Why NATO Cannot Be (& Never Was) a DEFENSIVE Alliance

Eric Zuesse

Even at its very start, NATO was designed as an aggressive alliance, never a defensive one. It was designed by the U.S. Government purely for an aggressive purpose, and entirely on the basis of lies, which have been its propaganda ever since. NATO is a blatant violation of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s anti-imperialist will and intentions for the post-WW2 world, and it is a fulfillment of the U.S.-imperialist will and intentions of (primarily) Harry Truman, but also of Winston Churchill — and this fact is hidden by ‘historians’ but will be fully documented by means of the links here to the evidence.

The will of the United States Government under President Roosevelt, who died on 12 April 1945 just before WW2 ended, was what he had started, on 9 August 1941 (even before joining WW2) to plan in order to replace the then existing imperialistic international world order that had produced both World Wars, and which replacement he called, even that early, the “United Nations.” He planned it so as for his U.N. to take control over international relations: international laws legislating them; international courts interpreting them; and international enforcement backing up with military force these international laws. This — FDR’s U.N. — was to be the exclusive Legislative, Judicial, and Executive, power over international relations, so as to prevent and avoid what had caused both World Wars, which was contending imperialisms. FDR, during 9 August 1941 to 12 April 1945, planned very carefully to prevent WW3, and his U.N. was intended to be the international body which would be designed for this purpose (which the U.N. that we have was not). This was to be a U.N. which would have NO laws pertaining to internal domestic affairs within nations, but ONLY to INTERNATIONAL laws between nations; so, it would be very different from the U.N. that became formed and shaped under Truman at the San Francisco Conference during 25 April 1945 through 26 June 1945.

The will of the United States Government after 25 July 1945 (initiated on that date by President Truman) threw out and replaced FDR’s entire international policy, which had been anti-imperialistic, and replaced it with the United States Government itself being modified to serve ultimately that international function which FDR had been planning for the U.N. to serve. However, unlike FDR’s plan, which had been for his U.N., a global democratic federal republic of the world’s sovereign and independent nations — a democratic World Government, which is the only way to prevent any more World Wars and outlaw and terminate all imperialisms — the new President Truman started, on that date (25 July 1945) to construct a U.S. dictatorship over all nations (aiming to achieve a dictatorial World Government, with its capital in Washington DC — the first-ever all-encompassing global empire), so that the only sovereign nation would be the U.S., and all other nations would be or become its dependencies (colonies). For example, this was what U.S. President Obama meant when telling America’s future generals on 28 May 2014, that “The United States is and remains the one indispensable nation.” All others are “dispensable,” just like any mere colony is in any empire. That quintessentially hyper-imperialistic or “hegemonic,” supremacist, statement from Obama, asserted the goal of Truman’s America, definitely not of FDR’s America. Truman had shaped this Government — FDR did not. And this is why we have the type of U.S., and the type of U.N., that we do today: striving to control every country.

At the same international conference in August 1941 where FDR started planning for the post-War U.N., his imperialistic opponent there (but allied with America to defeat the imperialistic fascist powers) Churchill, was starting to plan for the post-War NATO; and, so, they together produced there the “Atlantic Charter” as the foundation of the U.S.-UK alliance being a compromise between the imperialist Churchill and the anti-imperialist FDR. Both men subsequently first met Stalin on 28 November 1943 at the Tehran Conference, when Stalin was already well on the way toward defeating Germany — with crucial U.S. lend-lease assistance.

NATO, which Truman created in 1949, is an extension of the Trumanist imperialistic will of the U.S. Government, and this is such a blatant a fact so that Article 13, which is the only portion of NATO’s charter, the North Atlantic Treaty, that says anything about how a member-nation may either quit NATO or be expelled from NATO, places the U.S. Government in charge of processing a “denunciation” (voluntary withdrawal) — the Charter’s term for resigning from NATO. This term “denunciation” (instead of “withdrawal”) clearly means that if any member does quit, then that will be interpreted by NATO as constituting a hostile act, which will have consequences (the resigning member will be placed onto NATO’s unspoken list of enemies — “regime-change” there thus becoming much more likely). NATO’s charter has no provision by which a member can be expelled. Astoundingly, the Treaty provides no option for a member to withdraw other than for the nation to “denounce” NATO. Just think about that for a moment — the hyper-aggressive mentality that it actually displays. Moreover, the Treaty fails to include any provision by which the charter can be amended or changed in any manner. No charter or constitution that fails to include a provision by which it may be amended, can reasonably be acceptable to a democracy: it is so rigid as to be 100% brittle, impossible to adapt to changing challenges — more like a dictatorship is. The NATO charter itself is a dictatorial, never a democratic, document. It takes up, for the U.S. regime after 1945, the function that the Nazi Party had held prior to that in and for Germany: after Hitler died, America took up and has held high his torch for global dictatorship. In fact, “the Government of the United States of America” is also stated in Article 10 as the entity to process applications to join NATO, and, in Article 11, as being the processor of “ratifications” of applications to join. The U.S. Government is NATO’s center, and NATO’s other members are mere spokes of the wheel.

NATO claims that “the Alliance’s creation was part of a broader effort to serve three purposes: deterring Soviet expansionism, forbidding the revival of nationalist militarism in Europe through a strong North American presence on the continent, and encouraging European political integration.”

As regards the first objective, "deterring Soviet expansionism,” what was that alleged “expansionism” actually? What was this phrase referring to? The BBC’s article “The Soviet Expansion into Eastern Europe” answers this, when it says:

Despite the promises made by Stalin at the Yalta Conference to allow free elections, he had in fact started turning Eastern Europe into a buffer zone (an area giving someone protection against a threat, e.g. the USSR wanted a buffer zone around them after being invaded by Germany in both World Wars) between the Soviet Union and Western Europe. Stalin feared that Eastern Europe could be the doorway for an attack on the Soviet Union by the West.

Timeline of Soviet takeover of Eastern Europe

Country Year Methods used

Albania 1945 A communist government took power at the end of World War Two.

Bulgaria 1946 In 1946 the Bulgarian monarchy was abolished and later that year a communist government was elected and gradually eradicated its opponents.

East Germany 1945 East Germany was part of the Soviet zone of occupation agreed at the Yalta Conference and in 1945 the Soviets set up a communist regime.

Romania 1945 In the 1945 elections, a communist-led coalition government was elected. The communists gradually removed their coalition partners and abolished the Romanian monarchy.

Poland 1947 Fearing that a non-communist government would be elected in 1947, Stalin invited 16 non-communist politicians to Moscow, where they were arrested. With their political opponents removed, the Polish communists won the election. [Here is a contrary, Russian, account of that highly contentious matter. After all, this happened in 1947; by that time, Stalin already had no doubt that the U.S.-UK alliance were set upon defeating the Soviet Union.]

Hungary 1948 Although non-communists won the 1945 election, a communist politician, Rakosi, took control of the secret police and used it to arrest and execute his political opponents. By 1948 the Communist Party was in complete control of the country.

Czechoslovakia 1948 Czechoslovakia was the last country in Eastern Europe to fully fall to communism in 1948. At elections that year only Communists were allowed to stand and a communist government was duly elected.

What was all of that actually about?:

On 25 July 1945, Truman had told Stalin that the U.S. Government would not recognize the legitimacy of the Soviet Union’s control over the countries that it had conquered from Hitler (those including the countries listed just above here, by the BBC) unless the U.S. Government is granted veto-power over the Soviet Union’s decisions regarding those Governments (both their internal and external affairs); and, in Truman’s letter that night to his wife, Bess, he even gloated over it, by saying:

Russia and Poland have gobbled up a big hunk of Germany and want Britain and us to agree. I have flatly refused. We have unalterably opposed the recognition of police governments in the Germany Axis countries. I told Stalin that until we had free access to those countries and our nationals had their property rights restored, so far as we were concerned there'd never be recognition. He seems to like it when I hit him with a hammer.

On both 24 July 1945 and 25 July 1945, Truman and Churchill had met together with Stalin at Potsdam and ganged up against him by making these demands upon him that they themselves wouldn’t have tolerated if Stalin had treated them that same contemptuous way.

Suddenly,  the amicable relationship between the U.S. and U.S.S.R., which had prevailed throughout FDR’s three terms in office, and which had won WW2 for the Allies, and which FDR had been planning to continue afterward, ended on that date, in a crash of mutual hostility, because Stalin couldn’t accept Truman’s demand (really for global supremacy), any more than Truman would have accepted a similar demand from Stalin about the nations that America and its colonies such as the UK had conquered in Europe from Hitler. 

Stalin (like FDR would have done if he had survived) made no such demand upon Truman or anyone else, and from that date forward, Stalin recognized that unless he could change Truman’s mind on this (which never happened), the U.S. Government would be at war against the Soviet Government. It turned out to be (on the American side at least) a war not actually between capitalism versus communism (as Truman and Churchill propagandized it to be) but instead between the U.S. against the entire world — to take all of it — as was made clear when U.S. President GHW Bush started, on 24 February 1990, secretly instructing his stooge leaders, such as Helmut Kohl and Francois Mitterrand, that their war against the soon-no-longer-communist Russia would secretly continue until it too becomes a part of the U.S. empire. Bush on that date reaffirmed the Trumanist tradition: that America’s Government must take over the entire world, all other countries.

This was why NATO continued even after the Soviet Union — which was allegedly NATO’s reason for existence — ended.

Here are just some of NATO’s most flagrant lies: “NATO is not a threat to Russia.”  /   “NATO has tried to build a partnership with Russia, developing dialogue and practical cooperation in areas of common interest. Practical cooperation has been suspended since 2014 in response to Russia’s illegal and illegitimate annexation of Crimea, Ukraine, which NATO will never recognise.”  /  “NATO is not at war with Russia.”

NATO has always been at war against Russia, and was created so as to be that. The current war inside Ukraine is a proxy-war between Russia and the U.S. empire, and started with U.S. President Barack Obama’s coup there in 2014 but had been in preparation ever since the Truman Administration; and here is how that happened, as recounted by the CIA’s historian. (Click to read it.)

The masterful 2 hour and 25 minute “Operation Gladio - Full 1992 documentary BBC” about that CIA operation — which operation began at the CIA’s start in 1947 — documents the U.S. Government’s hiring of ‘former’ Nazis and other fascists throughout Europe in order to perpetrate terrorist acts by them that were false-flagged by them so as to be reported in the press as having been terrorist acts that were perpetrated by communists — Soviet-caused terrorism. Also, the 2018 academic book COVERT REGIME CHANGE, by Lindsey O’Rourke, listed as the earliest CIA coups and coup-attempts, France and Italy in 1947; and, then in 1949: Albania, Belarus, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Hungary, Russia, and Ukraine. Almost all of those U.S-instigated coup-attempts were in the countries that the Soviet Union had liberated from Hitler. So: How valid is the 1949 NATO claim that “deterring Soviet expansionism” — if there had actually been any — would have been more valid than deterring U.S. expansionism (which has thus been the reality since 1945)? When the Rhodesist imperialist Winston Churchill delivered on 5 March 1946 his famous “iron curtain” speech announcing to the public the U.S.-UK Cold War against the Soviet Union, he lied about which side had actually aggressed and  initiated this “curtain” separating the East from The West. Stalin had been forced into a defensive crouch by Truman (under the influence of Eisenhower and of Churchill), and he responded accordingly. Russia has been on the defensive against the U.S. regime not only since NATO began in 1949, but ever since 25 July 1945.

NATO is a war-criminal organization, and must be condemned as such and promptly terminated as the world’s biggest threat of a WW3. A resolution ought finally to be proposed at (Truman’s) U.N. to do that. The world has been viciously deceived about history, so as to delay the termination of this, the world’s most dangerous, organization (other than the post-FDR U.S. Government itself, which NATO has always served). (Yet, despite all of that lying, the only extensive global poll that ever asked throughout the world the question of which nation poses the “greatest threat to peace in the world today” — and this was an open-ended question, not one that suggested candidate-nations to select from — found that by a massive margin, the U.S. was the most-mentioned country.)

It’s a fraudulent ‘pro-peace’ organization, which is actually the world’s most dangerous (other than the U.S. Government itself) pro-war organization. It needs to end now. Actually, the countries that it endangers the most are the ones in Europe, because, if there will be a WW3, those will be the ones that will likeliest be destroyed the most. Their being and continuing as NATO members is consequently the purest insanity, because they are allying themselves with their very worst real enemy — the voracious supremacist U.S. Government. European nations being in NATO is the sheerest insanity imaginable. They all need to sign bilateral peace treaties with Russia, and quit their war treaty with NATO.

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Investigative historian Eric Zuesse’s latest book, AMERICA’S EMPIRE OF EVIL: Hitler’s Posthumous Victory, and Why the Social Sciences Need to Change, is about how America took over the world after World War II in order to enslave it to U.S.-and-allied billionaires. Their cartels extract the world’s wealth by control of not only their ‘news’ media but the social ‘sciences’ — duping the public.