Pearls and Irritations

It has been said, ‘the barbarians are at the gates,’ but with NATO they have already stormed the citadel, and having done so they now want to spread their madness to Asia.

Why would Asia, a continent without war for 45 years want to have anything to do with a war-mongering organisation like NATO, one cannot hazard a guess. Of course the great majority of Asia doesn’t, the lead organisation in the region, ASEAN having developed a peaceful co-existence, though comprised of nations with widely differing ideologies. 

NATO in its current summit, held in Washington, 9-11 July, has again, however, openly displayed its contempt for the type of peaceful co-existence evident in Asia.

Indeed, this increasingly rabid organisation seemingly is quite prepared to take the world to nuclear war if need be. 

Apparently oblivious to that danger they are more strongly, extending the invitation for Ukraine to join NATO. No matter what the Russians think, and concerning Ukraine being buttressed up against their border, Russia is of one mind. But for NATO ‘nyet’ doesn’t mean ‘nyet’, red lines don’t exist, and ‘we’ll push the envelope.’

All nice in a game of bluff, perhaps around a card-table, but not when speaking of a nation possessing some 6,000 nuclear weapons. 

NATO has made concrete its commitment to the war by strengthening Ukrainian air defences, providing more armaments, along with the bravado talk of Joe Biden’s ‘Russia will not prevail, Ukraine will prevail.’ 

But then again soon it may not be just Ukrainian boots on the ground, opposing the Russians, 

Accession of Ukraine to NATO will mean under Article 5 of the NATO treaty Europe will be at war with Russia. Both sides being massively armed, the apocalypse will beckon. Perhaps there is a belief within NATO that nuclear war will clear things up. Like everything!

NATO clearly heeds no lessons from history which would temper its enthusiasm to punish Russia, after its loss in the Cold War. Rather, NATO wants do Versailles all over again. Humiliate the loser, lie contemptuously, (‘NATO won’t spread eastward’, Minsk 1 and 2) and watch them squirm. That worked well the first time if you were a certain Bohemian moustached corporal. 

Marshall Plan? An offer of grace and dignity from the winners? No. That was for losers. Not a thought apparently that NATO itself is a fruit of the success of the Marshall Plan.

This would all be bad enough, but increasingly NATO is committed to spreading its poisonous tentacles into Asia. Since 2022 the quartet of Australia, New Zealand, Japan and the Republic of Korea have become semi-official members of the Bloc. 

While Russia is the current ‘bad boy’ in NATO eyes, the real threat is understood to be China, supposedly the source of global evil, of which Russia is but a manifestation. Link China to Russia and you have achieved a rationale for spreading NATO to Asia. The remit becomes global. 

For NATO General-Secretary Jens Stoltenberg, ‘[Putin] is increasingly aligned with other authoritarian powers, including China, that wish to see the United States fail, Europe fracture, and NATO falter. This shows that in today’s world, security is not a regional matter but a global one. Europe’s security affects Asia, and Asia’s security affects Europe.’ 

Using a type of Manichaeism, China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea become an axis of a monolithic evil, with China at its heart, needing to be met by a crusading force of righteous good, that being led by NATO.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian responding, issued a stern warning, charging that Nato by ‘breaching its boundary’ represented the ‘real source of risks threatening global peace and stability.’

‘Nato should stay within its role as a regional defensive alliance, stop creating tensions in the Asia-Pacific, stop peddling Cold War mentality and bloc confrontation. Nato should not try to destabilise the Asia-Pacific after it has done so to Europe.’

As Paul Keating eloquently put it concerning NATO, ‘Exporting that malicious poison to Asia would be akin to Asia welcoming the plague on itself.’

While NATO struts its stuff, convinced it has a role as world sheriff, other telling events, proving the falsity of that claim, have occurred.

Russia, far from being isolated, has grown closer to the two emerging world powers of China and India, with the Prime Minister of the latter, Narendra Modi, experiencing the warmest of welcomes while recently in Moscow. The Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, though his country is a NATO member, was also a recent visitor to Moscow, before traveling to Beijing, where he met Chinese president, Xi Jinping. In that meeting, in contrast to the continual war-mongering of NATO, Xi called for a ceasefire in Ukraine and direct dialogue between Moscow and Kyiv. 

Western sanctions against Russia have failed, the Russians finding new markets for their exports, while their economy, in contrast to Europe, experiences robust growth. 

NATO, and the West in general, on the other have seen their credibility shredded by their double standards regards Ukraine and Gaza, while the status of the U.S. dollar as reserve currency, due to the indiscriminate use of sanctions, is increasingly threatened.

Meanwhile, a month prior to the NATO summit, the Foreign Ministers of BRICS met in preparation for the Leaders’ Summit to be held in October, in of all places, Russia. A long list of nations, over 30 are seeking membership.

Not that one would know from our closeted mainstream media, ‘the tables are starting to turn.

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