Many people believe that NATO is a peace-loving, defensive alliance, but the opposite is true. During the past 30 years, NATO has fomented a vast arc of violence stretching from Libya to Afghanistan, leaving villages bombed, infrastructure destroyed, and countless dead.
Originally formed as part of the Cold War standoff between the Soviet Union and the US-led Western bloc, NATO not only failed to disband with the fall of the Soviet Union, it increased from 16 members in 1991 to 32 members today. Despite promises not to expand eastward, it ploughed ahead against the advice of senior, experienced U.S. diplomats who warned that this would inflame tensions with Russia. While Russia bears full responsibility for invading Ukraine, in violation of the UN Charter, we cannot deny the disastrous role played by NATO in provoking and then prolonging the war in Ukraine.
NATO is a nuclear-armed alliance that coordinates nuclear weapons policy across its members under US leadership and that threatens the entire planet with nuclear destruction. NATO divides the world up into hostile military blocs and stands in the way of international reconciliation.
Right now, at the bidding of President Trump, NATO is openly and aggressively pressuring its member nations to move money from healthcare, retirement funds, and clean energy to weapons and militarism, even as President Trump seeks to slash US government spending on Medicaid, Medicare, social security, public education, environmental protection, and much more.
This weekend, the Hands Off campaign will hold nationwide mobilizations. Its theme is that the corrupt U.S. government should stop destroying, privatizing, firing, and giving away the post office, schools, land, Social Security, healthcare, environmental protections, and all sorts of essential public services. We strongly support this agenda — except for one item. We are deeply disturbed to see NATO on the list of items we are trying to protect, since it is a major contributor to the problem.
We propose expanding the Hands Off demands to include international issues, including Hands Off Palestine, Yemen, Greenland, Panama, and Canada, and removing NATO from the Hands Off list.
We object to including an institution that systematically and grossly violates the commitment to settle disputes peacefully contained in the UN Charter. If we are truly committed to human needs and the environment, as well as peace, diplomacy and the UN Charter, then we must eliminate NATO from our Hands Off agenda.
With thanks to World BEYOND War and CODEPINK, on whose statement we have heavily drawn