I guess you need to change US Security Council to UN :)
What do you think about Bolton's idea to globalize NATO and include Japan, Korea and Australia? I tend to agree. Except Israel, maybe in future but for now they are too messed up to ally with.
Apr 14, 2023·edited Apr 16, 2023Liked by Eastsplaining
It is interesting how two hegemons involved in the current war (one directly, one indirectly) projected own approach within their own alliances (CSTO and SCO) onto NATO. And how it has backfired.
Russian decision makers probably assumed that all these Molvanias in NATO will behave as Belarus or Kazakhstan in CSTO: they will simply follow big brother's lead with fear and/or reluctance, showing little or no own initiative. And NATO hegemon was presumed too busy to react, licking wounds from Afghanistan, or planning new hits in the trade war/decoupling with China. Had Ukrainian army fail in three days as Orcs calculated, this line of thought would probably prove dxmn right.
Chinese general idea about CEE is even more vague, as they simply do not understand countries with populations smaller than 3rd tier provincial cities in China. Shanghai Cooperation Organisation is just discussion club (with occasional joint military drills) where Chinese verkhushka dreams that someday CCP will follow Soviet example to create some kind of Nursultan or Tashkent Pact. Therefore, it was shock that village-countries could unite, respond, and even lead more powerful NATO members into helping Ukraine more proactively.
> Kazakhstan and Armenia are already trying to emancipate themselves, sensing the opportunity in the fact that the hegemon’s forces are bogged down in the Ukrainian quagmire.
"The International Court of Justice ordered Azerbaijan to take all measures at its disposal to ensure unimpeded movement along the Lachin corridor. To date, Azerbaijan has ignored the order of the court. Since the ICJ order, there have been very little efforts made by the international community to compel Azerbaijan to lift the blockade." And not surprisingly, because Azerbaijan is our new gangster gas supplier: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/7/18/eu-signs-deal-with-azerbaijan-to-double-gas-imports-by-2027
So, very little upside for poor Armenia, but lots of downside. It demonstrates how brittle the security systems based on a single hegemon & a bunch of small guys are: when the hegemon gets distacted, the small guys can start fighting and beating up the weaker among them. Which is what happened in some parts of Eastern Europe after the fall of the Soviet Union...
"People who say they are “anti-NATO” usually mention war crimes committed by particular NATO countries. I don’t deny them, personally I think the invasions in Iraq and Afghanistan were criminally stupid and I deeply regret ICC did not indict George W. Bush and Tony Blair."
But that's another issue - Iraq was not a NATO operation. It would happen without NATO anyway.
If NATO was disbanded tomorrow, not only it would be replaced by different system of alliances, but this system would allow USA much more aggressive stance, with small countries being demoted to vassals from partners.
NATO makes USA less aggressive - if there is an option to intervene as NATO, with higher pretense of legality, that means that intervention outside of NATO is automatically harder to justify.
You cannot invoke article 5 while invading another country. Maybe you may use NATO to shield yourself from retaliation if you are Turkey, but Israel is using USA in the same way without NATO.
Being anti-USA is understandable.
Being anti-NATO just show complete ignorance of what NATO is.
"No one enters the "hegemon" alliance by choice. One enters it when one is too weak to refuse (and then one looks for the first opportunity to escape)".
You are as simplistic about the CSTO as Chomsky is about NATO. Countries have joined and left this Russian-led military alliance in the past for various reasons. Azerbaijan was a member between 1994 and 1999, the same period as Georgia. Uzbekistan also joined in 1994, left in 1999, rejoined in 2006 and left again in 2012 (while still conducting bilateral military exercises with Russia and attending CSTO political meetings as a 'guest'). Of course, the CSTO is not an alliance of equals (nor is the NATO). But neither is it imposed on its smaller members in the way that the Warsaw Pact was. The authoritarian regimes of Central Asia choose to join the CSTO because it serves their needs. Tokayev would not have remained in power in Kazakhstan without a Russian intervention in January 2022 that crushed a popular uprising against him. Tajikistan's Rahmon is completely dependent on Russia for the country's military defences and economic stability. Administrating a weak crisis-prone economy with GDP figures at the level of sub-Saharan African countries, he would not survive three decades in power without Putin's backing. And no, turning to China as an alternative source of support is not among his realistic options for a number of reasons, starting with China's unwillingness to compete militarily with Russia in the region.
That is why your assertion that the CSTO is a mere front for Russian colonial hegemony is wrong. Rather, it should be seen as a military framework used by autocratic regimes in both the centre and the periphery of the post-Soviet sphere to advance their various interests. And, as I point below, NATO may well become a similar autocratic framework in parts of its territory, notably Poland, if current trends continue.
"The CSTO is strangely absent not only from the Ukrainian war, but also from recent conflicts between Armenia and Azerbaijan or Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan."
This is how the CSTO has always operated. Russia opportunistically uses military conflicts to extend its influence, providing or withholding its military assistance, and acting with or without a formal CSTO mandate. However, the other members of the alliance have a similarly opportunistic approach - they repeatedly use threats (and actual instances, as cited above) of leaving the pact or not participating in specific military exercises, obstructing new political initiatives, etc., to extract concessions from the Kremlin. It is a game played by power elites, sometimes to the advantage of the periphery, as is currently the case in Kazakhstan, where Tokayev is able to consolidate power, and sometimes to the advantage of the centre, as in the case of Belarus, where Moscow is using its large military presence in the country to tighten the grip on Lukashenko.
"The former Warsaw Pact countries are more pro-NATO than the old NATO countries".
Being "pro-NATO" simply means in this case that the populations of these countries want to remain net recipients of military security in view of the Russian threat. Some of these populations are also trying to provide a reciprocal “democratic return” to the alliance, notably the Baltic states, whose credible democratic transitions have earned them respect and stronger security guarantees in the current context of Russian aggression.
But this is by no means the rule. Most importantly, Poland extracts a stability rent from NATO in the form of increased US military assistance, at the time when it is unable to meet conditions for the parallel EU post-COVID subsidies, that are stronger tied to democratic standards, such as upholding the rule of law and backing away from recent "reforms" destructing the country’s judiciary branch. Put simply, more NATO for Poland means less EU, less democratic guarantees and less social progress for its population.
And I do not think I am making too sweeping a point here. "More NATO, less EU" became in fact all but an official position of the Polish government in recent days. Earlier this week, Poland's foreign minister, Zbigniew Rau, delivered a parliamentary exposé on "Principles and Objectives of Poland's Foreign Policy in 2023". In it, he spoke warmly of Poland's "transatlantic" alliance with the US, and rather coldly of Poland's relations with the EU, an organisation that, in his view, has abandoned its proper function as a loose customs union enterprise that Margaret Thatcher would approve of (a common right-wing political myth: the EU or EEC was never limited to that). Mr Rau mentioned the need to "ensure that EU institutions, in their undesired advocacy, do not undermine the diversity of Member States" and reinforced this point with the same rhetoric of "defending the rights of smaller states" that you adopted in your substack piece above. As I am sure you know, the Polish government's understanding of such "rights of smaller states" refers to the "right" to destroy the country's independent judiciary in open defiance of the country's constitution, the "right" to restrict media freedom, the "right" to uphold legal discrimination against sexual minorities, the "right" to illegally deport immigrants caught at the border, or the "right" to deprive women of their actual reproductive rights through ever more draconian abortion rules.
Unfortunately, Minister Rau's desire to secure these 'rights' is not without a realistic chance of success. Poland's NATO membership could sadly have a similar autocracy-boosting effect as CSTO membership has had in Central Asia. The increased military and political support that the US is currently providing to Poland in the context of Russian aggression provides the Polish autocratic government with a convenient lever to resist and dilute the democratic standards defined in the EU treaties. It may well help this government win its third term in the upcoming parliamentary elections, which are expected to be marred by relentless state propaganda and other forms of manipulation. The Western European countries (joined by some Eastern European states, such as the Baltic trio) defend themselves against this type of democratic dilution by tacitly assigning their neighbours such as Poland or Hungary to an internal EU "buffer zone" of second-tier "nearshoring" economies with lowered democratic and social norms. The Polish government practically agrees to this arrangement, as in Minister Rau's statement suggesting “temporary or permanent return of some euro zone Member States to their national currencies”. No euro area member actually wants that. It is the Polish government that wishes to stay out of the EU’s economic integration and common democratic values, in a kind of informal Polexit, relieving it from the Treaty duties.
“All I’m saying is: Warsaw is better off in NATO than in neutrality”
As I try to show above, Poland is sadly on course to become another Turkish style broken democracy, stuck in a perpetual political split between an urban liberal elite and an authoritarian rural power base of a corrupt populist regime. This is sadly what comes out of Polish, possibly pre-mature, EU and NATO membership. And neither the EU nor NATO are better off as a result. The EU's internal anti-European forces will receive a powerful boost from their Polish and Hungarian partners, and the NATO's role as a sponsor of right-wing autocracies will make it hardly distinguishable from its Russian rival.
So, is this "the case for a stronger NATO" that you are making, my friend? Prove me wrong if you can, but please leave aside Chomsky's irrelevant ramblings and address the obvious failings of your own country's (I assume) political class. I mean the government that is undermining the European project for all of us EU citizens, and especially for women and LGBTQ people. And the opposition, which seems unable to come up with a workable game plan for restoring the country's commitment to the rule of law, let alone a much-needed promotion of human rights beyond the EU's eastern borders. Correct me if I make any "westplainer" errors, but please please do not "small country" me. The EU and NATO are not a blanket guarantee for any country, big or small, to stay safe and democratic. All these organisations give us is the chance to honestly work together to stay democratic and secure, despite all the external risks and our own shortcomings. Those who cannot commit themselves to such honest cooperation should perhaps do everyone a favour and leave the club, instead of abusing its rules and jeopardising its success for everyone else. My small country (the Netherlands) gets this. The Baltic countries get it. Now, my eastsplaining friend, is Poland up to the task?
The purpose of NATO: To keep the Soviet Union out, the Americans in, and the Germans down - Hastings Lionel Ismay, the first Secretary General of NATO.
I guess you need to change US Security Council to UN :)
What do you think about Bolton's idea to globalize NATO and include Japan, Korea and Australia? I tend to agree. Except Israel, maybe in future but for now they are too messed up to ally with.
Does anyone else not see the pictures including Chomsky's quote?
It is interesting how two hegemons involved in the current war (one directly, one indirectly) projected own approach within their own alliances (CSTO and SCO) onto NATO. And how it has backfired.
Russian decision makers probably assumed that all these Molvanias in NATO will behave as Belarus or Kazakhstan in CSTO: they will simply follow big brother's lead with fear and/or reluctance, showing little or no own initiative. And NATO hegemon was presumed too busy to react, licking wounds from Afghanistan, or planning new hits in the trade war/decoupling with China. Had Ukrainian army fail in three days as Orcs calculated, this line of thought would probably prove dxmn right.
Chinese general idea about CEE is even more vague, as they simply do not understand countries with populations smaller than 3rd tier provincial cities in China. Shanghai Cooperation Organisation is just discussion club (with occasional joint military drills) where Chinese verkhushka dreams that someday CCP will follow Soviet example to create some kind of Nursultan or Tashkent Pact. Therefore, it was shock that village-countries could unite, respond, and even lead more powerful NATO members into helping Ukraine more proactively.
> Kazakhstan and Armenia are already trying to emancipate themselves, sensing the opportunity in the fact that the hegemon’s forces are bogged down in the Ukrainian quagmire.
Armenia is a really bad example here, because Russia being busy in Ukraine doesn't create any "opportunities" for it, rather risks. They've been left alone facing Azerbaijan, with whom they've already lost a war recently (during which both sides committed similarly gruesome war crimes (https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/press-release/2020/12/armenia-azerbaijan-decapitation-and-war-crimes-in-gruesome-videos-must-be-urgently-investigated/) as the Russians are committing now in Ukraine), and which is now reigniting. Oh, and Azerbaijan is trying starve the Armenian enclave with a blockade: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockade_of_the_Republic_of_Artsakh_(2022%E2%80%93present)
"The International Court of Justice ordered Azerbaijan to take all measures at its disposal to ensure unimpeded movement along the Lachin corridor. To date, Azerbaijan has ignored the order of the court. Since the ICJ order, there have been very little efforts made by the international community to compel Azerbaijan to lift the blockade." And not surprisingly, because Azerbaijan is our new gangster gas supplier: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/7/18/eu-signs-deal-with-azerbaijan-to-double-gas-imports-by-2027
So, very little upside for poor Armenia, but lots of downside. It demonstrates how brittle the security systems based on a single hegemon & a bunch of small guys are: when the hegemon gets distacted, the small guys can start fighting and beating up the weaker among them. Which is what happened in some parts of Eastern Europe after the fall of the Soviet Union...
"People who say they are “anti-NATO” usually mention war crimes committed by particular NATO countries. I don’t deny them, personally I think the invasions in Iraq and Afghanistan were criminally stupid and I deeply regret ICC did not indict George W. Bush and Tony Blair."
But that's another issue - Iraq was not a NATO operation. It would happen without NATO anyway.
If NATO was disbanded tomorrow, not only it would be replaced by different system of alliances, but this system would allow USA much more aggressive stance, with small countries being demoted to vassals from partners.
NATO makes USA less aggressive - if there is an option to intervene as NATO, with higher pretense of legality, that means that intervention outside of NATO is automatically harder to justify.
You cannot invoke article 5 while invading another country. Maybe you may use NATO to shield yourself from retaliation if you are Turkey, but Israel is using USA in the same way without NATO.
Being anti-USA is understandable.
Being anti-NATO just show complete ignorance of what NATO is.
"No one enters the "hegemon" alliance by choice. One enters it when one is too weak to refuse (and then one looks for the first opportunity to escape)".
You are as simplistic about the CSTO as Chomsky is about NATO. Countries have joined and left this Russian-led military alliance in the past for various reasons. Azerbaijan was a member between 1994 and 1999, the same period as Georgia. Uzbekistan also joined in 1994, left in 1999, rejoined in 2006 and left again in 2012 (while still conducting bilateral military exercises with Russia and attending CSTO political meetings as a 'guest'). Of course, the CSTO is not an alliance of equals (nor is the NATO). But neither is it imposed on its smaller members in the way that the Warsaw Pact was. The authoritarian regimes of Central Asia choose to join the CSTO because it serves their needs. Tokayev would not have remained in power in Kazakhstan without a Russian intervention in January 2022 that crushed a popular uprising against him. Tajikistan's Rahmon is completely dependent on Russia for the country's military defences and economic stability. Administrating a weak crisis-prone economy with GDP figures at the level of sub-Saharan African countries, he would not survive three decades in power without Putin's backing. And no, turning to China as an alternative source of support is not among his realistic options for a number of reasons, starting with China's unwillingness to compete militarily with Russia in the region.
That is why your assertion that the CSTO is a mere front for Russian colonial hegemony is wrong. Rather, it should be seen as a military framework used by autocratic regimes in both the centre and the periphery of the post-Soviet sphere to advance their various interests. And, as I point below, NATO may well become a similar autocratic framework in parts of its territory, notably Poland, if current trends continue.
"The CSTO is strangely absent not only from the Ukrainian war, but also from recent conflicts between Armenia and Azerbaijan or Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan."
This is how the CSTO has always operated. Russia opportunistically uses military conflicts to extend its influence, providing or withholding its military assistance, and acting with or without a formal CSTO mandate. However, the other members of the alliance have a similarly opportunistic approach - they repeatedly use threats (and actual instances, as cited above) of leaving the pact or not participating in specific military exercises, obstructing new political initiatives, etc., to extract concessions from the Kremlin. It is a game played by power elites, sometimes to the advantage of the periphery, as is currently the case in Kazakhstan, where Tokayev is able to consolidate power, and sometimes to the advantage of the centre, as in the case of Belarus, where Moscow is using its large military presence in the country to tighten the grip on Lukashenko.
"The former Warsaw Pact countries are more pro-NATO than the old NATO countries".
Being "pro-NATO" simply means in this case that the populations of these countries want to remain net recipients of military security in view of the Russian threat. Some of these populations are also trying to provide a reciprocal “democratic return” to the alliance, notably the Baltic states, whose credible democratic transitions have earned them respect and stronger security guarantees in the current context of Russian aggression.
But this is by no means the rule. Most importantly, Poland extracts a stability rent from NATO in the form of increased US military assistance, at the time when it is unable to meet conditions for the parallel EU post-COVID subsidies, that are stronger tied to democratic standards, such as upholding the rule of law and backing away from recent "reforms" destructing the country’s judiciary branch. Put simply, more NATO for Poland means less EU, less democratic guarantees and less social progress for its population.
And I do not think I am making too sweeping a point here. "More NATO, less EU" became in fact all but an official position of the Polish government in recent days. Earlier this week, Poland's foreign minister, Zbigniew Rau, delivered a parliamentary exposé on "Principles and Objectives of Poland's Foreign Policy in 2023". In it, he spoke warmly of Poland's "transatlantic" alliance with the US, and rather coldly of Poland's relations with the EU, an organisation that, in his view, has abandoned its proper function as a loose customs union enterprise that Margaret Thatcher would approve of (a common right-wing political myth: the EU or EEC was never limited to that). Mr Rau mentioned the need to "ensure that EU institutions, in their undesired advocacy, do not undermine the diversity of Member States" and reinforced this point with the same rhetoric of "defending the rights of smaller states" that you adopted in your substack piece above. As I am sure you know, the Polish government's understanding of such "rights of smaller states" refers to the "right" to destroy the country's independent judiciary in open defiance of the country's constitution, the "right" to restrict media freedom, the "right" to uphold legal discrimination against sexual minorities, the "right" to illegally deport immigrants caught at the border, or the "right" to deprive women of their actual reproductive rights through ever more draconian abortion rules.
Unfortunately, Minister Rau's desire to secure these 'rights' is not without a realistic chance of success. Poland's NATO membership could sadly have a similar autocracy-boosting effect as CSTO membership has had in Central Asia. The increased military and political support that the US is currently providing to Poland in the context of Russian aggression provides the Polish autocratic government with a convenient lever to resist and dilute the democratic standards defined in the EU treaties. It may well help this government win its third term in the upcoming parliamentary elections, which are expected to be marred by relentless state propaganda and other forms of manipulation. The Western European countries (joined by some Eastern European states, such as the Baltic trio) defend themselves against this type of democratic dilution by tacitly assigning their neighbours such as Poland or Hungary to an internal EU "buffer zone" of second-tier "nearshoring" economies with lowered democratic and social norms. The Polish government practically agrees to this arrangement, as in Minister Rau's statement suggesting “temporary or permanent return of some euro zone Member States to their national currencies”. No euro area member actually wants that. It is the Polish government that wishes to stay out of the EU’s economic integration and common democratic values, in a kind of informal Polexit, relieving it from the Treaty duties.
“All I’m saying is: Warsaw is better off in NATO than in neutrality”
As I try to show above, Poland is sadly on course to become another Turkish style broken democracy, stuck in a perpetual political split between an urban liberal elite and an authoritarian rural power base of a corrupt populist regime. This is sadly what comes out of Polish, possibly pre-mature, EU and NATO membership. And neither the EU nor NATO are better off as a result. The EU's internal anti-European forces will receive a powerful boost from their Polish and Hungarian partners, and the NATO's role as a sponsor of right-wing autocracies will make it hardly distinguishable from its Russian rival.
So, is this "the case for a stronger NATO" that you are making, my friend? Prove me wrong if you can, but please leave aside Chomsky's irrelevant ramblings and address the obvious failings of your own country's (I assume) political class. I mean the government that is undermining the European project for all of us EU citizens, and especially for women and LGBTQ people. And the opposition, which seems unable to come up with a workable game plan for restoring the country's commitment to the rule of law, let alone a much-needed promotion of human rights beyond the EU's eastern borders. Correct me if I make any "westplainer" errors, but please please do not "small country" me. The EU and NATO are not a blanket guarantee for any country, big or small, to stay safe and democratic. All these organisations give us is the chance to honestly work together to stay democratic and secure, despite all the external risks and our own shortcomings. Those who cannot commit themselves to such honest cooperation should perhaps do everyone a favour and leave the club, instead of abusing its rules and jeopardising its success for everyone else. My small country (the Netherlands) gets this. The Baltic countries get it. Now, my eastsplaining friend, is Poland up to the task?
The purpose of NATO: To keep the Soviet Union out, the Americans in, and the Germans down - Hastings Lionel Ismay, the first Secretary General of NATO.