Ukraine War Is A Racket, As Is NATO Expansion


(MENAFN- Asia Times) In 1935 retired Marine General and two-time Medal of Honor winner Smedley Butler published a 55-page pamphlet that caused a sensation. The pamphlet, entitled“War is a Racket,” was reprinted in Reader's Digest, assuring a mass circulation at the time. Butler summarized his argument this way:

Butler's argument has lingered to this day. As we view the tragedy in Ukraine, it is hard to understand why so many billions of dollars and tens of thousands of modern weapons have been squandered in a NATO crusade to expand its borders.

The Ukraine war has weakened the United States because it has emptied its treasury and its arsenals. It has undermined US interests elsewhere, especially in the Pacific, where a restless China is now challenging Taiwan, the Philippines and Japan.

But even more is involved, and this includes NATO itself. NATO is the premier defensive alliance, established in 1949, to defend against the spread of communism in eastern and western Europe.

Communism in Europe disappeared in 1991 with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Even the somewhat popular Italian Communist Party disintegrated, replaced by a couple of far-left socialist parties that have never gained any traction.

Despite the collapse, or better yet, disregarding the collapse, instead of NATO dissolving (as did the Warsaw Pact), NATO adopted an expansion policy. It engaged in wars outside of the context of a defensive alliance including Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Libya and
Afghanistan .


Ukraine War Is A Racket, As Is NATO Expansion Image

NATO in Afghanistan. The alliance has overreached since the fall of communism.

And NATO expanded eastward and is still trying to enlarge. (It could have included Iraq, but the Turks adamantly objected, so the US organized a“Coalition of the Willing.”)

Not counting Ukraine or Georgia, both promised future NATO membership, and possibly also Moldova (another NATO target), today NATO is a huge multinational alliance of 32 countries, far larger and covering vastly more territory than the original 12 countries that formed the alliance.

In raw numbers, NATO has a potential military force of 3.5 million and covers 25.07 million square kilometers (15.58 million square miles) of territory. Combined, NATO members are home to 966.88 million people and could exceed 1 billion by the end of the century.

An important NATO raison d'etre is to challenge Russia, a much-diminished country compared to the scope of the former Soviet Union. Russia has a population of 147 million and a GDP of US$2 trillion. The average per capita income of a Russian is $14,391. In 2023 the Russian defense budget was $84 billion.

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Asia Times

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