On June 28-30, 2022, NATO leaders gathered in Madrid, Spain, to discuss the major issues and challenges facing the alliance. The summit ended with far-reaching decisions that will have a dire impact on global peace and security. Hailed as \u201chistoric,\u201d the summit was indeed transformative: NATO produced a new Strategic Concept and identified what it says are the key threats to western security, interests, and values — none other than Russia and China.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe empire doesn\u2019t rest,\u201d quips Noam Chomsky, a public intellectual regarded by millions of people as a national and international treasure, in his assessment of NATO\u2019s \u201chistoric\u201d summit in the exclusive interview for Truthout<\/em> that follows. Chomsky is one of the most widely cited scholars in modern history. He is institute professor emeritus at MIT and currently laureate professor of linguistics at the University of Arizona, and has published more than 150 books in linguistics, political and social thought, political economy, media studies, U.S. foreign policy and world affairs.<\/p>\n C.J. Polychroniou: Noam, as was expected, the war in Ukraine dominated the recent NATO summit in Madrid and produced some extraordinary decisions which will lead to the \u201cNATO-ization of Europe,\u201d as Russia was declared \u201cthe most significant and direct threat\u201d to its members\u2019 peace and security. Turkey dropped its objections to Finland and Sweden joining the alliance after it managed to extract major concessions, NATO\u2019s eastern flank will receive massive reinforcement, additional defense systems will be stationed in Germany, Italy, and elsewhere, and the U<\/strong>.<\/strong>S<\/strong>.<\/strong> will boost its military presence all across European soil. Given all of this, is it Russia that represents a threat to Europe, or NATO to Russia? And what does the \u201cNATO-ization\u201d of Europe mean for global peace and security? Is it a prelude to World War III?<\/strong><\/p>\n We can dismiss the obligatory boilerplate about high principles and noble goals, and the rank hypocrisy: for example, the lament about the fate of the arms control regime because of Russian-Chinese disruption, with no mention of the fact it is the U.S. that has torn it to shreds under W. Bush and particularly Trump. All of that is to be expected in \u201chistoric\u201d pronouncements of a new Strategic Concept for NATO<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Ukraine war did indeed provide the backdrop for the meeting of NATO powers — with bitter irony, just after the conclusion of the first meeting of the states that signed the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons<\/a> (TPNW), which passed unnoticed.<\/p>\n The NATO summit was expanded for the first time to include the Asian \u201csentinel states\u201d that the U.S. has established and provided with advanced high-precision weapons to \u201cencircle\u201d China. Accordingly, the North Atlantic was officially expanded to include the newly created Indo-Pacific region, a vast area where security concerns for the Atlanticist powers of NATO are held to arise. The imperial implications should be clear enough. There\u2019s a good deal more to say about this. I will return to it.<\/p>\n U.S. policy toward Ukraine and Russia was strongly affirmed in the Strategic Concept: no negotiations, only war to \u201cweaken Russia.\u201d<\/p>\n This has been steady policy since George W. Bush\u2019s 2008 invitation to Ukraine to join NATO, vetoed by France and Germany, who agreed with high-level U.S. diplomats for the past 30 years that no Russian government could tolerate that, for reasons too obvious to review. The offer remained on the agenda in deference to U.S. power.<\/p>\n