A Demented Alliance Serving A Gerontocratic Elite

Absent a better, home-grown solution, disentangling the US from NATO could simply be achieved by borrowing a page from the Soviet playbook

This July when the US and its Western allies are preparing to celebrate NATO’s 75th anniversary again, one might be forgiven for calling into question the alliance’s performance over the last 30 years and its actual usefulness from a Western security point of view.

NATO supporters are quick to point out the organisation’s most recent enlargement, which saw the neutrality of Finland and Sweden become a thing of the past. Regardless of how useful and beneficial neutrality had been for the two countries, the need of the American military-industrial complex to increase its sales of military hardware in the region, as well as an old Western obsession with encircling Russia have prevailed and neutrality was scrapped.

More recently still, British Defense Minister Grant Schapps has called for the abolition of the neutral status of Switzerland, Austria and Ireland, proving that today’s Anglo-Saxon militarised diplomacy is unable to grasp the utility of neutral states sandwiched in between opposing military blocs.

(At this point in time we should note that not even Adolf Hitler dared call into question Switzerland’s neutrality nor violated it in any way.)

That, together with the 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia and NATO’s proxy war in Ukraine against Russia make a mockery of the collective alliance’s original mission, namely that of safeguarding peace in Europe. 

Lacking in strategic focus since the 1990’s, NATO fumbles for fresh missions. It would like to get involved in the Indo-Pacific, in a futile attempt to contain China. In the last few years NATO has also officially tasked itself with defending and promoting the rights of LGBTQ minorities. This, at least, is what we are given to understand from Jens Stoltenberg’s annual speeches around this time in May:

“NATO will stand up for the rights of LGBTQ people.” (source: Chronicles Magazine)

“On the International Day against Homophobia, Biphobia & Transphobia, and every day: all love is equal. LGBTQ+ people deserve respect & dignity, and I am proud to call myself your ally.”(source: X 2024 @jensstoltenberg)

[…] we always need to do more [for LGBTQ+ people]. To push forward with ambition.” (May 17, 2023 speech of NATO Secretary General)

Stoltenberg’s tweets might lead one to believe that the West’s designated enemies - either Russia or China, or both - have made plans to attack these communities in case a military conflict should erupt. Such an occurrence is, of course, not very likely, as Russia and China have enough on their plate without worrying about targeting LGBTQ communities or their security. The declarations do, however, convincingly prove NATO’s utter obsolescence. The need for the United States to finally dismantle it, not expand it or drag it into Asia-Pacific conflicts, is glaring.

After years of intensive pro-NATO propaganda, however, disbanding NATO is dicey business indeed. Nevertheless, the need to do it is there for all to see, from Western political elites to moderate US politicians concerned with the financial sustainability of providing for the defence of another continent, which until a few decades ago was largely peaceful.

In going about the business of disentangling the US from its NATO bonds with the European continent, American political leaders - for want of a home-grown solution - would do well to emulate the Soviet model from the  end of the eighties. After all, most of the major factors that determined the Soviets to put a stop to the confrontation with the West and bring back their armies from occupied Eastern Europe are also now affecting the performance of the United States.

As we know, during the 1980’s the Soviet military occupation in Europe had become too big a financial burden to bear. The Soviet economy was in tatters because of ill-conceived reform plans and Moscow was no longer in a position to afford the upkeep of its 1,6 million troops stationed in countries like East Germany, Hungary, Czechoslovakia or Poland. After almost a decade of sclerotic gerontocracy in the Kremlin, the younger leader Mikhail Gorbachev decided that the time to prop up communist regimes in Eastern Europe militarily was up and he brought home the Soviet troops. All this was achieved in a peaceful and orderly manner, a first in the history of a continent scarred by two devastating world wars.

Today’s United States, like the USSR in the eighties, has accumulated a staggering amount of public debt, which stands at 35 trillion dollars and growing. A series of ‘forever’ wars that went on for decades and an outsized military establishment have contributed heavily to this very high level of indebtedness. If unchecked soon, the US is facing the prospect of country default, which could have huge financial consequences worldwide.

Unfortunately, despite all the serious challenges facing the US, the American political system is controlled by a devil-may-care gerontocracy playing a remarkably similar game to the Soviets during the eighties. From Joe Biden to Mitch McConnell to Lindsey Graham, the members of this gerontocracy insist on continuing to spend the nation’s taxpayer money for keeping and enlarging NATO and for engineering the defeat of their old enemies Russia+China, in a futile attempt to remain the world’s sole superpower.

I am quite convinced that the Kremlin’s gerontocratic old guard from the eighties was at least as obstinate in its support of communism as the American gerontocrats are in their support of US global hegemonism today. This does not mean, however, that they weren’t both wrong and that refusing to adapt to a changing world is the right strategy to follow.

A decision to roll back NATO would not bring about the dissolution of the American state like in the USSR’s case. Nor would it represent a national security risk, as there are no European or Asian armies waiting to make their way to the US’s borders.

What I am not sure of at this point in time is whether the American political elites are actually able to borrow a leaf from the Soviet playbook of the eighties and abandon, peacefully, both NATO and their global hegemony ambitions. The time to do it would be now.

image credits