No to NATO, Yes to Peace Campaigns

Washington, DC— July 7, 2024

World Beyond War has initiated a “No to NATO, Yes to Peace!” campaign with week-long events to coincide with the 75th NATO Summit 2024 gathered in Washington, D.C. this week.

While officially the NATO Summit does not begin until July 9th, many officials and dignatories are arriving early. At Federal Triangle, near the Woodrow Wilson Trade Center, much of that area will be fenced off by security gates. They have already begun rolling out the red-carpet for NATO luminaries who will be conferencing at Mellon Auditorium.

Protests are still planned whether in the vicinity at the National Mall, near the White House, or at the Mount Vernon Center (Walter E. Washington Convention Center).

The reason for the protests is not merely what NATO stands for, which nowadays appears to mean spreading, endless wars; but also the behemoths of the military-industrial-complex: the weapons lobbies, the financiers, and all the special interests which together create huge insider profits.

“The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is a destabilizing law-breaking force for militarization and war provocation. Its existence makes wars, including nuclear wars, more likely. Its hostility toward the few significant militaries in the world that are not among its members fuels arms races and conflicts. The committment of NATO members to join each others’ wars and NATO’s pursuit of enemies far from the North Atlantic risks global destruction.” —NoNatoYesPeace.org

A coalition of endorsers and backers are supporting the campaign and working as organizers. For those who have worked in nuclear-disarmament and anti-war movements over the past decades there are many familiary names; however, today they also include a record number of groups or sections representing women and people of color including from the Pacific Rim (Korea, Japan, Philippines, Australia, New Zealand, Micronesia).

For instance, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom was co-awarded a Nobel Peace Prize in 2017 for its efforts in helping the United Nations pass the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. Many nations in the Global South are signatories and parties, however, most of NATO and its allies are not.

Today all progress on nuclear disarmament are being swept aside because of the US-led push to “win the war in Ukraine.”

In fact, during the speech by President Biden at the Andrew Mellon auditorium on July 10th (the official opening day), Biden presented the case that NATO has made the world a safer place. If this is so, then why is the US and European required to fund what increasingly is becoming it’s own fifty-trillion dollar debt-trap? Why is militarization becoming a way of life at home as well as abroad? Why has NATO needed an expansion in membership from 12 states to 32 states, and now also including a growing Asia-NATO wing?

At the World Beyond War symposium streamed online July 6-7th 2024, the theme of the counter summit is the growing awareness of the dangers of World War III, a transition to hyper-kinetic warfare that has become more evident in the unresolved Ukraine-Russia conflict, the Gaza conflict, the spread towards Lebanon, and the accelerating buildups in the Far East.

According to German Bundestag member, Sevim Dagdelen, who delivered a keynote speech, NATO is caught in myth-making which, when in examined closely, such as she does in her new book, “NATO: Reckoning with the Atlantic Alliance,” holds no bearing in reality. She offered a synopsis of her thesis in her speech, how NATO cannot uphold the rule of law when it breaks all conventions while conducting its wars, how NATO nations themselves are not all constitutional democracies, and that under NATO expansionism, people’s human rights, their right to live a decent life, hold a self-supporting job, and live in adequate housing is being undermined.

“NATO is a community of illegality and of the violators of international law who, either separately or as an organization, conducts wars of aggression on a politically opportunistic basis.” —Sevim Dagdelen, author, Bundestag Member, Member of NATO Parliamentary group, friend of Julian Assange

While Supreme Commander Jans Stoltenberg received the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Joe Biden and makes the case that 75 years is the longest time a military coalition has ever lasted in civilized history, skeptics and protesters are likely outside shaking their heads.

The push for global militarization, for allowing Ukraine entry into NATO, and for an Asia-NATO coalition is making the world vastly more unsafe, because all talk of diplomacy with Russia, in Palestine, and with China are being set aside. There have been no disarmament treaties signed for years even before Biden came into office. With Russia poised with more troops than ever in Belarus and NATO planning to surge its troops and weaponry to several hundred thousands more, with talks of preparing for a hot war in Europe and Russia, people are very worried.

KJ Noh, a Korean reporters who works for the Asia Times, explained in his talk that as a Korean, he observes the reality of the NATO-Indo-Pacific Command buildup in the Far East. Hiding under the cloak of information warfare is the conversion of cherished native land from golf-courses (already used mostly by U.S. military personnel) into secret missile silos and the installation of THAAD-systems in South Korea. The number of U.S. military bases in South Korea renders it a client-colony, its economy being shaped and conditioned by the war-economy. Today’s military exercises whether on land or in sea last up to 120 days at a time, and often take place one after another year-round. Lately they are also including 20 exercises involving strategic nuclear bombing rehearsals,

Ju-Hyun Park, of Real News, also confirms this, having also family in Korea. Through Nodutdol, they are helping raise awareness about the dangers of U.S. imperialism because they see Korea as a “ground-zero” in the new U.S.-China war that is being planned. Because South Korea is almost under military occupation, having never had a peace agreement signed with North Korea (DPRK), South Korea will be used as a front-nation for conducting a military campaign against China. The U.S. and NATO are forming coalitions into a super-coalition to drill for large-scale war against China by Pacific-Rim nations such as: Australia, U.S., Japan, Korea, Philippines, Taiwan, Indonesia. The goal of encirclement has already been achieved and in fact the U.S. is drilling on the small island chain of Kinmen just four miles from the China coast, according to the Taiwanese military.

Right now, with up to 200 days of war-scale exercises taking place yearly, the two Koreas have returned to a volatile flashpoint in their cross-border relations. U.S. has dates even for its invasions of China, such as by Admiral Davidson, a date of 2027, or by Air Force General Minihan of 2025. The supercoalition is also being charged with developing plans for provocation, using other nations, whether Korea or the Philippines, as a potential Article 5 springboard, for the Indo-Pacific Command to strike into China, using NATO defence systems.

There is “a very urgent need an anti-war movement, anti-imperialist movement, and U.S. out of Korea campaign” because as most historians recall, tens of millions of Koreans died on both sides of the peninsula during the Korean War massive aerial bombing campaigns, and in the aftermath due to war-related poverty, disease, and deprivation.

This is why outside near Lafayette Park, at MacPherson Square, there was also a live protest for Resist NATO! on Sunday July 7, 2024, sponsored by South Asian branches of No to APEC Coalition, World Workers Party, Democratic Socialists, and International League of People’s Struggles (ILPS). These leftist groups come from Philadephia, Baltimore, but for this event, as far away as Philippines, Malaysia, and Thailand, where they can operate without the usual NGO grassroots gateskeeper.

“War in Asia-Pacific means BIG business — especially for Big Tech like Amazon and Microsoft. Since 2004, the U.S. Department of Defense has spent $43.8 billion on contracts with Big Tech — 86% of Amazon’s DOD contracts and 77% of Google’s were central to the U.S.-led War on Terror. Through its collusion with Big Tech, IPEF is leading us to the brink of potential nuclear destruction, all to line the pockets of tech giants and the War industry — like Boeing, a member of APEC’s Business Advisory Council, and the world’s second-largest weapons manufacturer, raking in $27.4 billion in 2019.” —No to APEC 2023, “People, Planet Over Plunder” Primer

The transnational corporations are choking small and local businesses as free trade can interfere with lives of the working class, heaping additional pressures on working families.

According to Resist NATO! whose website contains photographs and statements from their recent march:

“NATO acts as an armed wing of US-led war and mobilizes its member nations to instigate and militarily support inter-imperialist conflicts, recently between US-NATO and Russia, and between US and China. NATO continues to support so-called ‘Israel’ as the main outpost of US Imperialism in the Middle East.” — ILPS.us/resistnato

However far away the protesters have come, they are here to deliver a message at the counter-summit and demonstrations, to help expose the war-mongering entity for what it is.

Here are in fact several points of unity from the Resist NATO Coalition. They oppose the NATO as a US-led military alliance that is a prime actor in imperialist wars of aggression and military occupation resulting in the deaths and displacement of millions of people. They oppose US-NATO strategy of expansionism and intensification of militarization across Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Eastern Europe, at the service of US geopolitical and economic interests. They oppose US-NATO strategy of security through wars of counter terrorism, counter insurgency, mass surveillance.

What the International League of Peoples Struggles and No to APEC and Workers World Revolution do support is the “right of peoples and nations to self-determination and sovereignty, and their right to resistance against imperialist aggression.”

Instead of the weaponization of war, which is war for global exploitation of profit for largely the U.S. transnational corporations, Resist NATO! and No to Nato, Yes to Peace believe that we should wage a just peace “through resolving the root causes of armed conflicts, allocating resources not to the war industry, but to serve people’s needs.”