Ludo De Brabander / Vrede vzw

BELGIUM (June 2024) — Dear friends,
In three weeks, NATO will ‘celebrate’ its 75the anniversary. The peace movement is calling up to join the counter-summit, demonstrations and actions in Washington and elsewhere with the message: NATO get out of our countries, of our world! It’s time to retire. Stop war! Stop NATO! No Peace without social justice!

The text below (and on our website) is my contribution to the 7th assembly of the International League of Peoples’ Struggles in Georgetown, Penang, Malaysia.

Kind regards,
Ludo De Brabander

Stop the Politics of War,
Time for a Peace Plan!
Ludo De Brabander / Vrede

BELGIUM (June 2024) —Humanity has to cope with two planetary threats of increasingly dangerous proportions: climate change and the threat of nuclear war. Unfortunately, international tensions reduce space for diplomacy and action to address these and other major planetary challenges. Underlying all this is the competition between superpowers in the struggle for hegemony and the profit-driven capitalist system that keeps making the rich richer and the poor poorer.

After the cold war, in 1992 a first draft of the Defense Planning Guidance for the 1994–1999 period by US undersecretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz was leaked. The major objective of what became known as the Wolfowitz doctrine was “to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival, either on the territory of the former Soviet Union or elsewhere”. The document outlined an imperialist policy of unilateralism and pre-emptive military action with the fundamental goal of keeping the US in the role of sole superpower in a ‘new world order’. More than 30 years later this hasn’t changed.

NATO’s Provocations in Eastern Europe
The rise of China and Russia’s ambitions to reassert its role as a superpower were potential threats to the hegemonic role of the US. Although the Warschaupact and Sovjet-Union ceased to exist, Washington successfully managed to strengthen NATO in the post-cold war period with the purpose of defending its interests in Europe and the wider region and step up its confrontation and provocations with Russia. A few years after cancelling the ABM Treaty in 2002, the US announced its plans to build a new missile shield in Eastern Europe. In 2008, at its summit in Bucharest under pressure of the US, NATO gave the green light to Ukraine’s future membership. At the time, Germany and France were aware of the consequences of Ukraine becoming NATO member. In the words of then French Prime Minister Fillon, it would upset the balance of power in Europe. The successive rounds of NATO enlargement – the number of members has now doubled from 16 at the end of the Cold War to 32 today – were done without taking into account the security interests of Russia, which raised strong objections from the outset from under Yeltsin.

NATO’s provocative behaviour helped shaping the current pivotal moment towards what is regularly called Cold War 2.0. In a cold war, superpowers fight their mutual rivalries through third countries.

Ukraine and US Interests in Europe
That is what is going on in and around Ukraine. In Ukraine, a nationalist conflict that took on an armed character turned into a proxy war as of 2014. For the US, that was the ultimate moment to realise its hegemonic goals according to old geopolitical guideline as it was defined by the first NATO Secretary General Hastings Ismay in the 1950’s to summarise NATO’s raison d’être: to “keep the Soviet Union out, the Americans in and the Germans down”.

The military cooperation and support to Ukraine that started immediately after 2008, with arms deliveries and joint manoeuvres was intensified after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Economic ties between European countries and Russia were severed and replaced by a comprehensive package of sanctions that also immediately strengthened the US position in Europe, including by seizing much of the energy market. US LNG (liquid Gas) exports to Europe tripled in three years (between 2021 – 2023). Russia’s position as a superpower was to be curtailed with a war of attrition at the expense of Ukraine, which was economically grounded and faces difficulties in finding new recruits for the battlefield.

The US was very open about the purpose of massive arms deliveries to Ukraine. It is not so much about ending the war quickly, but about weakening Russia as confirmed in April 2022 by US Secretary of Defence, Lloyd Austin. At the same time, Europe was undergoing rapid militarisation to the benefit of the military industry in the US and Europe. The military industrial complex is a not to underestimate driving force of western war policies. Many European proponents advocate the transformation to a war economy to tackle “the danger of Russian imperialism” even though it is clear that Russia is forced to concentrate all military efforts in Ukraine with little means of expanding its war.

Before I continue, I want to make clear that we as a peace movement must denounce and condemn Russian aggression against Ukraine. In Russia, conservative, nationalistic and militaristic forces are in power. Forces that symbolize just about everything the peace movement fights against. But the western focus on the problematic nature of the Russian invasion, a violation of Ukrainian sovereignty, should divert attention from NATO’s huge responsibilities and provocations that lead to the outbreak of war in Ukraine.

NATO continues to claim that the Russian invasion of Ukraine was “unprovoked”. But NATO Secretary-General Stoltenberg himself admitted in a speech to the European Parliament in September last year that halting NATO expansion was a Russian condition for not invading Ukraine. According to Stoltenberg, he “went to war to prevent NATO, more NATO, from getting close to its borders. Stoltenberg says no more or less that there was a recipe for averting a Russian war against Ukraine, namely Ukraine’s neutrality.

NATO and its member states have yet to make any attempt to use diplomacy to seek a way out of the war. The military alliance instead continue to fuel it, even though Ukraine is paying a huge price and there is little chance of Kiev regaining its territory by military means. China’s 12-point plan of mid-May 2024 is dismissed by NATO. According to NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, Beijing is not well-placed to negotiate an end to the war. Clearly, the war must continue because Russia must be eliminated as a ‘strategic rival’.

Dangerous Tensions; Nuclear-armed Powers
Meanwhile, in the so-called ‘Indo-pacific region’, much energy is invested to also weaken China, the other ‘strategic rival’ – as China and Russia are defined in the ‘NATO 2030 Agenda’ in 2021 – with economic sanctions and the militarisation of the region with numerous military exercises and the arming of allies such as Taiwan, South Korea and Japan (the latter country decided to double its military spending in five years). It is a dangerous policy that has greatly increased the nuclear threat, exacerbated by the cancellation of key disarmament agreements by former President Trump. As a result of the current tense relations diplomatic channels are disrupted for new agreements of arms control. Worse, instead of nuclear disarmament initiatives, nuclear arsenals are being modernised and even expanded, making the world more unsafe. According to a new ICAN-report, nuclear armed states spent 91 billion dollar in their nuclear arsenals last year. 10% more than the previous year and an increase of 34% in the last five years.

The increased nuclear threat should be a major motivation to work towards rapprochement with Russia and China. But for now, there is little sign of any urgency in transatlantic circles.

Another dangerous trend is that the international legal system, as developed after the Second World War, is increasingly coming under pressure. We have witnessed how decisive the European Union can be with by now 14 sanctions packages against Russia. That same show of political will and principles is completely absent when it comes to the genocidal actions of the Israeli colonial occupying power and Apartheid state. On the contrary, the US and some other NATO member states continue to supply Israel with arms and make themselves complicit in war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. This hypocritical behaviour of two weights and two measures is undermining the international legal system. It proves that not international law and human rights are the driving forces of Western foreign policy, but geopolitical, imperialist and neo-colonial interests.

The capitalist system is grounded in competition and makes countries seek market domination, control over resources and capital accumulation that is accompanied by militarism and confrontations. Human insecurity (lack of access to basic needs) and environmental problems faced by large populations in the global south as a result of exploitation, unequal trade relations and the neoliberal policies of institutions such as the IMF and the World Bank are a breeding ground for violent conflicts and civil wars.

Peace and capitalism are two concepts that are difficult to combine. Militarism and capitalism go against fundamental values of equality, solidarity and humanity. We need to revive the idea of a new international economic order (NIEO), to counter neoliberalism, imperialism and neocolonialism without being paralysed and weakened by often minor underlying differences in how a NIEO should look like. There is a historical reference. In 1974 a declaration for a new international economic order was voted by the UN General Assembly. However it was immediately and strongly rejected by the US for obvious reasons.

Need for Human and Common Security
It is also up to us, social movements and left forces to keep fighting for the principle that there is no peace without social justice and that peace is impossible if people have no access to essential needs in a healthy environment. It is a struggle that social organisations, trade unions, environmental groups, human rights and peace activists must fight together even if the balance of power is very unequal. Resistance pays off. History proves it. Workers in many countries have succeeded in establishing a social security system. In Belgium numerous large and small actions have pushed political parties, municipalities and universities to implement principles of the BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) towards Israeli entities complicit with the occupation.

The war in Ukraine, tensions in Asia and violence in the Middle East and Africa are great challenges to the peace and other social movements that seems divided and unable to weigh on politics. In time it will be realised that the politics of war are hopeless and bankrupt. Therefore, the peace movement must knock on the same nail each time: In Ukraine that means pushing for a cease-fire followed by negotiations aimed at a just, but also lasting peace. We have to emphasize that real security is based on the principle of ‘I am only safe if my neighbour also feels safe’.

Militarization and a new arms race come at the expense of necessary environmental and social investments. Tensions between militarized blocs prevent swift action to save our planet from climate change, address unsustainable inequality and poverty, and avert the nuclear weapons threat. We need a new security system that is people-centred, inclusive and based on respect for mutual security interests, on common security.

In three weeks, NATO will ‘celebrate’ its 75the anniversary. The peace movement is calling up to join the counter-summit, demonstrations and actions in Washington and elsewhere with the message: NATO get out of our countries, of our world! It’s time to retire. Stop war! Stop NATO! No Peace without social justice!