NATO Is Breaking Apart

The NATO military alliance is breaking apart.  The underlying cause is the antagonistic interests of the imperialist and sub-imperialist blocs contained within it.

In the postwar period when NATO was created the emerging global economy was framed in terms determined by two things.  Firstly, the domination of progressive social-democracy as the dominant ideology of the ruling class; and secondly the hegemony of the United States.  The two things were not unconnected.

The United States was not only the world's military hegemon, but was economically hegemonic too.  That hegemony was manifest in the spread of US multinational corporations across the globe, particularly into Western Europe.  In the same way that large corporations, representing the now dominant socialised industrial capital, were the force that drove forward social-democracy in the 19th century, within the nation state, so these developed forms of those corporations, the multinational corporation drove forward social-democracy at an international level, as the appropriate forms required for the operation of these capitals within the context of a global economy. 

In the same way that large corporations required the nation state to engage in the planning and regulation of the macro-economy, so as to create the longer term stability in which the now massive levels of investment could be undertaken with confidence for the long-term, so too, operating at an international level, the multinational corporations required this social-democratic framework to be applied at an international level.  It was the background for the establishment, at Bretton Woods, of the IMF, World Bank, GATT and so on.  But, it was also the basis on which the US insisted that the old European colonial Empires of Britain, France, Spain, Portugal, Belgium and the Netherlands be broken apart, so that US multinational corporations had equal access to their markets, and more importantly, for industrial capital, to their supplies of exploitable labour.  In the same way that the nation state created a single level playing field, in which all capital could operate, so now this principle was applied to the global economy.  Imperialism, is this system of states, arranged as an hierarchy, in which all must abide by the rules, but in which the rules are determined by the more powerful states.

In the period after WWII, as the global economy grew rapidly, in large part due to these structural changes, and within the context of a long wave upswing, and in which the US occupied this hegemonic role both economically and militarily, most notably manifest in the reliance on US military power to confront the USSR and its allies, it is not surprising that the US had great freedom in determining these rules, and the fact that the old European colonial powers did have to dismantle their Empires was a manifestation of it.

If the US could have created a global single market to dominate, it would have done so, but not even the US was powerful enough to achieve that.  Instead, it encouraged the next best thing.  It encouraged the development of regional single markets, such as the EU, ASEAN, MERCOSUR.  The advantage for the US of such developments is obvious.  If we take the EU, then, in place of the original six members of the EEC, each with different regulations, tariffs etc., the US could deal with just one.  It meant that US multinational corporations investing in the EEC, were able to deal with the same conditions in each of its member states.  The reduction in frictions brought about by such a development, meant that capital could be more profitable, and accumulate more rapidly, and that included the US multinational capital invested in Europe.  When the EU developed into a 28 member bloc that became even more true, particularly as the global division of labour meant that components moved backwards and forwards across borders many times before the final product was completed.

But, US hegemony was not permanently assured.  In the same way that once dominant firms decline, and other smaller, newer companies grow and replace them, so once dominant economies decline, and other economies rise and surpass them.  Britain rose to surpass the once dominant economy of the Netherlands, by the end of the 19th century, Britain itself had been surpassed by the economies of Germany and the US, and soon after also by Japan.  Britain, Germany and Japan have today been surpassed by China, which looks set to soon surpass the US too.  Britain has been surpassed by its old colony India, and is set to soon be surpassed by other former colonies like South Korea, Mexico and so on.

Whilst for the US, the creation of the EU meant that it facilitated the easier operation of US multinational capital in Europe, for European capitals, it also meant the means of operating on a basis that put it on a more level playing field with US capital that operated out of what was the largest economy in the world.  The dynamic resulting from that was obvious.  In just the same way that former colonies were able to develop rapidly on the back of foreign investment from large foreign multinational companies, so as to become dominant economies themselves, so too the EU was able to develop as an economic bloc that was able to treat on equal terms with the US, so that the hegemonic power of the US thereby disappeared. 

The global economy is now divided into a series of politico-economic-strategic blocs.  Of these three are dominant:  The US, the EU, and China.  In addition there are similar blocs in Latin America, and in Africa.  Until the Arab Spring of 2011, another such bloc was developing in the Middle East and North Africa that was itself closely tied to the EU.  The US itself is closely tied, via the MCA/formerly NAFTA to Canada and Mexico.  Although, China and Japan are frequently portrayed as regional rivals, they in fact form twin hubs for a Pacific regional bloc that plays a significant role in ASEAN.  China also plays a significant role in Africa, and so in the new emerging African economic bloc.

In a multi-polar world, US hegemony no longer exists, and so these other large economic blocs begin to assert their own economic, political and strategic interests.  The interests of China, of the EU and the US clearly diverge.  An illustration of that was the decision of the Obama administration to pivot towards the Pacific.  The EU, having already incorporated the former Eastern Bloc states, had obvious reasons for wanting to see the development of the economies of the Middle East and North Africa, and to more closely draw them into its orbit.  The existence of Bonapartist regimes in those countries - Egypt, Tunisia, Syria, Libya - was not a necessary problem for it.  It had successfully managed the transformation of the Bonapartist regimes of Spain and Portugal, and Greece, as they were drawn into the EU.  So too with the former Bonapartist regimes of Central and Eastern Europe.  The EU understood the process by which economic development, facilitated by it, was the key to being able to bring about a political revolution, and introduction of bourgeois democracy to such states.

The US had no such interest.  The US obviously wants something similar on its own borders, and in its own backyard, because that facilitates US trade and investment in South and Central America, but it has no such interest as far as Europe and its periphery is concerned, and the more the EU appears as a rival power to US power, the more that is the case.  Its no surprise, therefore, that it was the US, and its UK allies that sought the war in Iraq, in 2003, whilst EU countries opposed the drive to war.  The consequence of that war was to destabilise the whole region.  US intervention, in alliance with its partners in the Gulf, similarly funded and armed the jihadists in Syria that further increased instability.  It is the same policy that the US used in the 1980's to arm and finance Osama Bin Laden to fight in Afghanistan to destabilise the borders of the USSR, and enmesh it in a costly way of attrition.

The consequence of the US/UK invasion of Iraq, and the war in Syria has been to destabilise a region that was heading towards economic development, and closer alignment with the EU.  It has been to create a huge refugee crisis that has inevitably flowed into Southern Europe.  It has facilitated the propaganda of the right-wing nationalists, of the type of Farage, Le Pen, Wilders et al, and it is no surprise that these same elements are backed by the likes of Trump and Putin.  The US has done a similar thing with its encouragement and financing of the so called "colour revolutions".  On the one hand, these nip at the borders of Russia, but they have also destabilised the Eastern flank of the EU.  It means that the dominant economic power in the EU, Germany, which had important economic ties with Russia, is also thereby undermined.

The old hegemonies have broken down.  New antagonisms have arisen whose material basis is the interests of new regional politico-economic strategic blocs.  These divisions run through NATO itself, as it tries to contain the antagonistic interests of the US, EU, and Turkey.  On top of that are overlaid immediate political realities.  Britain has always been antagonistic to European integration.  originally that was because of its own imperial status, whilst after WWII, it was because it acted as an outpost of US imperialism.  As US economic power has waned, it has found it manifestation in a return to nationalism and protectionism, of which Trump is the totem, but who is not alone.

What distinguishes Trump from others in the US, including amongst the Democrats, who are looking towards protectionism, is the corrupt nature of his regime.  The one thing that connects Trump to Putin to Erdogan to Netanyahu and so on is that they share a common ideology based upon kleptocracy, of using their positions to ensure that they line their own pockets on a huge scale.