NATO’s challenges in the Asia-Pacific

The 2023 NATO Summit will be the second time Prime Minister Albanese has attended an indoctrination event. Australia isn’t a NATO member and Australians have not consented to our government and the major political parties to follow the NATO agenda without scrutiny. 

This is a good opportunity to evaluate three important questions.

Is Australian engagement with NATO in our national interest?

What is in the national interest depends on how it is framed as a formal conceptual definition, who defines it, how value is understood and measured, who benefits or suffers from the policies and public investments.

From World War II, Australian society has been indoctrinated by the military industrial complex, the security state and the mainstream media to support ties with the US and NATO without scrutiny and risk analysis. 

Most politicians, security and media are describing Australian engagement with NATO as a strategic opportunity to build military partnerships with the 31 NATO countries.

They describe the war in Ukraine as being in our national interest without declaring their conflict of interest by being paid for or indoctrinated by the military industrial complex. Australians aren’t told that the war in Ukraine is a proxy war which has cost Ukraine at least 350,000 lives.  Ukraine is a bankrupt state dependent on American, British and EU handouts and unable to sign peace deals with Russia.

Investing in military expenditure, wars and war propaganda through NATO has been dressed up as investing seriously in diplomacy with Europe and building a global system that respects shared values and interests.

Albanese seems delighted that Australia has secured a $1 billion contract to supply Germany with heavy weapons carriers after he committed us to spend $365 billion on AUKUS.

NATO protects the unipolar world order by military force or through propaganda, sanctions, regime change, colour revolutions, installing new despots, censorship. It represents the G7 nations at a time when the global majority are focused on multi polarity, a more democratic and fairer world order based on international law rather than a rules-based order.

Most Australians and civil society want peace.  They are co-designing better foreign and defence policy options for Australia and the world.  They are using various platforms and the independent media to communicate. The mainstream media isn’t interested in breaking their financial and ideological commitments to the war machine. Our ABC is strangled by elected and unelected special interests.

Is NATO expansion in the Asia-Pacific good for the region?

Proponents of NATO expansion are trying to convince the “Indo-Pacific 4” (Australia, New Zealand, South Korea and Japan) that this is the best thing Europe can do for peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific.

French President Macron opposes NATO expansion. The Left and the Alternative for Germany are calling for their country to leave the EU, stop the de-industrialisation and new despotism of Chancellor Scholz and the Greens.

Former Prime Minister Paul Keating has branded the NATO boss Jens Stoltenberg a supreme fool for seeking to deepen the alliances ties with Asia. “Stoltenberg conducts himself as an American agent more than he performs as a leader and spokesperson for European security.”

The Japanese aren’t enthusiastic about NATO expansion given their lived experience of WWII.

Leading ASEAN diplomats like Kishore Mahbubani are asking whether the US wants to maintain primacy or improve the livelihood of its people?

China rejects NATO expansion. The PRC through BRICS+ is offering a winning combination of peace, development and mutual co-existence as opposed to wars and fake promises by the G7 corporate oligarchs, World Bank and the IMF.

India is nurturing ties not just with the US but also with family members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, BRICS+ and the Global majority who reject the unipolar world.

Indonesia is poised to join BRICS not NATO.

Is the NATO alliance the best way to creating a peaceful and stable world?

We need national, parliamentary and foreign/defence policy debate on the dangers to Australia, the Asia-Pacific and the world of NATO expansion.

The international security order is undermined by NATO through its hostile policies towards Russia, Ukraine, China, EU and Australia.  Through NATO expansion the world can become embroiled in a nuclear war.

NATO claims it is a defensive but its track record is of offensive wars in Europe and the Middle East.

It claims to protect its member states from external harm when most of the dangers to NATO and non NATO members like Australia stem from its militarism and propaganda.

NATO does not respect ethics, democracy, human rights or care for people, countries and the planet.

Instead of NATO, we need a new security and development architecture based on mutual respect, cooperation, sustainable development and human rights.