By Finian
Cunningham: The US has
succeeded at last with its audacious con-job. The
lead NATO member has managed to orchestrate a huge
turnaround for increased military spending among its
European allies.
And at the heart of this scam is the hysterical
anti-Russia propaganda campaign.
Over the
past two years there has been a quickening drumbeat
out of Washington and certain European capitals,
warning of “Russian aggression” and “security
threat”.
Bombastic
accusations of Russia’s “annexation” of Crimea and
“destabilizing” Ukraine – with the skimpiest
of evidence – have all been thrown into a propaganda
cauldron, stirred up and ladled out on the Western
public by corporate and government-controlled “news”
media.
It’s so
corny, it’s unbelievable. But shamefully the Big Lie
has worked its way into accepted policy.
The upshot
is the dramatic deterioration in relations
between Moscow and the West and the inculcated
notion that Russia is a menace to the security
of Eastern Europe and the Baltic states.
That, in turn,
has driven calls – mainly by the Americans –
for increased spending on NATO military forces. And
that is the key to understanding this whole
collective derangement.
When the
US-led military alliance holds its big summit
in Warsaw next month, the 28-member states will be
told that years of declining military expenditure
have been reversed.
“Defence
spending by Europe’s NATO states is set to rise
for the first time in nearly a decade,” reported the
Financial Times.
The newspaper
quotes NATO’s Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg
as saying: “The forecast for 2016, based on figures
from allied nations, indicates that 2016 will be the
first year with increased defence spending
among European allies for the first time in many,
many years.”
That hike
in military expenditure by European NATO members is
reckoned to amount to an extra $100 billion
annually. Some of the biggest NATO spenders
in Europe are Britain, France and more recently
Poland and the Baltic states.
But the
biggest turnaround is Germany. The country is
to increase its military budget for the first time
in 25 years. “The years of decline are over,” said
German defence minister Ursula von der Leyen,
with boastful delight.
Currently,
the average military spend among Europe’s NATO
members is around 1.4 per cent of Gross Domestic
Product (GDP). At Washington’s urging, the alliance
is targeting for a 2 per cent spend of GDP. That
will result in manifold the $100 billion extra that
has already manifested.
And which
country do you think will reap the financial rewards
of this extravagance? Why the United States,
of course. When NATO members splurge on warplanes,
warships, tanks and missile systems, it will be
American Pentagon corporations like Lockheed Martin
and Raytheon that stand most to gain from the
business bonanza.
Poland,
for example, wants the US-made Aegis missile system
on its territory just like Romania recently
installed at a cost of $800 million. Estonia wants
US-made Patriot missiles on its territory, as well
as Abrams tanks and more F-16 fighter jets.
Washington does not give out these weapons systems
for free. It’s hard-nosed capitalist profit-making
behind all the lofty American talk about “defending
allies”.
And no
doubt European government ministers who facilitate
the American deals will, nod and wink, get a plum
job on retirement with a weapons company or at some
lucrative pro-NATO think tank.
This reversal
in European military spending is great news for the
US military-industrial complex and the American
economy generally. As the Financial Times points
out, since the end of the Cold War between the US
and former Soviet Union, there has been a protracted
decline in NATO budgets allocated by European
states. Understandably too. If the threat of war
wanes, then naturally governments will find more
socially productive ways to invest money.
However,
from the US economy’s point of view – dependent
as it is on massive military subsidies from an
annual defence budget of $600 billion – the
post-Cold War promise of peace was bad news.
The
fall-off in military spending by European NATO
members dropped sharply following 2008, as countries
grappled with the global financial crisis and
economic austerity.
It is no
coincidence that since then Washington has been
cajoling European states to make a U-turn in policy
and to boost their expenditure on military hardware,
which means mainly American military hardware.
At the last
NATO summit held two years ago in Wales at the end
of 2014, US President Obama ratcheted up the
rhetoric haranguing European allies to commit bigger
financial outlays for the military alliance. Towards
that goal, Obama found reinforcing voices
among British leader David Cameron, new NATO
secretary-general and former Norwegian premier Jens
Stoltenberg, as well as Poland and the Baltic
states.
Together this
US-led cabal within NATO have been the most
vociferous in accusing Russia of aggression
on Europe’s borders. And in a two-year period the
malaise of budgetary decline has been turned
around to one of robust increased spending.
It is no
surprise therefore that the anti-Russian scare
tactic has been accompanied by an ever-increasing
number and size of US-led war exercises held
in Eastern European NATO countries. This month sees
Operation Anaconda being held in Poland, which is
reportedly one of the biggest NATO drills since the
end of the Cold War, involving over 30,000 troops
and hundreds of warplanes and warships.
Russia has
condemned reckless NATO saber-rattling and
relentless military build-up on its borders. Moscow
has repeatedly said that it is not a threat to its
European neighbors. Last year, President Vladimir
Putin told Italian media that “only a mad person
could imagine Russia attacking NATO”.
Despite the
military posturing by the US and its NATO allies, it
seems plausible that the alliance is not genuinely
seeking an all-out confrontation. A recent study
by the US-based Rand Corporation concluded that NATO
forces wouldn’t stand a chance against Russia if
they came to blows in Eastern Europe.
Seemingly
aware of tensions getting out of control, the US
publication Defense One, which is aligned with the
Pentagon, made the notable call recently urging NATO
to “rediscover diplomacy” in its relations
with Russia.
The timing
is significant. For years, Washington has
assiduously tried to reverse European military cuts.
That has advantaged the US firstly from hawking
business for its critically important
military-industrial complex; secondly, by dragooning
NATO members to cohere under an anti-Russian banner
that gives Washington a badly needed renewed purpose
to be in Europe.
That had
always been the underlying rationale of NATO, and
with the receding of the Cold War the US was out on
a limb. No more though.
The
anti-Russian propaganda alarming Europe of invasion
and war appears to have worked suitably, as the FT
report of boosted military spending across Europe
indicates.
However,
the dilemma is that the hostile US rhetoric could
get out of control, inciting a hot war. Hence, the
betting is that more calls for diplomacy will now
ensue from Washington in order to tamp down tensions
with Russia.
Having
terrorized Europe into fearing Russian attack,
Washington has managed to secure the funding of its
military-industrial complex that its economy craves.
That was the real and only objective.
War might
be averted, but the scam is nonetheless
reprehensible, and the people of the US and Europe
should not stand for it.
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