Natopolitanism: The Atlantic Alliance since the Cold War - edited by Grey Anderson

Published in 2023 by Verso, London, UK and Brooklyn, NY

368 pages

ISBN: 978-1-80429-237-2

LCCN: 2023019313

       In the waning days of his candidacy for reelection, US President Joe Biden continually touted his accomplishments in unifying NATO and bringing Sweden and Finland into the 32-country coalition. National leaders from across Europe and North America gathered in D.C. in mid-July to celebrate the 75th anniversary of NATO’s founding. During the three-day summit, they, in Biden’s words, reaffirmed their commitment to defend each other, provide for their collective security, and protect democracy from foreign threats. 

       This is a far cry from the defeatist attitude that has surrounded NATO in recent years, such as when, on the Eve of the NATO summit in 2019, French President Emmanuel Macron admitted in an interview in The Economist that “What we are currently experiencing is the brain death of NATO.”  Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, however, the once-floundering NATO has seen a resurgence of fervent support, earning the untempered praise of both mainstream journalists and armchair geopolitical analysts with globe emojis in their Twitter (now X) bios. Since then, two more Scandinavian countries (Sweden and Finland) have joined the alliance, and talks of adopting Ukraine into the fold, once unthinkable as a clear sign of expansionist aggression against Russia, is now back on the table. For many Western leaders, NATO is portrayed as a vital alliance for maintaining security, peace, and the protection of democracy.

       Of course, these platitudes and one-dimensional praises mask the true history and functioning of the world’s largest military alliance. Despite all of the self-congratulatory rhetoric from the media, very few Americans are aware of what NATO is and how it continues to survive after its purpose as a buffer against the Soviet Union became unnecessary after the dissolution of the USSR. While it began on paper as a defensive organization, it quickly expanded into an offensive force for imperialism and expansionism across the globe. In the 2023 book, Natopolitanism: The Atlantic Alliance since the Cold War, American historian Grey Anderson brings together a collection of essays that offer a critical examination of NATO and its activities over the past thirty years.

Overview:

       Originally formed as a deterrent against the Soviet Union in the wake of the Second World War, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has expanded from its original twelve nations in 1949 to thirty-two today. According to American neoconservatives and neoliberals alike, NATO has been a key in protecting American interests abroad. In a recent anti-Communist propagandistic article for the U.S. Department of Defence, American Forces Press Service reporter Jim Garamone writes, the “North Atlantic Treaty Organization has been a force for peace that stared down the Soviet Union, prevented a larger war in the Balkans, joined in the fight against international terrorism and even now stands ready to defend all NATO territory from Russian aggression.” Likewise, British conservative commentator and director of the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom at the Heritage Foundation (the originators of Project 2025) Nile Gardiner writes in The Telegraph, “The strength and breadth of the NATO alliance is the most powerful deterrent in the world to the forces of tyranny and barbarism that threaten the United States and our partners.”

       Yet, looking at the historical record, a different story begins to emerge. In reality, NATO has been widely responsible for botched international interventions in Afghanistan, Libya, and Yugoslavia. Far from an alliance of equals, NATO has served as a vehicle for outsized American influence on European affairs. As a byproduct of the Cold War, NATO is an organization that has struggled for meaning since the dissolution of its primary rival, the Soviet Union. With no singular enemy to oppose, it has grown into a vector for imperialist and expansionary activities across the world. 

       The articles in this collection are organized in roughly chronological order--spanning from the end of the Cold War to the Russian invasion of Ukraine--and are grouped by subject. Though each essay is specific in its content, these pieces cover three broad topics: 1) NATO’s continual expansion even after its alleged enemy had been felled, 2) the shift from a supposedly “defensive alliance” contained within the North Atlantic toward a widely interventionist mechanism that destabilized entire regions, and 3) NATO’s role in precipitating and exacerbating the current war and devastation in Ukraine. 

Deeper Dive: 

       In Part One, the authors are primarily writing in the immediate aftermath of the Soviet Union’s dissolution as they ponder the role of NATO going forward. Founded by 12 countries in 1949 (including fascist Portugal and active colonialist Britain and France) in order “to safeguard the freedom, common heritage and civilization of their peoples, founded on the principles of democracy, individual liberty and the rule of law,” NATO was always more focused on suturing internal divisions within its alliance than standing against an external Soviet threat. NATO is a primary catalyst for US foreign policy in Europe by keeping an open global economy. By foreclosing the possibility of any member closing themselves off from the United States and becoming economically self-sufficient, NATO ensured that its European members would increasingly depend on the globalized economy and American economic power in the post-war era. As such, despite all outward expectations, NATO did not fade away after the perceived Soviet threat ended. Rather, it reorganized its orientation from a strategy of containment to one of furthering Western (and especially American) interests across the world. If NATO had any hope of surviving, it had to perpetually expand its borders. 

       In her essay, Mary Sarotte clears the confusion regarding the competing claims of NATO expansion espoused by Russia and the United States. While Russia claims that NATO has broken a formal deal to never expand eastward toward the Russian border, the US claims that such a deal was never made. Sarotte asserts that while there was never a formal agreement in writing, US and West German officials gave Russia an implicit verbal promise not to expand eastward in exchange for German reunification, as evidenced in U.S. Secretary of State James Baker’s assurance to Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev that NATO would expand “not one inch eastward” or threaten Soviet interests. As we’ve seen, these tactful hald-measured assurances proved to be false, as NATO immediately expanded eastward following the unification of Germany, as Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic joined in 1999, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia joined in 2004, Albania and Croatia joined in 2009, Montenegro joined in 2017, North Macedonia joined in 2020, Finland joined in 2023, and Sweden joined this year (2024). 

       In his essay, Peter Gowan highlights the fear that the US government had in the post-Cold War era of Germany becoming a hegemonic power in Western Europe. Many top officials feared that this new superpower in Europe would then ally itself with Russia and work together to consolidate power on the European continent. Terrified at the prospect of being politically and economically marginalized and therefore pushed out of European affairs, the United States saw an opportunity to expand its influence in the land between Germany and Russia (aka. Eastern Europe and the Balkans, specifically Poland and Ukraine) as a pivotal move in keeping these larger powers separate from one another and securing American interests in the region. These interests are a gloomy foreshadowing of the eternally expansionist ambitions of NATO and its interventions outside its member states. 

       Part Two details this expansion through a series of case studies that detail the military misadventures that NATO engaged in throughout the past three decades. They are broken down into three accounts of NATO’s direct military interventions: Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, and Libya. As Anderson writes, these chapters illustrate “different episodes in NATO’s transformation from a ‘defensive’ alliance into a roving, interventionist cartel, its operations stretching from the Maghreb to the Khyber Pass” (19). Each author gives explicit details of these interventions, and how NATO made decisions that furthered their interests while hiding behind the rhetoric of humanitarianism. By activating a nascent nationalist movement in Bosnia, promoting specific political regimes in Afghanistan, and turning a small minority fringe group in Libya into one of the largest powers in the region, NATO cynically utilizes the rhetoric of “collective security” and “preventing violence” to meddle in the affairs of other countries, often inadvertently destabilizing and bringing more suffering and violence to these regions. These actions prolonged the wars within these countries and considerably added to the overall death toll, while also destabilizing their neighbors, such as Mali and Syria. 

       Parts Three and Four zero into the various crises within Ukraine from 2014 to today. In the first section, the authors address the Euromaidan protests and the Maidan Revolution in 2014, as well as NATO’s actions in Eastern Europe that have only served to provoke Russia further. Each author points out how Ukraine’s entry into NATO would prove to be disastrous for all parties involved and would serve as a final escalation point that would deteriorate the relationship between Russia and the West. 

       While Part Three is primarily concerned with the various events leading to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Part Four focuses on the conflict itself. According to Susan Watkins, while the conflict was wrought with horrible consequences for both Russia and Ukraine and is wholly unjustifiable, it was not unprovoked (229). She argues that the war in Ukraine serves as a proxy war between the US and Russia and that Putin’s actions are wholly misguided and only serve to strengthen the power of NATO and weaken Russia’s political and economic power on the global stage. Similarly, in Tony Wood’s essay, he writes that it is naive to simply reduce Russia’s actions in the conflict to the idiosyncratic psyche of Putin. Rather, Wood calls on the reader to consider how Russia’s growing nationalism and militarism must be considered in the context of NATO’s continual expansion, which has often been used by Russia to justify its increasingly aggressive actions. Finally, Volodymyr Ishchenko’s essay invites the reader to consider how Ukraine has been placed at the center of a tug-of-war between Russia and the West, as each disregards the diversity of opinion within Ukraine and homogenizes the population. Instead, Ishchenko draws our attention to the deep-seated political divisions within Ukraine, and how each of these stances (anti-NATO, pro-NATO, and non-alignment) map across class divides in Ukrainian society. 

       Part Five examines the potential future of the NATO alliance as it covers a broad spectrum of themes. In a pair of polemic essays, Richard Seymour and Alexander Zevin lambast the English-speaking world of journalism and its over-the-top jingoism and warmongering ideological rhetoric. Lily Lynch contemplates the inclusion of Sweden and Finland into the NATO fold as she explores its impact on dismantling social democratic institutions, its implications for the Global South, and its relationship with China and Russia. Cihan Tuğal focuses on NATO’s blind eye toward the Turkish persecution of the Kurds, Turkey's attempts to serve as a mediator between Russia and Ukraine, and the Turkish elite utilizing their role in NATO to project an image of a restored imperial power. Likewise, Wolfgang Streek examines the relationship between NATO and the European Union (EU), as the US often regulates the EU as “something like a waiting room or a prep school for future NATO members” (329-330).

       Finally, in the Conclusion, Thomas Meany provides a critical overview of NATO that neatly summarizes the preceding essays in the book. He argues that, far from serving as a bulwark against Russia, NATO has primarily been concerned with consolidating power and ensuring that the interests of the United States are pursued within Europe and beyond. The war in Ukraine has revived NATO’s fortunes as the United States hopes to solidify its alliances in Europe against the rising influence of China and its allies. 

Commendations:

       Natopolitanism excels in several key regards. First and foremost, this collection of critical essays serves as a splash of cold water against the dearth of propaganda that typically surrounds the foundation and continuing actions of NATO. The book is roughly organized in chronological order, beginning with the immediate aftermath of the dissolution of the USSR and ending with the current conflict in Ukraine. Along the way, the reader is presented with both primary sources -- such as an open letter and a Department of Defense (DOD) brief-- as well as secondary literature, many of which include essays formerly published in the New Left Review. The book is incredibly wide in scope, encompassing critiques and perspectives from a broad range of individuals across the ideological spectrum, including contemporary left-revolutionaries, leftist thinkers from the New Left Review, journalists from establishment media outlets like Foreign Affairs, a former CIA director and Russian ambassador, a military historian and close friend of George W. Bush, and a Gaullist politician. As such, the book provides a thorough historical and political critique of NATO from a wide array of perspectives. 

       In particular, I found Mary Sarotte’s essay regarding the competing claims about NATO’s enlargement toward the East particularly enlightening, as it clarifies the contradicting claims between Russia and the West. In a similar vein, the first half of the book provides a fantastic historical perspective of NATO, including its reorientation after the dissolution of the USSR and the foreign interventions in Yugoslavia, Libya, and Afghanistan. While it is unflinching in providing many of the gritty details of atrocities that have occurred in these military operations, these essays convey the horrific consequences of NATO’s meddling in foreign affairs. For those who are unfamiliar with NATO or only have a one-sided opinion of it, this collection will surely inform and challenge the conventional orthodox doctrines that have been perpetuated by NATO and its enthusiasts. 

       Additionally, the essays on the conflict in Ukraine are particularly enlightening, especially to gain a more well-rounded perspective of the conflict than most mainstream media offers. The narrative around Ukraine is often dominated by either pro-Russian or Ukrainian ultra-nationalist propaganda, and the essays in this volume help to dispel many of the assumptions and myths that have been built regarding recent Ukrainian history. While the Russian invasion of Ukraine is unjustified, it is not simply the result of the irrational whims of a single madman, but rather the slow and seemingly inevitable result of several decades of political unrest and conflict. Ukraine's history and political landscape are more complex than the narrative that most Western media portrays, and the essays in this volume bring a refreshing class-analysis-centered perspective to the conflict currently raging in the region. 

Critiques:

       On the other hand, there are a few shortcomings to this collection of essays. First of all, while the essays are organized in roughly chronological order, it is often difficult to ascertain when exactly each piece was written. The reader must flip back to an acknowledgment page at the end of the book to find when each essay was originally published. Likewise, there are no short author biographies within the text, which forces the reader to conduct research outside of the text to get a sense of the backgrounds of each writer. Adding simple dates and biographical information to the beginning of each essay would have made an enormous difference in setting each piece in context. 

       Furthermore, it is difficult to determine exactly for whom this volume was written. For the casual reader who wants to gain a critical understanding of NATO, it can often be too dense and abstract, especially if they have no prior background in the history and politics of post-Cold War Europe. On the other hand, for those who are already familiar with the history of NATO, there is not much new information that they will glean from these essays. This is especially true for the first half of the book, which trods over familiar ground on the formation of NATO and why its existence was a hot-button issue during the waning years of the Cold War. While the essays in this section are undoubtedly useful for those with no background in the history of NATO and its expansionary ambitions, they will be of less interest to seasoned political theorists and historians. 

       Additionally, while these collected essays are useful to have together in one volume, almost every single one has been published elsewhere, most commonly in the New Left Review.  As such, the book has a great deal of repetition when read chronologically. Accordingly, if reading from cover to cover, the book can be a bit of a slog to get through at times. 

       Finally, while each essay serves as a damning indictment of NATO and its function to secure American hegemony, the book as a whole often feels like a scattershot collection of loosely connected essays that lacks a forceful punch that ties them all together. The book serves more as a critical reader of NATO rather than a comprehensive argument against it. There’s not much theorizing dedicated to what should be done in light of all of the critiques made in the book, which made it a bit anti-climatic and defeatist overall in tone. 

Conclusion:

       Overall, Natopolitanism is an excellent critical primer on the history and contemporary actions of NATO. While this collection can be uneven in places and lacks any call to action, it is still an incredibly useful volume that dispels many of the myths and platitudes used to shield NATO from criticism. Borne out of anti-Communist American political strategizing during the Cold War, NATO has struggled to remain relevant in the past few decades, often resorting to disastrous military campaigns in its failing efforts to maintain Western hegemony. NATO exists to defend the interests of the liberal international order, protect bourgeois interests, and has been guilty of inflaming tensions across the globe, most recently between Ukraine and Russia. NATO’s pro-interventionist policies promote the exact instability that the military alliance supposedly exists to quell. NATO’s expansion has directly contributed to the political and social unrest that we see in Eastern Europe, and any hope for a peaceful resolution to the conflict must come to terms with NATO’s current and historic role in exacerbating these tensions.