Forecourt sculpture at the new NATO headquarters Photo: AFP
TheMK sports 2024 NATO Summit is set to be held in Washington from Tuesday to Thursday. With NATO's continuous expansion, it is evolving from a regional security alliance into a global organization. What impact does NATO's expansion have on the world? What is the essence of NATO? Sevim Dagdelen (Dagdelen), the foreign affairs spokesperson for the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance grouping in the German Bundestag and prominent critic of NATO, shared her views with the Global Times (GT) over these issues.
GT: In your book, NATO: A reckoning with the Atlantic Alliance, you mentioned that this year marks the 75th anniversary of NATO's founding, and that NATO appears to be at the peak of its power. But it is simultaneously plunging into the most serious crisis since its establishment. Why do you think NATO is in crisis?
Dagdelen:At the summit in Washington, NATO, tagging along with the US, intends to cement its policy of escalation and expansion. These people dream that they can take on Russia, China and the Middle East at the same time and are getting ready for an engagement "on three fronts." In Ukraine, an ever more intensive proxy war is being fought against Russia; the first shot in a trade war has been fired against China in the form of punitive tariffs on electric cars; simultaneously, building an Asian NATO is being pursued by means of partnership agreements to encircle and - as NATO's eastward enlargement did to Russia - challenge China. These engagements are consuming tremendous financial resources, and NATO is facing overreach and self-isolation as a result of its own claim to global hegemony. It is willing to risk its own downfall rather than accept the emergence of a multipolar world.
GT: It has been reported that the agenda of the NATO summit may include discussions on Ukraine's accession to NATO. How much support do you think the West can continue to provide to Ukraine?
Dagdelen:The US is relying on making much greater use, even than it has been doing, of the resources of other NATO members, especially Germany, to continue waging its proxy war against Russia. The German government has to engage in social warfare against its own people so that it can satisfy the US' requirements of support for Ukraine. In other words, the US is throwing other NATO members under the bus to fight its wars. This may go on for years - entailing the risk of Europe going into social and economic decline and becoming destabilized. Meanwhile, the people of Europe are at risk of being sent into a Third World War, which would be fought, with nuclear weapons, primarily in Europe and would leave the continent in ruins. In this context, to contemplate deploying our own troops or consenting to Ukrainian attacks on Russia using German weapons is to fan the flames.
GT: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg recently stated that China is fueling Europe's "biggest security threat since the end of the Cold War." How do you evaluate this viewpoint? What is the root cause of the danger in Europe?
Dagdelen:The US is betting, alongside its NATO allies, on threatening China, dreaming of a return to a colonial relationship where other countries can tell China what it should and shouldn't do. We are living through a very dangerous moment in international politics as a result of that neocolonialist illusion. The objective is to have the capacity for even harsher economic warfare and isolate Russia internationally, in the belief that a nuclear power can be brought low. The idea is to ruin Russia in order to then take on China in the hope of regaining the old, now fading hegemony. This worldview ignores the developments of recent years. However, it is not solely directed against China but also intended to make countries like India and Vietnam biddable and enable NATO to harness them to its own interests.
GT: Some observers believe that NATO is evolving from a regional security alliance into a global organization. What impact do you think NATO's expansion has had on the world? Has NATO's expansion made Europe safer?
Dagdelen:NATO's eastward enlargement is the main reason for today's conflict in Europe. The US decided to challenge Russia on its borders, something which has never been tolerated on the American continent in respect of the US border - see the response in the Cuban missile crisis in 1962. Anyone who wants peace must stop this NATO expansion. The same concept of challenge is now to be deployed against China, at this stage still via security partnerships with Australia, New Zealand, Japan and South Korea and with the involvement of the Philippines and the island of Taiwan. At the same time, the US is promoting the military cooperation between Japan and the Philippines in order to build up an anti-China front. NATO under the US is working with Japan, which would make Japan the main state against China in Asia, like Germany confronting Russia in Europe.
GT: NATO has claimed to be a defensive alliance with democratic values and a commitment to human rights, but it has consistently incited wars around the world. How do you view this contradiction, and what is the essence of NATO?
Dagdelen:NATO's core task is to support the US' hegemonic ambitions. The three myths used to obscure that task pretend that NATO stands for international law, democracy and human rights. They crumble in the face of reality: the US alone has killed 4.5 million people in its illegal wars over the last 20 years. As for human rights, the spotlight is not just on the infringement of the fundamental social rights of millions of the NATO countries' own citizens but also, for example, on the US' operation of the torture camp at Guantánamo Bay.
GT: Since the outbreak of the Ukraine crisis, NATO military spending has significantly increased. What has rising military spending brought to Germany and other European countries? Can the continuous increase in military spending truly make NATO "bigger, stronger, and more united" than ever before?
Dagdelen:The arms drive started back in 2014, when the NATO members agreed on the 2 percent target. For Germany, as an example, that meant a massive increase in arms spending - money that is now missing from education, health and infrastructure. There is an illusion that the identified enemies, Russia and China, can be run into the ground by arms race, like the Soviet Union was, forced to expend ever more resources on armaments and so ultimately destabilized from within. The only thing is that history seems to be going the other way this time, and it will ultimately be just our own societies that are destabilized.
GT: Germany, France, and Spain will visit Japan to participate in a joint military exercise. How do you view NATO countries conducting military exercises in the Asia-Pacific region? If NATO expands into the Asia-Pacific region, does this serve the interests of Europe?
Dagdelen:NATO will now grant massive support to the US' hegemonic ambitions in the Indo-Pacific. This is supposed to help the US save on resources. It involves deliberately pushing countries like Japan, South Korea and even the Philippines into confrontation with China. To arm them or support them in threatening military gestures disguised as maneuvers, the focus is on intensifying military cooperation. Germany's appointed role is to enhance the Philippines's capacities as a frontline state against China. This is a disastrous strategy - basically one client state propping up another. The price of peace and security in Europe and Asia is extremely high. Germany and Europe need a different foreign policy that includes pursuing good relations with Russia and China and no longer allows itself to be harnessed to the US' drive for hegemony.
