Peace "Through Strength" or Through Inclusive Security?
NATO, the NATO counter-summit, and the challenges that come with building an international movement
It has been an eventful couple of weeks. Among many other things, we have seen US/Israeli attacks on Iran, followed by a quick ceasefire when it became clear how much damage the latter was able to inflict on Israel, and NATO countries came together in the Hague to agree on ramping up their military spending to 3.5-5% of their GDP. I have been on the ground in the Hague to report on the counter-summit and anti-NATO protest and have followed the developments at the NATO summit through the various press conferences given before and after. Obviously, there is a lot to say, which is why I felt it was necessary to take a step back and take the time to analyze everything that happened with a wider view.
In this article, I will be discussing the NATO summit (I won’t be going into everything that happened during the summit as that has extensively been reported elsewhere), the counter-summit and protest, and comment on the overarching discussion of how to create security in a world that seems more dangerous than ever. My main focus is on the contrast between on the one hand the view that NATO is necessary to maintain order and security in a dangerous world and on the other that it is an instrument of an empire that wants to make sure no one gets out of line.
I feel that the inclusion of these different views and events into one long post provides a more coherent story than if I were to write about them separately. Moreover, as I'll be logging off for the summer, which helps me create moments of introspection and contributes to me staying connected to both myself and the world around me, this can function as a neat way of filling that gap.
Si vis pacem, para bellum If you want peace, prepare for war
Those were the words with which NATO Secretary-General Rutte opened this week’s NATO summit, once again drawing on the Roman empire for inspiration after a few weeks ago saying that NATO is more powerful than both the Roman and Napoleonic empire. While on its face it would seem an odd choice to compare what is so often referred to as a defensive alliance to some of the most powerful empires in European history, it does in fact fit neatly with NATO’s actual raison d’être, which is to maintain the power its members exercise over world affairs and make sure “no one dares to attack you” (quote from the same opening speech).
In this context, NATO is indeed defensive, in the same sense that the later Roman empire wanted to defend the borders that it had conquered over many centuries. Once you have (near-)hegemony, your goals shift from conquering more lands, like the Russians with their "19th century" behavior, towards maintaining and defending those you already have control over. Through this lens, it also becomes very clear why NATO insists on arming itself in order to counter Russia instead of negotiating for peace and some kind of more inclusive security arrangement, which as we have already discussed several times has been on the table many times. Because if the West does not win in Ukraine, as former UK PM Johnson so clearly put it, it will be the end of Western hegemony.
That hegemony has increasingly come under threat in recent years, which is part of the explanation for how NATO can feel “threatened” by Russia’s “aggressive actions” and its “posture of strategic intimidation”, despite its own bases being spread across the globe in most of the world’s countries (I’m referring to both NATO and the US and other NATO countries’ own bases) and its weaponry placed as near to the Russian border as possible. It's how NATO can position itself as “preventing conflict and war”, while committing actions that seem to create it, like it did in Ukraine, where it has been undermining agreements meant to resolve the conflict like the Minsk and Istanbul accords. It's how it can claim to uphold “individual liberty, democracy, human rights and the rule of law”, while its governments arm and protect the Israeli government’s blatant violations of all those principles, and it's how NATO Secretary General Rutte can say that US bombing Iran in the middle of negotiations was “truly extraordinary” and “totally justified” instead of the clear violation of international law that it was.
It is because the West sees itself as the shining city upon the hill, as “the garden” that needs to be protected from “the jungle” and whose “walls will never be high enough.” Within this mindset, protecting “individual liberty, democracy, human rights and the rule of law” means protecting the way those things exist within Western society. That is why Israel, from its founding not only envisioned as a refuge for Jews from worsening antisemitism (note: actual antisemitism not opposition to Zionism) “a rampart of Europe against Asia, an outpost of civilization as opposed to barbarism,” can freely murder Palestinians, Lebanese, or Iranians. They are “doing the dirty work for all of us”, i.e. protecting Western civilization.
That the US and its NATO allies need to be involved all around the world is taken as a given. Rutte himself said that the US, “because they are so big and powerful”, has to “concentrate on other theaters in the world, like the Middle East, and, of course, the Indo Pacific,” and that European countries increasing their military spending helps them do that, even if US interest in Europe appears to be wavering under Trump. But according to Rutte, “it’s not fair to constantly question” whether the US is committed, because Trump said they are and because “these meetings take place most of the times in Europe, so it will not always be possible for US officials to participate in every meeting,” a series of statements not only hard to believe considering how quickly Trump can flip his positions and how many bases the US has got all over the globe, including across Europe, but also considering the fact that the internet and video calls have made attending meetings easier than ever.
But these kinds of things, including praising violations of international law as “extraordinary” and “totally justified”, are what we should expect the representative of a US-dominated military alliance to say, perhaps the only person in the world who believes that Trump is “predictable” and who sees “daddy” as a “good friend” and “a man of strength and peace” (quotes come from the various press conferences Rutte has given during and after the summit). As many people who have not grown up inside the Western information sphere will tell you, there exists another way to view this alliance and its role in the world. So what do the people who oppose NATO have to say about the European posture, and about the need to support the US in its global aims? What do they see as the best way to preserve peace and security for NATO and other countries’ citizens?
NATO counter-summit – agreement on NATO, many views on an alternative
Hoping to find answers to these questions, I attended the counter-summit which took place the weekend before the NATO summit. I wanted to hear the perspectives of people involved in various movements and find out more about how—and how well—they might be able to come together to achieve their common goals. As I remarked a couple of years ago, when I visited an action conference for climate justice, international movements often struggle to connect with workers, minority groups, and people outside the West, despite the interconnectedness of issues like climate change, workers rights, and exploitation. That is why a big question I had going in was whether this burgeoning peace movement has a better chance of connecting all these different issues into one coherent vision.
Heavy criticism of NATO and the logic of empire
The counter-summit starts off with two opening speakers who are highly critical of the planned increases in NATO spending and of the alliance’s role in helping US empire achieve its aims.
“NATO was never a defensive alliance. It is a war machine,” Belgian Labour Party Secretary Peter Mertens states as a part of a broader criticism of the alliance’s role in the world. “But their order is the order from the past, the peace movement is the order of the future. Real political courage is not trailing behind Trump like a lapdog. It’s developing a vision of our own, our own vision of the future, a vision that invests in our own industry, in peace.”
Varsha Gandikota-Nellutla, Co-General Coordinator of Progressive International, continues Mertens’ line of thinking, adding her own perspective as an organizer. “Of course NATO is about destruction, but it’s also about how the way to survive in this world, to get a ticket into the Western civilized club, is to kill one another.” She sees resistance to NATO as part of a wider global struggle for sovereignty and liberation from empire. “Impunity is another export of NATO. The mask is off now, we live in an era of reverse reparations, of pure vengeance, exported across each global institution. It’s the logic of ‘don’t you dare’, or punishment will come swiftly and strongly.” Our answer, she says, should be to “disrupt every single supply chain of the empire” and to “build our own institutions”. The evidence that it can be done she sees in the resistance to Israel’s mass murder campaign, with harbor unions blocking vessels with weaponry that are headed there and countries like South-Africa bringing charges of genocide to the International Court of Justice.
Exchanging ideas, differences over effective tactics
Most of the rest of the counter-summit is spent on various panel discussions and workshops, where activists, organizers, and politicians from labor and socialist parties are both participant and audience. Topics range from resisting imperialism and conscription to migration and climate justice.
While both the workshops and panels provide accessible ways for attendees to brainstorm and share ideas, it is during the latter that the challenges that come with building a global peace movement become most visible. That is why instead of giving a surface level overview of the different topics, I want to zoom in on one discussion in particular. It revolved around finding ways to create a successful global movement. To me, that discussion highlights precisely those key aspects that need to be successful if this movement is to actually create the space for an alternative to the militarist solutions so heavily promoted across the Western world. But first, I want to mention a few examples to further place that discussion into context. There have been several moments during both the counter-summit and the next day's No2NATO protest that I think are indicative of the kind of internal friction that can make or break a movement.
While ostensibly everyone was coming together for the same reason, namely to connect and figure out the most effective ways to stop the planned ramp-up in military spending, at times there was this dynamic at play where some groups seemed more committed to advancing their own goals than to cooperatively building towards shared ones. During the No2NATO protest, it was difficult not to notice the split between some of the socialist/communist groups and the various other groups and participants, with the former giving me the impression that putting forward their own solutions and ideas had more of a priority than presenting a united front together with the other protesters. At one point, this even led to a dispute with some of the other protesters when members of the Revolutionary Socialist Party began singing chants denouncing cops as “fascists” and “state terrorists”. Even at the counter-summit, where there was a much clearer sense of a common purpose, there were situations where people tried to use panel discussions to make their own statements or put forth their own proposals. Although the overwhelming majority of discussions remained civil, I did at one point witness a spat between someone who felt that the current moment requires radical sudden change and several others who said it needed to be a sustained, more gradual process.
With any large group of people, it can be difficult to keep working towards common goals, especially if there are disagreements about how to get there. That is why strengthening the bonds between different organizations and movements, as well as engaging with local people, is so vital. In order to have any kind of meaningful impact, a movement needs to connect with a wide range of people. So how do you get your message across to ordinary people, who agree with or are sympathetic to your stance on an issue but who may not have the same awareness or share your perspective? And to what extent should you organize with people who are on your side when it comes to opposing, say, the construction of a local military base, but whose values are in many ways opposed to yours? When do you criticize and when do you try to reach out?
Katerina Anastasiou (Organizer for transform!europe and Stop ReArm Europe) and Danny de Jong (Campaigner for Leeuwarden for Palestine and No Space for Defense) explain how they both at one point realized that while you do need to be informed and have your own principles, you cannot start every conversation with, say, your vision of a radically different economic system. No, to achieve change you need to first “walk among the people and learn from the people,” so says Imani Na Umoja, who is a member of the Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde, “We have to know each other. Betrayal and confusion are the main enemy of the people.” He says we should not forget about ordinary people living in rural areas, who have their own traditions and culture. “Culture is what moves history forward.”
So how do people come together to fight for common goals? Organizing and bringing together people from all walks of life, says Carrie Xin Hou, who organizes for the Belgian anti-colonialist movement INTAL. “That process, that struggle is what fosters the connections and creates the space to expand people’s consciousness.” She mentions a split between different movements who were organizing an event around the war in Ukraine. “We had to think about a narrative that brought all of us together.” That shared narrative turned out to be the process of militarization, which supersedes disagreements over this or that conflict. However, while you should organize with others around certain issues, you should also not lose sight of the fact that long term you need to be building power, so you can achieve your movement’s goals. “You need to out-discipline and out-organize others. If you’re the most organized you have the most power, and then you get to set the agenda.” Danny de Jong has learned this himself while organizing for Palestine. “When you work with imperfect allies, make sure you stay in control so you can guide it. But definitely cooperate.”
Security, but for whom?
Note that while the framing of this article can be interpreted as criticism towards NATO countries’ actions, just as the framing that many mainstream outlets use when talking about NATO can be said to do the opposite, I have so far deliberately not given an opinion or judgment on the right NATO countries abrogate to themselves to ‘manage’ the world. Instead, I’m trying to describe as clearly as possible the way the alliance functions and the way its leaders view its role in the world, largely based on their own statements. That NATO countries repeatedly violate international law, for instance by bombing countries like Russia and Iran which they view as adversaries, is a fact, just like how Russia, regardless of whichever provocative actions NATO was engaged in, violated international law by attacking Ukraine.
Whether or not NATO countries should in fact be protecting the Western way of life through any means necessary, even if it violates international law or a country’s sovereignty, is a matter for debate and in my view depends to a large extent on whether you believe that the end justifies the means, or on whether you believe that using “dirty work” to protect the Western way of life is legitimate or necessary. For instance, in the case of the US/Israeli attack on Iran you may believe that international law is ill-equipped to resolve the conflict between these nations, and therefore believe that it is justified for the US/Israel to take matters into their own hands.
I do not agree, on principle, with countries using violence to achieve political goals, no matter how noble they may are, or more likely, appear to be. I believe that we would all be much safer and much happier in a world in which the same rules and principles are applied to all countries and citizens equally, where human rights and dignity as well as the environment are respected, and where each and everyone fulfills their duty to ensure it stays that way. After the second world war, lofty treaties were drafted and international forums created which were meant to ensure just that. That is how we got the United Nations and the International Court of Justice. Yet instead of the promise of a world where ‘never again’ truly means ‘never again’, we ended up with one where it means ‘never again to us’.
Arguments around ‘security’ are often made to justify the use of violence, while people making arguments for peace or negotiation are portrayed as weak or naive, even though the use of dialogue and compromise and the establishment of inclusive security that strives for conflict resolution, mutual security, justice, and the protection of vulnerable groups are much more effective in preventing conflict and keeping everyone safe. That age-old logic of domination, exploitation, and competition has already led us to two world wars and is pushing us ever closer towards a third.
Near the end of the counter-summit there was a discussion on different ways of building an international security structure that helps ensure every nation’s security, although it was fully in Dutch and felt like a bit of an afterthought. I will not be going into the specifics of these ideas, as that would get technical and detailed very fast. Let me know if me diving into these plans for alternate security architectures is something you would be interested in reading. In any case, you can read the action plan composed by the organizers of the counter-summit here.
Last year, I wrote about the worrying similarities between our current moment in history and the period before World War I (WW1). We are unfortunately seeing the same kind of rhetoric play out today as was used then, with warnings like “Russia could be ready to use military force against NATO within five years”. We should not forget that that same fear of Russia’s rise was part of what led to the outbreak of WW1, with Germany believing that “the longer it waited, the more powerful Russia would become and the greater the risk of defeat” (11:16). Russian mobilization “as a precaution in case war broke out” was interpreted as “an aggressive act of war” by Germany, who wanted to beat France before Russia could mobilize (Schlieffen Plan). Similarly, France, fearing German mobilization, also mobilized so that they would not be caught aback, and Germany did the same, fearing French mobilization. No matter what side you are on, no matter who is in the right or wrong, once the wheels of war are in motion, they are almost impossible to stop. The pressure is simply too high. That is why it is so important that everyone is doing whatever they can to de-escalate conflicts and resolve them through diplomacy and negotiations.
I wish you a wonderful summer (or winter if you're in the Southern Hemisphere).
Peace☮
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