Address of Gerry Grainger, International Affairs Secretary of the Workers’ Party of Ireland to the Anti-NATO meeting organised by the Initiative of Communist and Workers’ Parties of Europe,  Warsaw 8 July 2016

Dear Comrades,

I bring greetings from the Workers’ Party of Ireland on the occasion of this meeting which takes place in Poland as a meeting of NATO heads of state and government is scheduled to take place in Warsaw on 8 and 9 July 2016.

This summit takes place in the context of a drive by a nuclear-armed NATO to the borders of Russia, a nuclear-armed state, posing a serious risk of military confrontation between two nuclear powers with the potential for generalised war in Europe and the occurrence of the “war games” in Poland conducted by NATO and its allies, the largest in Eastern Europe since the end of the cold war.

Gerry Grainger, Chair of the International Affairs Department of the Workers Party of Ireland

During the gathering, NATO is expected to formally approve the deployment of four battalions in Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. Russia has repeatedly expressed its concern about the creation of a US-designed ballistic missile defence system in Europe, which was approved at the 2010 NATO summit in Lisbon. Poland and Romania joined Spain and Turkey in agreeing to deploy elements of the system within their territories.

The United States’ Aegis Ashore system is expected to become operational in Poland in 2018. In recent years the US has taken significant steps to deploy ballistic missile defence systems throughout Europe under the European Phased Adaptive Approach (EPAA). The Aegis Ashore facility in Poland marks the third phase of this development.

In a speech at the opening of the “NATO Transformation Seminar” on 25 March 2015 NATO Secretary General, Jens Stoltenberg, said: “We are increasing NATO’s presence in our Eastern Allied countries and the readiness of our forces. The NATO Response Force will more than double to up to 30,000 troops.  Its centrepiece is the Spearhead Force of 5,000 troops with lead elements ready to move within as little as 48 hours. At the same time, we are setting up command units in six of our Eastern Allies.  And this is only the beginning … we need a comprehensive approach, working together with the European Union and other international partners. … NATO leaders last year recognized that we need to invest more in our defence.  It is vital that we achieve this.”

It is disappointing, but not surprising, given the enthusiastic endorsement of recent Irish governments of the increased militarisation of the EU and participation in the so-called “Partnership for Peace” (PfP), that the Irish Minister of State for Defence, Paul Kehoe, is attending this NATO meeting despite the strong desire of the Irish people for Ireland to remain outside imperialist military blocs. Shannon Watch, an activist group in Ireland, revealed that in 2014 272 flights were permitted to take weapons or explosives through Shannon Airport. The function of the NATO/EU military Force into which the Irish Army is being integrated by stealth through the PfP is to defend capital and the interests of the wealthy and the monopolies.

The World Peace Council and the European peace movement, including the Peace and Neutrality Alliance in Ireland in which our Party participates, together with communist and workers’ parties across Europe, concerned by these very dangerous developments, are planning a co-ordinated protest against the NATO Summit in Warsaw on 9 July. They have requested solidarity protest actions outside Polish and US embassies across Europe to coincide with these actions.

NATO is an aggressive military alliance representing the extension of US military power and acting exclusively in the interests of imperialism. The history of NATO cannot be separated from the history of imperialism and war. During the existence of the socialist states in Europe NATO was a military instrument of imperialism amounting to a permanent threat to the peoples of the world who were building socialism.

It continues its march eastwards. The concept of eastward expansion was formally proposed in December 1994. In 1999 Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic became full members of NATO. Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, and Slovenia became full members in 2004 followed by Albania and Croatia in 2009. Since 1989 all new members of the EU have become members of NATO. Accession countries are accordingly required to align their “defence and security” policies with those of NATO.

In 1994 NATO launched the “PfP”. It was proposed as a US initiative at the meeting of NATO defence ministers in Germany in October 1993, and formally launched in January 1994 at a NATO summit in Brussels. This development was lauded by NATO as undertaking “an important role [in the] enlargement of NATO”.

Subsequent to the MaastrichtTreaty, NATO permitted the WEU to utilise NATO resources through the Combined Joint Task Forces (CJTFs) and thereafter the Amsterdam Treaty copper-fastened the predominance of NATO in these arrangements. At its Prague Summit in 2002 NATO agreed to admit 7 new member states and to launch the NATO Response Force (NRF) capable of rapid deployment for high-intensity operations anywhere in the world.

In 2003, Javier Solana, High Representative for the EU Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP), who had been Secretary-General of NATO before being appointed Secretary-General of the Council of the European Union, presented a document on strategy to the European Council, emphasising the importance of NATO, the World Trade Organisation, the International Financial Institutions and European and non-European regional organisations in “strengthening the international order”, stating that “a number of countries have placed themselves outside the bounds of international society” and “the need to develop a strategic culture that fosters early, rapid … and robust intervention”.

The counter revolution in the Socialist countries and the subsequent restoration of capitalism in Eastern Europe enabled imperialism to go on the offensive.

The war against Yugoslavia settled a template for later interventions by NATO. In isolating, attacking, and then dismembering the country in alliance with local terrorist groups influenced by a religious-ethnic ideology, a means had been found of targeting states that were seen to stand in the way of western imperialist economic and political interests. In subsequent years, the model would be applied to Libya and Syria, and in a different way to Iraq.

NATO has developed ever stronger ties with Israel and in 2004 NATO and Israel signed a bilateral protocol which paved the way for the holding of joint NATO-Israel military exercises. In 2008 Israel concluded an “Individual Cooperation Programme” with NATO and NATO developed the so-called “Mediterranean Dialogue” involving 28 NATO members, Israel and a number of compliant Arab regimes. These developments took place in the face of the belligerent criminal acts of Israel in Gaza and Lebanon and represent further grave threats to the entire region.

The increased aggressiveness of imperialism poses a real and urgent threat to the interests of all humanity. There has been an immense increase in the militarization of capitalist society since the Second World War. The sustained development of military processes, increasing arms budgets, the maintenance of multi-million strong armies and huge munitions industries in peacetime are a permanent feature of life under capitalism. The latest scientific and technological achievements are used on an unprecedented scale for the development and creation of awesome weapons of mass destruction. Imperialist intervention in Syria, Afghanistan, Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya, Mali and Ukraine has forced people from their homes and created a refugee crisis on a massive scale which clearly demonstrates the connection between war, economic devastation and mass migration.

World Peace Council anti-NATO summit campaign

The US, EU and NATO which actively promoted and supported the counter-revolution in Europe seeks to increase their advantage by pressing further east. This approach deliberately provoked a crisis in Ukraine which led to a coup d’état and the violent accession to power in Kiev by a rightist nationalist regime (which contained a number of neo-fascists). This, in turn, led to anti-communist repression, the legitimation of fascist forces by the regime and bitter fighting in the country.

This intervention by imperialism took place in the context of a competition with Russia over which monopolies will control the energy resources in the wider region. The working people of Ukraine have become hostages of the inter-imperialist contradictions of the various imperialist groups from the USA, the EU, Ukraine and Russia and their imperialist allies in the continuing competition amongst them for their predatory interests for the re-division of the spheres of influence in the conditions of the crisis.

NATO has enlarged rapidly and significantly and designed a global remit for its operations. It constantly strives to expand its influence both in terms of the breadth of its agenda and its global reach. NATO is the enemy of peace and social progress.The role of NATO and the EU poses ever new dangers.

We condemn the continuation and intensification of the arms race which transfers resources from welfare, healthcare, education and other social spending. We send greetings to the World Peace Council and commend its work. We protest at the dangerous escalation of imperialist aggression and we strengthen our resolve to oppose the participation of our respective countries in the plans of the imperialist powers; to intensify our solidarity with peoples facing imperialist aggression, intervention and war and to increase our struggle against the monopolies, capitalism and the bourgeois states, which are the cause of imperialist wars and intervention.

Gerry Grainger

Central Executive Committee

Workers’ Party of Ireland