WORLD WORLDWIDE EUROPE FRANCE - news journal UPDATE - (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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