Senza Censura N.3 - Ottobre 2000

"STRATEGIES OF THE COUNTER-REVOLUTION" SECTION

Some remarks on NATO & Co.

After the imperialist war against Yugoslavia the debate on NATO and military control structures that developed among the leftwing movement has been substituted by a mobilization about the so called "globalization", a mobilization that has been rewarded with --a great attention by national and international media since Seattle.

We, as editorial staff of "Senza Censura", are not interested in judging this trend, but are very concerned in asserting the prominence, for any perspective of liberation, of analysing the functional structures and branches of the imperialist control in a hierarchical pattern that represents the concrete and more advanced reaction of the capitalism to its structural crisis in order to re-balance and control the inter-imperialistic competition (that is deeper and deeper while the crisis is moving forward) and, above all, in order to relate the aggression against the proletariat with a more and more scientific way of exploitation that the imperialistic bourgeoisie is trying to expande all over the world, in a bid to cross its own crisis.

Our aims, very ambitious indeed, is a wider understanding of the means that the imperialistic bourgeoisie is using to fit itself for the confrontation it has to substaine with its true antagonist, the international proletariat, a confrontation whose level is higher and higher while the space for recomposing the class confrontation in a riformistic way is narrowing.

Synthetically this is why there is a section called "Strategy of the Counter-revolution" within "Senza Censura" and, at the same time, the reason because, in our opinion, NATO developement and expansion are to be read not just like new defining of controlled areas but are usefull above all to understand the comprehensive pattern of the attack launched by the imperialistic bourgeoisie against the proletariat.

So we are going to bring forward this kind of work that we assess to be a pryority and we hope that committees, groups, etc., that keep on developing actions against NATO consider "Senza Censura" a space for debates and interaction.

NATO FOR THE 21ST CENTURY

In the last issue of "Senza Censura" (S.C.2¡ - "E.U. big power") we tried to individuate some elements around which is growing a new NATO capable to face what our enemy calls "the task of the 21st century.

The awarness that every aspect of the project for a renewed NATO needs to be deeply analyzed will head our -we hope not just ours- considerations in the next issue, in order to define a framework where to set and read events that without a link among them would seem at odd, strengthening the imperialistic thesis of a structural base for the esistence of  many conflcts related to a molteplicity of differences (the religious ones, ethnic ones, etc, ) that without a super-national order would cause huge disasters, as the events of the last decade seem to prove.

NATO candidates itself to direct on a military and political level these conflicts, stating its strategy in a document called "Strategic Concept", that had an official imprinting in the 50th NATO summit in Washington but that drives its roots in the structural changes that have determined the present stage of the relationship between the imperialistic bourgeoisie and the international proletariat.

 THE "STRATEGIC CONCEPT"

The NATO project for the XXI¡ century states again that its main target is the collective defence of its members but also states that  military power of NATO has to be directed versus the areas where the stability, the security and the values of the euroatlantic comunity are under threat, even if there is no territorial threat. This point defines the management of the "crises" (also out of the NATO territory) as the second fondamental task for the alleance.

This adjustment is possible to the condition of developing the European Security and Defence Identity - ESDI- within NATO (SC2) according to the idea  of an european military force "separable but not separate", an idea that was born in the past and defined at NATO summit in Berlin (1996), but that was later improved at NATO summit in Washington (1999). An improvement tested on the ground during NATO aggression against Yugoslavia.

It's worth to underline that the "Strategic Concept" giving more importance to the management of the crises outside NATO borders gets unavoideble, also on a formal level, a military force more "mobile, flexible and sustaineble".

At Washington summit with this aim NATO countries signed the Defence Capabilty Initiative (DCI) that engages them to achieve this target.

A point strictly related to the"Strategic Concept" is the need of cooperating with "democratic countries" outside NATO.

It clarifies that also countries outside NATO can and want to be part in military operations of the alleance (this already happened many times) and, under the chapter "Parternship for Peace", outlines a way to redestribute controlled areas.

Washington summit took many initiatives to involve partern countries in NATO members' military operations in the future to a greater extent, pointing out that NATO is the core of a web of politically homogeneous countries that are ready to unify themselves whenever and wherever it is considered "necessary", without any limitation by other international bodies (like U.N.) or because a crisis happens outside NATO borders. This states that defence of political and economic interests of NATO countries and their allies is the pryority.

SOME REMARKS

This is just a summary statement of the more important points that should be carefully analyzed in order to single out not only the developing lines of the political - military egemony of NATO in this phase but even where is more usefull to point our energy for a confrontation not merely simbolic.

All of the points we just recalled have many implications.

In this issue we tries to give some elements (Senza Censura 3 - "NATO, european army and defence industries") usefull for an analysis related to the "Defence Capability Initiative" (DCI), that  moved forward very quickly since Washington summit.

The core of DCI was clarified by USA secretary of state, Madeleine Albright, during NATO foreign ministries summit in Florence on the 24th of May 2000.

In that meeting Albright explained that DCI is the way to adapt NATO (and particoulary the european defence) for its further tasks in a renewed international framework. As a matter of fact Albright said: "DCI can only succeed if it is backed by defence investiments that are sufficient and smart. (......) I am announcing today an important initiative by my goverment to improve transatlantic cooperation in the area of defense trade. The initiative is a package of seventeen specific steps aimed at getting U.S. defense exports to NATO, Japan and Australia faster and more smoothly.

These measures will make American technology and expertise more readily available to our allies, thereby strengthening NATO, supportingthe DCI, improving the interoperabilty of our forces, and contributing to the health and productivity of defense industries on both side of the Atlantic. All this translates into a sturdier technological foundation for NATO in the 21st Century".

This wide quotation from Albright speech in Florence is strictly connected to the urging of  NATO general secretary, Robertson, on the 23rd of May in Brusselles. In his introductory speech at the 5th "Forum Europe Defence Industries Conference" Robertson explained: "North America and Europe have much to gain by working together to remove the obstacles to effective defence trade. I have in mind here not only amending current legislation, but also resolving significant, specific differences on both sides of the Atlantic in areas such as mergers and acquisition practices and, crucially, technology transfer regimes."

As usual England has been the first to obey, signing an agreement of cooperation for the defence that, according to USA, should be a model for every other agreement with NATO countries.