A-Infos (en) France, UCL AL #362 - Culture - Read: David Swanson and Medea Benjamin, NATO, an Alliance in the Service of War (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

The media offer a distorted view of NATO. As an institution, it tends to 
initiate peacekeeping by promoting democracy and liberalism. This vast 
ideological deception is built around a confusion with the UN, which 
conceals a terribly destructive power and has repeatedly violated the UN 
Charter and recommendations. This short book aims to shed a different 
light, deconstruct the ideological trap, and demonstrate that NATO is in 
fact nothing more than an expression of the interests of arms 
manufacturers. Deconstructing the dominant media discourse, the authors 
promote an analysis and critique in line with the work of Noam Chomsky. 
In the first few pages, they invite us on a journey through memory 
through the various conflicts that have brought grief to the world, with 
the sole objective of strengthening military investments and the warlike 
omnipotence of the United States. Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, 
Ukraine, Palestine... The destructive inventory isn't limited to the war 
alone, but extends to the geopolitical chaos that ensues. Everything 
unfolds like a sordid game of strategy for world domination.

The book's style is easy to read, covering in about ten short chapters 
the origins of the Atlantic Alliance, its functioning, its expansion 
across the globe, its alliances, and its desired and unstated goals. The 
Alliance reveals itself to be nothing more than a formidable 
organization driven and controlled by the United States and the 
interests of the military-industrial complex.

The book, in its effort to deconstruct ideology, nevertheless suffers 
from minimizing the responsibilities of other actors such as Russia and 
China. The text is too silent on the secondary powers, equally engaged 
in the process of arms sales and conflict escalation.

Peace activists then question the prospects, the alleged desire to 
promote a reduced American commitment to the Alliance, to redistribute 
the European Union's share. They rightly denounce a new trap that, in 
reality, only aims to redeploy the means of destruction by connecting them.

The book concludes with dimensions to oppose militarism, including the 
call for invitations to diplomacy to encourage negotiated solutions, 
recourse to international justice, or the promotion of social dimensions 
other than war.

These are all laudable avenues that partially blur the intrinsic 
destructive logic of capitalism. This book suffers from a 
one-dimensional approach to the responsibilities for this relentless 
destructiveness that impoverishes populations for the benefit of certain 
powers.

Dominique Sureau (UCL Angers)

David Swanson and Medea Benjamin, NATO, an alliance in the service of 
war, translated from English by Nicolas Calvé, LUX, Futur proche 
collection, April 2025, 186 pages, EUR18.

https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Lire-David-Swanson-et-Medea-Benjamin-L-OTAN-une-alliance-au-service-de-la
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