Arbeit Zukunft| Apr. 6, 2026| Translated for the Red Phoenix–
Soldiers perform a ceremony for the NATO multinational battlegroup merging with the German brigade Litauen stationed in Lithuania, Feb. 4, 2026. (Bundeswehr/Maximilian Schulz)
Since its founding, NATO has been glorified as an innocent, peace-loving defense alliance.
NATO propaganda has intensified once again in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, as NATO has been able to present itself as the apparent defender of countries under attack. Yet at the same time, the image of a peace-loving organization is crumbling. Not least due to the increasingly aggressive behavior of the U.S. as NATO’s founding member and most important actor, it becomes clear that the organization’s self-image and reality are drifting further and further apart, and that this gap can no longer be easily bridged by the prevailing propaganda. It is therefore time to examine what NATO actually is in the first place, why it was founded, and why it is anything but a peace organization.
NATO Activities during the Cold War
When armed conflict broke out in Korea in 1953, the UN supported South Korea; an international coalition also joined the war on South Korea’s side. The UN’s involvement in this war stemmed from the fact that three of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council were NATO members, and the Soviet Union did not participate in the vote in protest against the People’s Republic of China’s lack of representation in the UN, whereupon the Council, acting on instructions from the NATO member states, adopted a resolution authorizing military intervention. Turkey’s deployment of troops in order to join NATO clearly demonstrates that the coalition decision, passed as a UN resolution, was primarily a step toward forming NATO’s military arm. Even though this event was portrayed internationally as a unilateral attack by North Korea, one must delve deeper into the historical context.
Before 1953 and in the years leading up to it, the South Korean government—operating under the supervision of American troops—carried out attacks through the police and paramilitary groups against groups it suspected of communism. Among the largest of these political attacks were the events that have gone down in history as the “April 3 Jeju Massacre,” in which 30,000 people were killed. The U.S. tacitly condoned these events taking place under its administration and was complicit in them. The fact that South Korea was supported by the UN, due to pressure from NATO, despite this murderous and repressive policy shows that concepts such as human rights and freedom of expression are not on NATO’s agenda. This was to be expected from an organization led by the U.S., which years later admitted to having “accidentally” shot nearly 200 refugees during the No Gun Ri massacre in the Korean War.
After NATO had prevented the working class from seizing power in Korea through its policy of spreading imperialism worldwide—a policy geared toward the needs of its member states’ capital—it turned its attention to Vietnam, the colonial and market territory of French capital. The Viet Minh’s struggle against the French colonial rulers was successful, despite the United States’ efforts to supply its allies with weapons and equipment. The vacuum left by French imperialism’s withdrawal was filled by U.S. imperialism, which established its own regime in South Vietnam. Subsequently, the U.S. refused to implement the clause stipulating that elections should be held throughout Vietnam, as per the agreement signed upon France’s withdrawal. When the Vietnam War broke out, the U.S. stationed troops in the region to support the South. U.S. airstrikes, aimed at rendering the Ho Chi Minh Trail used by North Vietnam unusable, led to the deaths of 100,000 civilians in Cambodia and made Laos the most heavily bombed country in the world.
War crimes committed by the American war machine in Vietnam—such as the My Lai massacre, which claimed the lives of 500 civilians, and the chemical warfare waged through the use of napalm (Agent Orange), which to this day causes various muscle and bone disorders in children—are clear evidence of how brutally this founding member of NATO acted in the fight against communism.
After the Soviets, it’s now the whole world’s turn
Even though NATO’s first military intervention is officially portrayed as the post-Cold War occupation of Iraq, the crimes committed jointly by the imperialist and capitalist countries organized under the NATO umbrella—under various guises—against the anti-imperialist and communist struggle are a direct consequence of this military alliance’s ideology and methods. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the military alliance changed its policies and methods and restructured itself. Until that point, the military interventions it had carried out through the UN and other coalitions to give the appearance of a “defensive alliance” were now carried out directly under the name of NATO, relying on the position of the U.S. as the sole world hegemonic power.
The organization’s intervention in the Yugoslav Civil War (1991 – 2001) is a topic on which numerous human rights organizations have issued reports. The airstrikes carried out in present-day Serbia and Kosovo under the pretext of “securing peace” and “stopping the massacres” led to further massacres. The failure to take precautionary measures and the indiscriminate nighttime bombings in areas where civilians might be present led to the deaths of approximately 500 civilians during the war. I would like to add that during these interventions, the Chinese embassy in Serbia was also bombed by NATO, and that the subsequent admission that this was a mistake demonstrates how these attacks were carried out without regard for civilian casualties.
In the post-Cold War era, imperialist conflicts arose over the division of spoils within the alliance, as no united and organized anti-imperialist front had been formed against NATO. The opposition, led by French and German capital, opposed the organization’s decisions, which served the interests of American capital, thereby intensifying the struggle over the shares in this division. This split within NATO was evident in the fact that the allies, who had acted in concert during the first Gulf War, no longer cooperated during the second Gulf War. However, they supported the invasion, which was justified by lies about the production of “weapons of mass destruction” in Iraq. The coalition forces, which justified their objectives by citing the search for weapons of mass destruction, the overthrow of the existing Iraqi government, and the “democratization” of the country, did not withdraw from the country after the invasion was completed and Saddam’s government was overthrown. The imperialist powers, which continued the occupation of Iraq under the pretext of building a new state, destabilized the region as they focused on plundering the country’s surface and underground resources. This development led to the strengthening of militant Islamist groups, which provoked sectarian conflict in Iraq. The events during the 2003 occupation of Iraq make it clear that the adventures undertaken jointly by the imperialist NATO powers—first in Afghanistan and later in Libya under the pretext of bringing peace and a “democratic government” to the region—ultimately served the interests of the arms industry and various capital groups.
The conflicts of interest among capital groups within NATO have once again come to the fore with the war between Russia and Ukraine. In light of Russian imperialism’s expansionist ambitions and its goal of becoming a new hegemonic power, the United States is striving to remain the dominant imperialist power in the world. U.S. capital groups, which are beginning to lose their position in markets (such as the energy and technology sectors) to China and Russia, have expanded NATO toward Russia in order to weaken Russia, which maintains close ties with China.
Looking at the economic reasons behind this policy, it can be said that the U.S. is working to weaken China’s allies—with whom it competes primarily in the trade sector—and to supply the allies of American imperialism worldwide with weapons and equipment.
Germany and other EU countries had already played a decisive role in the struggle over Ukraine several years before the Russian invasion. Then-European Commission President Barroso increased pressure on the pro-Russian Yanukovych government by forcing it to choose between the EU and Russia. Under pressure from Russia, Yanukovych decided against signing the EU Association Agreement. The Maidan protests at the time received massive support from the German government and other allies, which ultimately led to the overthrow of the Yanukovych government and the installation of a pro-Western government that signed the agreement. At the beginning of the war in 2022, the other major powers within NATO (led by Germany) once again took a different stance from the U.S. right up until the end, calling for the signing of the Minsk II Agreement and the avoidance of military intervention. The then-German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, had exerted pressure on Ukraine prior to the war. In a statement at a press conference in Moscow, Scholz had indicated that the ball was now in the US’s court. US capital, which viewed Russian imperialism as a threat, convinced Zelenskyy not to implement the Minsk Agreement and to continue the attacks on the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. Meanwhile, the tables have turned: The U.S. wants a free hand in its struggle with China, while Germany and the EU are providing massive military aid to retain their sphere of influence in Ukraine.
Ultimately, the fact that NATO member states are actively supporting the genocide committed by Israel in Gaza calls into question the sincerity of the organization’s rhetoric about “peace in the Middle East.” NATO, which intervened under the pretext of “protecting” the populations of Kuwait and Libya but plunged those regions into instability and looting, has not spoken out against the genocide being perpetrated by the State of Israel—the gatekeeper of U.S. imperialism—but has instead supplied weapons and ammunition through the states under its command.
The current U.S.-Israeli war against the people of Iran adds to the endless list of wars that have already been waged to strengthen the capital groups of NATO allies. Although Chancellor Merz distanced himself from his initial words of support for this current crime against the peoples of the region, this by no means implies that German imperialism has suddenly sided with the peoples. On the contrary, the German government has been closely monitoring the situation and has concluded that a swift U.S. victory is no longer possible and that an expansion and prolongation of the war would be detrimental to the vast majority of German capital. Nevertheless, the German government is biding its time, waiting until after the war ends—that is, on the ruins of US imperialism’s criminal war—to carry out its economic and geostrategic repositioning in the region. Meanwhile, as a NATO member, German imperialism is supporting this war with weapons and military bases such as Ramstein in Rhineland-Palatinate. NATO, as a war-mongering organization that protects the international interests of big capital, is the greatest threat to peace and humanity. Ending the imperialist wars of partition instigated by big capital to profit from war, and establishing lasting peace in the world, are possible only through the joint struggle of the working class and the oppressed peoples. In conclusion, we reiterate our call: We must withdraw from NATO, whose history is marked by crimes against humanity and against peace, and ultimately close the NATO bases, which ultimately serve to support imperialist wars.
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