NATO is a military alliance between 29 North American and European countries, which was established in 1949 by 12 members amid the beginnings of the Cold War between the socialist Soviet Union and its Eastern European allies and the capitalist Western powers who formed NATO. A summit celebrating NATO’s 70th anniversary in London, UK, ended Wednesday.
“We said that this gathering [the summit] should be seen as a threat to global humanity. It’s quite clear from its history - that is NATO’s history - that it is a structure that is used to maintain and advance Western global capitalist interest, and for that it should be seen as a threat. Most of the interventions by NATO have been beyond the pale of legality,” Baraka told hosts Eugene Puryear and Sean Blackmon.
“The very fact that this structure has the kind of respectability among Western forces is quite troubling and … reflects the current contradiction, which is a contradiction between the Western interests, Western powers, Western capitalist powers and the vast majority of global humanity,” he continued, also referring to NATO as a “very important instrument” used by the ruling elites to further their capitalist and white supremacist goals.
In a statement published on the Black Alliance for Peace’s website, the organization refers to NATO as the “world’s deadliest military alliance,” noting that it has caused suffering throughout North Africa and the Middle East, among other regions and countries.
“Hundreds of thousands have died in US/NATO wars in Iraq, Libya, Somalia and Yugoslavia. Millions of refugees are now risking their lives trying to escape the carnage that these wars have brought to their homelands, while workers in the 29 NATO member-countries are told they must abandon hard-won social programs in order to meet US demands for even more military spending,” the statement notes.
The Black Alliance for Peace organizes massive protests across the world every year when NATO holds its summits.
“We have a responsibility to dismantle the respectability around the [NATO] structure and expose it for the national and class interest it really represents … We cannot afford this notion of innocence. We are involved in ideological war, and this NATO opportunity is one with which we can remind people of the true nature of that institution,” Baraka said, adding that NATO was established on a foundation of white supremacy and violence, and that the West uses the alliance to “galvanize support for its imperialist policies.”
“Race is used as an instrument of control and domination,” Baraka added.
“These issues of race and white supremacist ideology and violence - these are not just historical factors, but they make up the matrix of ongoing global power. And we’ve got to understand that when we see that the [US President] Donald Trump administration is pushing for NATO members to increase their military spending to up to 2% of GDP, when we see that they [NATO members] have [agreed] to have a global fight against China,” Baraka said
NATO member states on Wednesday signed a joint summit statement that recognizes the “rise of China” and the “security implications” that it could have for NATO members, a move that Baraka referred to as an effort to “curtail [China’s] developing power,” especially as European NATO members advocate for the possibility of a European army to protect its interest against US policies.
In the aftermath of events like Trump’s withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty last year, French President Emmanuel Macron has pushed for a “true, European army,” claiming that European nations cannot rely on the US to defend them.
"I want to build a real security dialogue with Russia, which is a country I respect, a European country - but we must have a Europe that can defend itself on its own without relying only on the United States,” Macron said after Trump announced the US’ INF Treaty pullout last year. The treaty banned all short-medium-range (310-620 miles) and intermediate-range (620-3,420 miles) ground-launched missiles, and officially lapsed this past August.