NATO

NATO – The secret vanguard of Britain’s neoliberal imperialism – posted on Mar. 04, 2024

During the San Francisco Conference of 1945, Nelson Rockefeller who acted as adviser to Secretary of State Edward R. Stettinius, Jr., proposed a regional defense pact under the framework of the United Nations. This is often regarded as having provided the basis for the creation a few years later of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

However, this is only half of the story. The other half is that organizations of this type were as quintessentially European as they were un-American. Indeed, America’s economic and political elite to which both Rockefeller and Stettinius belonged – the former was a member of the legendary petroleum and banking empire, the latter had recently been chairman of America’s largest steel corporation – operated in close collaboration with Europe’s liberal internationalists who, as shown below, were the original source of the proposal.

In addition to their European connections, the State Department’s lead policy makers were also politically left of center. Although officially a Republican, Rockefeller openly admitted to having a “Democrat heart,” while Stettinius, who had been involved in war production and national defense during the war, was aligned with the Democrat Party – as were most members of the Truman administration.

The State Department’s left-leaning ideological position and relative inexperience in matters of international relations led its officials to adopt the established policies of their European counterparts. As a result, the source of Washington’s new internationalist policies was the British Empire which was also a key business partner of America’s banking and industrial elites.

Faced with increasing rivalry from other European powers especially Germany, Britain had long sought to form closer military and political ties to North America through organizations such as the Anglo-American League (1898) and the Pilgrims Society (1902).

Based on the idea of British imperialist Cecil Rhodes, the ultimate objective of these initiatives was the reincorporation of America into the British Empire by means of a Transatlantic federation or “Atlantic Union” of America with Britain as a first step toward world federation under British leadership.

The federalist movement gained momentum before the outbreak of the Second World War with the creation of a British organization called Federal Union (1938). In the following year, its cofounder Lord Lothian, general secretary of the Rhodes Trust and chief Atlanticist, who was appointed British Ambassador to Washington, proposed the creation of an Atlantic military bloc for control of naval power as an instrument of enforcing international order.

It is clear, therefore, that the idea of an Atlantic military pact was an integral part of the British-instigated world federalist movement and, in particular, of Britain’s long-standing plans to use American military power for its own agenda.

As in Europe, federalism in the US was eagerly embraced by members of the liberal power elite with business connections to Britain, and their associates from the press, law, and politics. These included William L. Clayton, cofounder of Anderson, Clayton, and Co., the world’s largest cotton company, who also held various top positions in the Export-Import Bank, and served as Assistant Secretary of State for economic affairs; John Foster Dulles, senior partner in Wall Street law firm Sullivan & Cromwell (which had close connections to America’s leading banking and industrial corporations) and trustee of the Rockefeller Foundation, while also serving as foreign policy adviser; and Supreme Court justice Owen J. Roberts.

The movement’s public face was New York Times correspondent Clarence Streit. Streit had studied in England on a Rhodes Scholarship (founded by Rhodes to indoctrinate Americans in British internationalist thought), after which he reported on the League of Nations from Geneva, Switzerland. In 1939 he founded the Inter-Democracy Federal Unionists, which he renamed Federal Union in the following year. In 1949 Streit’s organization set up a political-action unit called the Atlantic Union Committee with Roberts as president and Clayton as vice-president. In the same year, with the assistance of its powerful supporters, the federalist agenda was introduced in Congress as the Atlantic Union Resolution.

The United Nations Organization (UN) itself was the successor to the League of Nations (1920), an intergovernmental organization founded and dominated by Britain and its ally France, which was followed by a Franco-British Union formed in 1940, at the beginning of the Second World War.

At the end of the war, a defeated Germany and weakened France provided the ideal opportunity for Britain to expand its hegemony in Europe and focus its defense efforts on its old rival Russia.

A first step in this direction was a military alliance with France established with the Treaty of Dunkirk (1947). In the following year, the alliance was expanded to include the Anglo-French satellites Belgium, Netherlands, and Luxembourg (Benelux states) with the Treaty of Brussels (1948). Finally, Britain persuaded its former colonies America and Canada to join the alliance and the North Atlantic Treaty that established NATO was signed in 1949.

To correctly understand NATO’s true nature, it is necessary to consider several important facts.

1. Britain’s dominant position in relation to other European NATO members is confirmed by the appointment of Lord Ismay, the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations and chief military adviser to British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, as the first NATO Secretary General and of his war comrade Lord Coleridge as NATO’s first Executive Secretary.

The Memoirs of Gen. the Lord Ismay | Internet Archive

2. NATO was a British initiative following a pattern previously established by similar earlier organizations.

3. NATO was part of a comprehensive, well-orchestrated restructuring and reinvention effort of the British Empire. As the largest empire the world had ever seen, it comprised about 700 million people under some form of British rule. It would be naïve to expect a political, economic, and military entity of such magnitude to simply disappear. The postwar decolonization process initiated by independence movements across the world, in particular the independence of India in 1947, forced London to modernize its empire by giving it a more informal and “democratic” appearance, without however relinquishing its global network of power and influence.

As a result of this process, the British Empire was replaced with the British Commonwealth of Nations (1949) consisting of the United Kingdom and former British colonies and territories such as Australia, Canada, and New Zealand. Although describing themselves as “free and equal,” member states accepted the British monarch as official head of state and adhered to the liberal values dictated by London.

Simultaneously, Western Europe was gradually brought under British domination, a process facilitated by Britain’s continued position as Europe’s financial center. London was the world’s biggest bullion market as well as setting the international gold price to which currencies around the world were tied, while the Bank of England held the gold reserves of many European states.

Britain’s dominant position in Europe was reinforced by generous US financial assistance arranged by Britain’s collaborators in the Truman administration and provided by the Anglo-American Financial Agreement (1945) and the European Recovery Program (ERP) a.k.a. Marshall Plan (1948) of which Britain was the main beneficiary.

To expand its influence in Europe, Britain created an extraordinary array of intergovernmental organizations such as the United Europe Movement (1947), the Joint International Committee of the Movement for European Unity (1947), the Western Union (1948), and the Council of Europe (1949).

4. In the period in question, the British Empire had been taken over by the Fabian Socialist Labour Party under Prime Minister Clement Attlee, while the US was dominated by the Democrat administration of President Truman. As the main signatories of the North Atlantic Treaty were Socialist Britain and Democrat America, it is clear that although in Lord Ismay’s words NATO’s mission was “to keep the Russians out” of Europe, the alliance was intended to defend the postwar liberal international order which Britain had been building for decades.

Although US financial aid to Britain was sold to the American public as a necessary measure to “combat the spread of communism,” Britain’s socialist government utilized it to build socialism at home and advance its geostrategic interests abroad. Among key organizations created for this purpose were the Liberal International (1947) and the Socialist International (1951), two British-led associations of mainly European parties serving the dual purpose of establishing British political and ideological dominance over Europe and advancing liberalism worldwide.

The cumulative result of these initiatives was nothing less than the establishment of British liberal internationalism as the model for the new world order and its adoption as a permanent feature of US foreign policy. This contrasted starkly with US governments’ traditional policy of neutrality and non-interventionism, and effectively enrolled Washington in Britain’s worldwide liberal project.

5. From inception, the defense of Britain’s new liberal international order was to be funded by US money. As stated by Lord Ismay,

“The American representative, Mr Bob Lovett (Truman’s Secretary of Defense who was a partner at Brown Brothers Harriman & Co and an avowed internationalist), said that his country was prepared to pay the lion’s share provided that the other members were willing to contribute to the best of their ability … It was found that to induce a country to increase its contribution was as difficult as getting blood out of a stone.” – The Memoirs of Lord Ismay, p. 460

The business connections of NATO’s architects demonstrate that NATO and the whole international liberal order served the interests of multinational corporations and their Transatlantic economic and financial empire.

Subsequent events have shown that this situation has remained unchanged to this day. Britain, which is the architect and main beneficiary of NATO’s enforcement of the liberal international order on the European continent, is brazenly using its European and US allies to advance its own geostrategic ambitions, often to the latter’s detriment.

While Germany became Europe’s largest economy, British banks used their US connections to retain their financial dominance over the continent. As Britain and France became Europe’s only nuclear powers, this enabled them to also dominate the continent militarily. Their combined financial and military domination over Europe meant that EU and NATO foreign policy was largely made in London and Paris.

In addition, as most European Union member states were also members of NATO, influence on one of the two organizations usually resulted in influence on the other. Although Britain left the EU in early 2020, its financial, industrial, military, cultural, and political links to Europe enabled it to continue to exercise influence not only on its long-time ally France, but also on other key member states such as Germany.

Germany’s Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock is a prime example of how British soft power is used to impose a British agenda on Europe. Prior to commencing her political career, Baerbock completed internships at several British-created media and political propaganda outfits such as Norddeutscher Rundfunk/Northern German Broadcasting (set up by the British Control Committee in Allied-occupied Germany’s British Zone in 1945), the press agency Deutsche Presse-Agentur (founded in the same British-controlled zone in 1949), and particularly, the pan-European Council of Europe.

After university, Baerbock obtained a master’s degree in public international law at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), an institution notoriously established by Britain’s left-wing Fabian Society for the express purpose of indoctrinating future public servants. To complete her British training, she also worked as a trainee at the British Institute of International and Comparative Law (BIICL).

From inception, BIICL’s aim was to advance Britain’s vision of “rule of law” as part of the wider UN-related effort to impose a New World Order “based on law.” Unsurprisingly, BIICL’s financial supporters include corporations and organizations with a long history of sponsorship of Britain’s globalist projects, such as Anglo American, BP, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC), and Shell, as well as the European Union, USAID, and the US Department of State.

Quite aside from the question of why German politicians undergo training at British institutions promoting a British agenda, it can be seen that even without being directly recruited by the British, Baerbock’s education and training alone would have put her on a pro-British course. This is clearly reflected in her complete alignment with British policies, in particular in relation to Russia.

The Ukraine conflict has exposed important tensions between different German Government departments. While Chancellor Scholz’s measured position on German involvement in Ukraine has been consistent with that of the German public, Foreign Minister Baerbock has adopted a more belligerent, almost hysterical, tone in her statements. In an address to the Council of Europe on January 24, 2023 in Strasbourg, France, Germany’s top diplomat undiplomatically declared that “We are fighting a war against Russia,” which clearly aligns her with the position of Britain and France.

In addition, her claim that Russia seeks to “destroy our common home of peace, the Council of Europe” shows that in the opinion of the German Foreign Ministry, Germany’s national interests take second place after the British-instigated Council of Europe, an institution described by Churchill as “the first practical step” in building “a United States of Europe.”

On their part, Britain and France have been quick to criticize Germany for not doing enough to contain Russia. Former British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace has said that “Time and time again Germany has been last to help Ukraine. At every stage they have had to be pushed into doing anything. That isn’t leadership, that is followship.”

The above statement is an unusually frank admission to two important facts. First, there is a gradual, calculated escalation of the conflict on the part of the EU-NATO combine. And second, Germany admittedly follows the lead, or gives in to the pressure, of Britain and its continental satellites.

Ben Wallace and EU defence ministers to press Germany over tanks to Ukraine | The Guardian

Britain’s leading role in the European response to the Russo-Ukrainian conflict has been confirmed by leaked telephone conversations between high-ranking German military officials, according to which Ukrainian troops trained in Germany are sent to the front where they operate under British instructions, the implication being that British military personnel are active on the ground in Ukraine.  Together with other British military and diplomatic activities on the continent, such as the creation of joint expeditionary forces with France (2010) and with Baltic, Scandinavian countries, and Holland (2012), this shows that for all practical purposes this war is Britain’s war.

Indeed, although German foreign policy is widely believed to be dictated by US interests, closer analysis exposes a hidden British hand. Even when the US State Department, especially under Democrat administrations, puts pressure on Germany, this is entirely in line with Britain’s liberal international order.

British efforts to control European foreign policy have a long history. One of the many institutions created for this purpose is the British Council, established in 1936 by the British Foreign Office to promote “a sympathetic appreciation of British foreign policy.” The Council has set up offices in more than 100 countries worldwide, its activities include propaganda and ideological indoctrination, and it operates in collaboration with the British secret services.

It is clear that EU and NATO expansion in Eastern Europe must be seen in the light of Britain’s long-established and well-documented practice of using international organizations to advance its vision of a world subordinated to a liberal international order. While both the EU and NATO have asserted their alleged “right” to expand indefinitely, the fact is that military and economic expansion is a form of imperialism that puts non-members at a clear disadvantage. Given that modern Russia ceased to be communist in 1991, NATO’s declared anti-Russian mission is not only long outdated but its expansionist intentions are legitimately seen as a direct threat to Russia’s existence. They should be regarded as a threat by all nations which do not wish to submit to Britain’s liberal ideology.

Unlike totalitarianism, democracy is based on choice. There can be no democracy without opposition and without plurality of political views. Russia’s conservative values make it a welcome counterweight to European liberalism and a necessary ingredient of world democracy. Its resistance to the relentless march of radical liberalism must be commended and supported by all members of the international community who are genuine believers in freedom and democracy. Indeed, genuine belief in freedom and democracy makes it imperative to oppose liberal globalism and work to dismantle its increasingly totalitarian and repressive structures.

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