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Abolish NATO!

Editorial, People's Weekly World, 24 May 1997

Last week Russian President Boris Yeltsin agreed to the expansion of NATO with Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary to be admitted as new members. Yeltsin signed the agreement in Moscow but the deal still faces stiff opposition within Russia, and important voices of dissent in western Europe, Canada and the U.S. as well.

Throughout the years of the Cold War, NATO was the main instrument for the hostile encirclement of the Soviet Union. NATO kept hundreds of thousands of troops and nuclear weapons poised for an attack on the socialist nations of eastern Europe.

It has been the main weapon of U.S. military, political, and economic domination of Europe. It was hugely expensive with well over $60 billion earmarked every year for maintaining U.S. troops in a network of bases throughout Europe.

The Cold War is over, the Soviet Union is no more. So why preserve this dinosaur? Because the chieftains of Wall Street and their agents in Washington have not retreated from their goal of enforcing U.S. hegemony in Europe.

The right-wing politicians in Washington know that millions of working people in eastern Europe are already beginning to rise up against the misery, crime and mass unemployment of monopoly capitalism.

There is a growing demand for the restoration of socialism. NATO's assignment is to stand ready to crush these movements and guarantee that the counterrevolution proceeds on schedule. NATO expansion means an expanded danger of war, including world war. Arms control advocates fear that NATO expansion could derail ratification of the START II agreement which will cost tens of billions in tax dollars needed at home.

U.S. troops should be brought home and those NATO military bases closed. We should strike a blow for peace. Abolish NATO now.


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