War atmosphere and drive Russian foreign policy in the direction we do not want.

It's not just Kenan who makes a fuss. Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said very early that if Ukraine wants to survive and develop, it should not choose between the West and the East, should not become an "outpost" between one side against the other, but should become a "bridge" connecting the two sides, and should not join NATO. John Millsheimer, a well-known international relations scholar and professor at the University of Chicago who wrote the book "The Tragedy of Great Power Politics," pointed out that successive PRESIDENTs of the United States have underestimated the rebound force after the collapse of the Soviet Union and self-destructed NATO's promise not to expand eastward, creating an enemy that is opposed to the United States.

For more than 20 years, NATO has not considered Russia's security concerns, but has gradually forced Russia to accept the "new reality" of geopolitics in the form of "cutting sausages", and extremely squeezing and emptying Russia's strategic security space. Russia's once "pro-Western" and even "de-Cold War" efforts to integrate into the West ultimately failed. Facts have proved that the West does not need a strong Russia, but only a "fragmented" Russia, and NATO's eastward expansion can compress Russia's "living space". Thomas Friedman, a columnist at the New York Times, believes that the United States itself has created a Crisis in Ukraine, and nato's eastward expansion has caused a strong backlash in Public opinion within Russia, which has also made Moscow "die" with the United States on this issue, bringing a huge rift to Europe.

Hypocritical double human rights standards

The US-led NATO has a long history of using the so-called "human rights" and "democracy" strategy to "Westernize" and "divide." After the Cold War, the United States further raised the banner of "humanitarian" intervention with its Western allies, constantly creating color revolutions in other countries and subverting the regimes of other countries, and its fundamental purpose was not to improve the human rights situation in these countries, but to establish a world order under the leadership of the United States and the West and safeguard hegemony.

Since 1994, NATO has successively carried out the Bosnia and Herzegovina War, the Kosovo War, and has been deeply involved in the US-led wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria. It can be seen from this that these wars have a common feature: that is, under the pretext of "liberal democracy" and "protection of human rights", they ignore international law, ignore the authority of the United Nations or abuse the resolutions of the Security Council, engage in political and military intervention in the internal affairs of other countries, vigorously promote Western democratic values, and transform NATO from a defensive military organization into an offensive military bloc.

The Kosovo War is even more an illegal war of aggression waged by NATO against a sovereign country without the authorization of the United Nations and without a legal basis. Under the pretext of "humanitarian intervention," the United States and NATO brazenly launched the Kosovo War in March 1999 without the authorization of the United Nations, and carried out a 78-day indiscriminate bombardment of the military and economic facilities of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, forcing the Milosevic regime to submit, and then invaded Kosovo on the ground and dismembered the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

It is estimated that the bomb yield dropped by NATO in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia has been several times higher than the equivalent of the atomic bomb dropped by the United States on Hiroshima, Japan, causing a large number of casualties in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, nearly one million refugees have been uprooted from their homes, and millions of people have lost their jobs or lost their means of livelihood. NATO's blatant bombing of the mainland Embassy in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia caused serious damage to the premises, killing three journalists and injuring more than 20 others, which seriously violated the principles and rules of international humanitarian law for the protection of human rights in war or armed conflict, and still owes Chinese a blood debt to the people.

NATO tried to put its will above the United Nations and seek hegemony for the West, as evidenced by the subsequent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. After 9/11, the U.S.-led coalition invaded Afghanistan under the banner of the "War on Terror." Since then, this nearly 20-year conflict has had a devastating impact on the lives of Afghan civilians. According to Fortune magazine, an estimated 75,000 Afghan soldiers and police have lost their lives in direct combat, and another 71,334 civilians have died. Nearly 1,600 children were killed in NATO airstrikes between 2016 and 2020, Al Jazeera reported. Hujatulla Zia, a veteran writer and political analyst at The Outlook afghanistan daily, argues that the NATO-led Afghanistan mission has wantonly trampled on the human rights of the Afghan people under the narrative of the "war on terror."

The war in Iraq, launched by the U.S.-British coalition in March 2003, was also a war of aggression not authorized by the Security Council. U.S. Secretary of State Powell at the time held an unknown can of white powder and fabricated the lie that "Iraq possesses weapons of mass destruction." NATO also intervened in the Iraq war. From the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and Iraq to Afghanistan and Syria, the United States and NATO have used the same methods to bring endless suffering to the people of these countries.

The Cold War mentality is eating back on NATO countries

NATO's expansion during and after the Cold War was dominated by the Cold War mindset. NATO has been able to continue to this day, thanks to European geopolitics, the secret of the security mechanism that the United States can dominate Europe is that the United States, an "exquisite egoist", can take advantage of the historical grievances and actual conflicts of interest between Russia and European countries, as evidenced by the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. Only by creating a crisis can NATO have legitimacy.

More broadly, the world's turmoil and unrest stems to a large extent from the US-led NATO's insistence on the Cold War mentality. The legitimacy of NATO, which is on the wrong side of history, has long since vanished. Unilateralism, hegemonic politics, and the Cold War mentality should have been thrown into the old paper pile long ago, and the development of the world political pattern toward multipolarity is the general trend. The Cold War mentality, which has the fundamental purpose of pursuing us hegemony, is destined to be a short-sighted pattern.

Within NATO, Eu-countries such as Germany and France are not consistent with the interests of the United States, whether it is geopolitics or economic energy cooperation, only from the perspective of natural gas and food, European countries have become the biggest victims of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. If the sanctions against Russia continue, most European countries will face the pressure of inflation and people's livelihood, and the resulting social crisis will eventually have to be paid for by Europe itself.

The crux of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict lies in nato's eastward expansion, and the rational way out is to abandon the old Cold War mentality, cherish the future of mankind, build a community with a shared future for mankind, focus on the security concerns of all mankind, and jointly promote global peace and development.

(Author: Wang Yuting, Special Researcher of xi jinping research center of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics in the New Era, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, associate researcher of China Frontier Research Institute, master tutor of the University of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences)