The North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the expansion of Western capitalism

Abstract

The outbreak of war in Ukraine and Western support for the Ukrainian state have brought up the role of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in international politics, a subject debated in the press and media, in universities, in states, and in international organizations. In hasty assessments, the argument that emerges is that the war, particularly the Russian administration of Vladimir Putin, has given NATO a new reason of life, since it no longer had any reason to exist in the face of the defeat and dissolution of the USSR. Our aim in this article is therefore to demonstrate that NATO has always had a reason to exist in order to fulfill the function assigned to it by the Western powers: to eliminate politically and militarily obstacles to the expansion of Western capitalism. Because it is an international political and military organization linked to the capitalist powers led by the United States, with its smaller European partners, it is an organization whose dynamic is expansionist. So, our object is NATO in its founding treaty, institutional organization, strategic concepts, summit meetings, geopolitical expansion, partnerships, and military operations.