048 The Erickson Report for February 17 to March 2, Page Three: On NATO

048 The Erickson Report for February 17 to March 2, Page Three: On NATO

Next, I want to get back to what I said about permanently barring Ukraine from NATO being a not bad idea. The realiity is that, as I also said, NATO is a military alliance born in, based on, and still driven by thye shibboleths and demons of the Cold War. For decades it was presented as a response to the Soviet-dominated Warsaw Pact, even though NATO predates the Warsaw Pact by six years.

Even if you grant that, with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the evaporation of its control over Eastern Europe, the purpose of NATO, it's reason for existing, evaporated as well.

But instead of being disbanded along with the rest of the predictable celebrations about having "won" the Cold War, it plunged ahead and even aggressively expanded.

Remember the map from last time, the one where every nation in blue to the east of that purple line was added to NATO after Mikhail Gorbachev was assured during discussions about re-uniting Germany it would not expand "one inch" to the east?

According Mary Sarotte, a post-Cold War historian who wrote a book about those negotiations, contemporaneous notes, letters, speeches, and interviews show that Western leaders were already contemplating NATO enlargement by the time those talks took place. It was always the plan.

So what I would say is revive what was for some decades an issue for the left and the international peace movement, but which for some reason faded - actually I can name several but I'll skip that for now: don't just not expand NATO, disband NATO. Break it up. Shut it down. It is a Cold War dinosaur that has become, as it is at this moment, more of a threat to spark a war - intentionally or otherwise - than it ever was to prevent one. It's time, it's part time, for it to just go away.

If you want cooperation, including on mutual security, you have the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the OSCE, of which Russia and Ukraine are already members.

If it's more economic and cultural ties you're interested in, you have the European Union.

What we don't need is a re-hash of the Cold War, but that it what we're seeing. And frankly I am damn sure that there are people in Washington, the capitals of Europe, and yes Moscow that are delighted at the prospect, even if not consciously, but who are thrilled at the prospect of a return to a simpler, clearer, age when there wasn't a complex and very messy political world to deal with but one with the comfort and stability of a clear, identifiable enemy presenting an always rather vague, diffuse, but ever-present existential threat.

I have to tell you, I remember that comfortable, stable time with its proxy wars, militarism, and leitmotif of Red-baiting. I have no desire to reprise it.