NATO and the Architects of American Lebensraum
Professor Dr. Nikolai von Kreitor
It was John O'Sullivan who in 1845 formulated the concept of American
Lebensraum - the Manifest Destiny Doctrine. He coined the term to
signify the mission of the United States "to overspread the continent
allotted by Providence for the free development of our yearly
multiplying millions."(1)
For Josiah Strong, the American missionary imperialist par excellence,
the Manifest Destiny had geopolitical destination-the creation of a
world empire. The America would be the greatest of all empires. "Other
nations would bring their offerings to the cradle of the young empire
of the West, as they had once taken their gifts to the cradle of
Jesus."(2) Since the destiny and its destination were preordained by
God , Americans possessed supreme title to space, preempting and
superseding the right of others. Combined with the Monroe Doctrine,
the theological rationale of the Manifest Destiny Doctrine provided an
almost evangelical explanation of the geopolitical manifest design to
conquer and subjugate space, first the whole Western Hemisphere and
then, beginning with the war against Spain in 1898, the whole world.
As Carl Schmitt has pointed out, in 1898 USA embarked on a war against
Spain and latter against the world which has not ended yet. In this
context the American war against Yugoslavia is only a continuation of
the one hundred years war which the United States began in 1898.
In the history of the United States the expansionist impulse has been
as powerful as religion. The continuity of American expansionist war
aims since the time of the Manifest Destiny Doctrine has been the most
predominant feature of American foreign policy in which the three
components of American expansionist Weltanschauung confluence: The
Manifest Destiny Doctrine - the theological component - conquest
preordained by God and Providence to carry the will of the Almighty,
and subsequently, conquest to establish democracy or in the interests
of democracy or mankind, The Monroe Doctrine -the geopolitical
component and the Open Door Doctrine -the economical component.
It was at the end of the last century that the intellectual
foundations of the American geopolitical doctrine were formulated by
Frederick Jackson Turner, Brooks Adams, admiral Mahan, and its
implementation begun by Theodore Roosevelt and subsequently Woodrow
Wilson. The geopolitical concepts advanced by Frederick Jackson
Turner, Brooks Adams and admiral Mahan "became a world view, an
expansionist Weltanschauung for subsequent generation of Americans
and ... important to understand America's imperial expansion in the
twentieth century," writes the noted American historian William
Williams. The policies of American Lebensraum, called "Open-Door"
imperialism, and the enlargement of the American empire through
expansion of the perimeter of the Monroe Doctrine, is the explanation
of America's foreign policy during this century, including the present
policies of NATO expansion, assertion of American preponderance of
power over the whole Eurasia and the war against Yugoslavia.
The architects of the American Lebensraum provided also the rationale
for NATO. NATO as a geopolitical construct is firmly anchored in the
"Frontier thesis" of the American expansionist foreign policy,
appearing as a function and instrument of the Atlantic Grossraum, as
envisioned by Turner, Adams and Mahan. Or as Senator Tom Connally
stated: "the Atlantic Pact is the logical extension of the Monroe
Doctrine". The creation of the NATO signified the extension of the
Monroe doctrine to Europe - Europe would become for the United States
another Latin America, points out the American historian Stephen
Amrose. (3)
Frederick Jackson Turner's main concept was that America's uniqueness
was the product of an expanding frontier. He defined American
historical existence as perpetual geopolitical expansion toward new
frontiers in the West. "The existence of an area of free land, its
continuous recession , and the advance of American settlement westward
explains the American development"(4) The "universal disposition of
the Americans", an "expanding people, is to enlarge their dominion"
and that the ongoing geopolitical enlargement "is the actual result of
an expansive power which is inherent in them"(5) , claimed Turner.
Thus American history is a history of "continually advancing frontier
line: The frontier is the line of most rapid and effective
Americanization Movement has been its dominant, and the American
energy will continually demand a wider field for its exercise"(6)
"The other idea ( in the American imperialist Weltanschauung) is the
thesis of Brooks Adams that America's uniqueness could be preserved
only by a foreign policy of expansionism."(7) Adams idea was
calculated to preserve Turner's explanation of American past and
project it into the future. "Taken together, the ideas of Turner and
Adams supplied American empire builders with an overview and
explanation of the world, and a reasonably specific program of action
from 1893 to 1953", points out William Williams. "Expansion was the
catechism by this young messiah of America's uniqueness and
omnipotence...Turner gave Americans a nationalistic world view that
eased their doubts... and justified their aggressiveness."(8) Turner,
looking at the American past , saw in the final conquest of West the
realization of Manifest Destiny in the Western Hemisphere. Adams saw
the coming new frontier - the whole world. His mondial vision was
inevitable leading to a one world empire-the American World Empire,
not plurality of Grossra=FCme or Panregions, as envisioned by Carl
Schmitt or general Haushofer.
Brooks Adams The Law of Civilization and Decay(9) (1895) was "a
frontier thesis for the world."(10) He propounded a policy of
aggressive expansionism designed to make Asia an economic colony,
allowing America to acquire a large new frontier in Asia. Essentially
the conquest of Eurasia was commenced then. "One even reissued his
foreign policy recommendations of the 1890's as a guide for the United
States in the Cold War,"(11) points out William Williams. In his book
"American Empire" (12) (1911) Brooks Adams envisioned the coming of
the American world empire and the conquest of all Eurasian
geopolitical space. Theodore Roosevelt's, and Woodrow Wilson's
interpretation of the westward movement as a civilizing conquest of
Eurasia was influenced by the works of Turner and Adams. Adams" use
economic and military power to expand the frontier of the United
States westward"(13)
Brooks Adam's expansionist design was the foundation of American
foreign policy -expansionism first in Asia, then in Europe. "Wilson
relied extensively on Turner's frontier thesis in presenting his own
interpretation of American history" 'All I ever wrote on the subject
came from him'", pointed Woodrow Wilson.(14) Borrowing from the
vocabulary of the Manifest Destiny Doctrine - Wilson's slogan "World
safe for democracy" - meant in reality world safe for policies of
American Lebensraum. As William's adds even more than in the case of
Theodore Roosevelt, the policies of Woodrow Wilson and subsequently
Franklin Delano Roosevelt were classic Turneris.(15) Turner's frontier
thesis made democracy (i.e. American dominion ) a function of an
expanding frontier." F.D. Roosevelt has always been ...a Turnean in
foreign policy...Roosevelt 's Turnerism was meanwhile blended with the
realpolitik of Adams." (16) Woodrow Wilson was the first who gave a
glimpse of the coming American world hegemony.
Already conceiving Great Britain subjugated by the United States and
thus John Bull transformed to an obedient servant of the overseas
Atlantic Master, Adams saw the main enemy in continental Europe.
"The acceleration of movement, which is thus concentrating the strong,
is so rapidly crushing the weak that the moment seems at hand when two
great competing systems will be pitted against each other, and the
struggle for survival will begin...Whether we like it or not , we are
forced to compete for the seat of international exchange, or, in other
worlds, for the seat of empire.....Our adversary (France, Germany and
Russia) is deadly and determined...If we yield before him , he will
stuffle us" (17)
Economic supremacy, claimed Adams, was the basis for all power (18).
Free trade and economic internationalism i.e. international economy
under American control, was the key to world domination.
"Adams argued that the United States must take an increasingly large
role in policing the world order. "Economic (and moral) power had to
be translated into military power if America was to have, as Franklin
D. Roosevelt (influenced by Adams) put it, its "rendezvous with
destiny".(19)
Adams American Economic Supremacy (20) (1900) was the old handbook for
American empire builders. Childs writing in 1945 pointed out: "If
Adams had written last year , for publication this year, he would have
had to alter scarcely anything to relate his views to the world of
today"(21) . The same is true for the period after 1991. The father of
containment George Kennan , in explaining and defending the policy of
containment, mentioned Adam's as one of the small number of American's
who had recognized the proper basis of foreign policy...Kennan's
analysis and argument was in many respects similar to that of
Adams."(22) The Truman Doctrine was a classic example of the Frontier
Thesis designed to facilitate American expansionism, and in one speech
Truman called it "The American Frontier".
"By the end of W.W.II , American leaders were thinking even more
explicitly within the pattern evolved in the 1890s."(23) "Like a good
many aspect of 20th century American history, the military definition
of the world was a direct product of the frontier-expansionist outlook.
(24)
Admiral Mahan provided the earliest rationale for NATO. "Expressing
himself in a menacing and efficient attitude of physical force", Mahan
envisioned a future in which the industrial expansion led to a rivalry
for markets and sources of raw materials and would ultimately result
in need of power to open and conquer new markets. Sea power was the
ultimate vehicle for this expansion, the new "open door' colonialism
demanded the services of American navy. As Walter LaFeber points out,
Mahan summarized his theory in a postulate : "In these three things-
production , with the necessity of exchanging products, shipping ,
whereby the exchange is carried on, and colonies...-is to be found the
key to much of the history , as well as the policy , of nations
bordering on the sea"(25) Production leads to a need for shipping ,
which in turn creates the need for colonies.(26)
John Hay's "Open Door Notes "- the proclamation of American Lebensraum
in 1899, and 1900 signified the beginning of the American commercial
invasion of the world, the future American imperialist expansionism
through the policy of Open Door (27) As I have already pointed out
Woodrow Willson's words "World safe for democracy" translated in
reality "World safe for American Lebensraum". Wilson saw overseas
economic expansion as the frontier to replace the American continent
that has been conquered. In a section of volume V of his "History of
the American People", which reads as a paraphrase of essays written by
Brooks Adams, Wilson claimed that United States is destined to command
"the economic fortunes of the world" through the "Open Door"
expansionism. "Diplomacy, and if need be, power, must make an open
way." In a series of lectures at Columbia University in April of 1907,
he was even more forthright:
"Since trade ignores national boundaries and the manufacturer insists
on having the world as a marked, the flag of his nation must follow
him, and the doors of the nations which are closed must be battered
down. Concessions obtained by financiers must be safeguarded by
ministers of state, even if the sovereignty of unwilling nations be
outraged in the process. Colonies must be obtained or planted, in
order that no useful corner of the world may be overlooked or left
unused"(28) .
F. D. Roosevelt conceived his New Deal in geopolitical tradition of
Turner and Adams (29) - the New Deal as a New Frontier. American
freedoms could not be preserved in a frontierless society. United
States was again in search of new frontiers. "To expand the Open Door
Policy to the world" became the leitmotiv of American foreign policy.
(30) The Secretary of Commerce said: " We cannot permit the door to be
closed against our trade in Eastern Europe anymore than we can in
China."(31) The Secretary of State Hughes extended the Open Door
Policy to all European colonies and Eastern Europe(32) . The Cold War
was about the opening of the Russian and the Eastern European
frontiers for American expansionism and Open Door imperialism. The
policy of "containment", i.e. the traditional blockade of the Fortress
Heartland served the same purpose.
Austin Bears had challenged in 1934 the New Deal (Roosevelt's
Administration) to break with the expansionist tradition. He implied
that the New Deal would be involved in another war for empire.
Speaking through the National Foreign Trade Council the corporation
community opposed Beard resolutely: "National self-containment has no
place in the economic policy of the United States."(33)
"American leaders predicted that commercial expansion, as long as the
door remained open, would provide the United States with the economic
advantages of a formal empire without the political responsibilities
and moral liabilities connected with colonies"(34) Nevertheless the
end result of the "Open Door" expansionism was the economic
colonization of new geopolitical space. As the German geopolitician
Otto Maull remarked: "Complete economic penetration is the same as
territorial occupation" . "Open Door" warfare inevitably leads to
"Open Door " occupation.
AMERICAN BLUEPRINT FOR WORLD HEGEMONY
The British geopolitician Peter J. Taylor introduces in his book
"Britain and the Cold War. 1945 as Geopolitical Transition" the
concept of "Geopolitical world order" which denotes a geopolitical
regime of hegemony by a historical country- hegemon in the
international word-system and points out that "the geopolitical order
that preceded the Cold War has been termed the World Order of the
British Succession."(36) Both Nazi Germany and the United States had
identical plans for Weltherschaft and both countries were involved in
a struggle for world hegemony as successor of the previous
geopolitical order of Pax Britannica. "&ldots;we can interpret the two
world wars as contests for the British succession between Germany and
USA"(37) . As a result of the World War II the dominant British
political empire was replaced with a new American economic empire.
(38)
Already prior to World War II United States began to plan for the
coming American world hegemony . The minutes of the closet meetings
that were held between the State Department and the Council on Foreign
Relations beginning in 1939 explicitly detail the role of the U.S. as
a replacement for the British...The minutes of the Council's Security
Sub-Committee of the Advisory Committee of the Post-War Foreign Policy
set the likely parameters of U.S. post-war foreign policy: '..the
British Empire as it existed in the past will ever reappear and...the
United States may have to take its place...'. The US 'must cultivate a
mental view toward world settlement after this war which will enable
us to impose our own terms , amounting... to Pax Americana.'(39) .
Americans could retain their vitality only by accepting the logic of
endless expansionism.(40)
In 1942 , the Council's director , Isaiah Bowman , wrote, 'The measure
of our victory will be the measure of our domination after victory...
(The US must secure areas) strategically necessary for world
control.'"(41)
The War and Peace Studies Project, initiated by the Council on Foreign
Relations during the F.D. Roosevelt Administration immediately prior
to the Second World War, was then the master plan and blueprint for a
new global order for the postwar world, an order in which the United
States would be the dominant power...The War and Peace Studies groups,
in collaboration with the American government ,worked out an
imperialistic conception of the national interests and war aims of the
United States." The American imperialism "involved a conscious attempt
to organize and control a global empire. The ultimate success of this
attempt made the United States...the number one world power ,
exercising domination over large sections of the world-the American
empire... Such blueprinting was by its very nature determining the
'national interest "(42) of the United States....The purpose of
postwar planning was the creation of an international economic and
political order dominated by the United States.(43)
Isaiah Bowman, Franklin Delano Roosevelt's chief geopolitician,
defined the foreign policy objectives of the United States as pursuit
of global policy of American Lebensraum in response to Nazi Germany's
Lebensraum. Thus the war aims of United States and nazi-Germany were
identical. Bowman in collaboration with H.F. Armtrong even secured an
article from MacKinder on the danger of a strong Soviet Union which
was published in Foreign Affairs under the title "The Round World and
the Winning of the Peace"(44)
The article is remarkable because in it the old British imperialist
MacKinder in essence argues for transformation of the British Empire
into an American dependence and for the establishment of American
hegemony in Europe:"Britain-moated stronghold-a Malta on a grander
scale (for the westward movement of the American empire) and France as
a defensible bridgehead"(45)
Memorandum E-B19 concluded with a statement of the essentials for the
United States foreign policy, summarizing the "component parts of an
integrated policy to achieve military and economic supremacy of the
United States within the non-German world." Another main element was
the "coordination and cooperation of the United States with other
countries to secure the limitation of any exercise of sovereignty by
foreign nations that constitutes a threat to the minimum world area
essential to the security and economic prosperity of the United States
and the Western Hemisphere."(46)
At a meeting on October 19, 1940 Leo Posvolski, the Department of
State's chief postwar planer , "agreed with the Council's initial
blueprint for world power. His belief that the United States had to
have more than just the Western Hemisphere as living space is
indicated in his statement that 'if you take the Western Hemisphere as
the complete bloc you are assuming preparation for war'(47) .
Posvolski thus felt that the United States would have to go to war to
gain more living space if limited to the Western Hemisphere, a
conclusion clearly following from the Council's work."(48)
American economy need an elbow room, a new extended living space in
order to survive without major readjustments, claimed the planners of
the Council on Foreign Relations. That elbow room was conceptualized
as the Grand Area, (Grossraum) - the United States -led non German
bloc which the United States during 1941 called "world
economy"(sic!).
The Economic and Financial Group's studies had shown how dangerous a
unified Europe, with or without Nazi domination, would be to the
United States. Hamilton Fish Armstrong pointed out in mid-June 1941
that a unified Europe could not be allowed to develop because it would
be so strong that it would seriously threaten the American Grand Area.
Europe, organized as a single entity, was considered fundamentally
incompatible with the American economic system." (49)
AMERICA'S MINIMUM LEBENSRAUM- THE GRAND AREA
The extensive studies and discussions of the Council group determined
that, as a minimum , most of the non-German world, as a new American
'Grand Area', was needed for elbow room.' In its final form, it
consisted of the Western Hemisphere, the United Kingdom, the remainder
of the British Commonwealth and Empire, the Dutch East Indies, China
and Japan itself.(50) Noam Chomsky summarizes the concept of American
Lebensraum:
"The Grand Area was to include the Western Hemisphere, Western Europe,
the Far East, the former British Empire (which was being dismantled),
the incomparable energy resources of the Middle East (which were then
passing into American hands as we pushed out our rivals France and
Britain), the rest of the Third World and, if possible, the entire
globe."(51) The whole China was also included.
Unlike Carl Schmitt who in his geopolitical works used the concept of
Grossraum, (and Greater Area is the exact translation of Grossraum),
and who advocated a world order based on coexistence of Grossra=FCme,
the American concept had nothing to do with a delimited geopolitical
space. US deliberately rejected after the war the scenario of several
Monroes (52) . Instead American expansionism had to be unlimited,
rejecting thus the very notion of competing national interests.
The War-Peace studies conceptually embodied the geopolitical
expansionism of Turner and Adams, the Weltanschauung of the American
Open Door imperialism. NSC -68 was nothing by restatement of those
geopolitical objectives, coached in the heavy theology of a modernized
Manifest Destiny Doctrine. (53)
ATLANTICISM
"The main political objective , both in peace and war , must therefore
be to prevent the unification of the Old World centers of power in a
coalition hostile to her own interests", wrote the American
geopolitician Nicholas Spykman in his book Geography of Peace (54) ,
restating the main geopolitical objective of the United States in the
post-war Europe. "Spykman simply is repeating for the United States
what has been an overriding principle for British statecraft since the
time of Henry VIII " , comments David Galleo (55) .
To the same conclusion came also Hans J. Morgenthau : "United States
European policies largely parallel those of Great Britain from Henry
VIII to the end of the British Empire". Like Great Britain in the past
United States pursues one single objective in Europe- prevention of
European unity, rejection of the principle of balance of power and
assertion of unilateral American hegemony and preponderance of power.
(56)
After the war the policies of American Lebensraum resulted in the
formation of the Atlantic Alliance, the new Grand Area envisioned by
the planners of the Council on Foreign Relations and the War and Peace
studies project. The American Grand Area was conceptualized and
institutionalized as the Atlantic Alliance.
The Atlanticism-the organizing principle of American postwar policy
toward Europe-was build on Europe's political dependency. NATO- the
linchpin of American post war control- was the instrument to manage
American power projection in Europe, points Ronald Steel in his book
"Temptations of a Superpower" (57) , in which he emphasizes that for
the American post-war planers a major objective was to prevent Europe
from becoming in the future an economic competitor because an economic
competitor is likely to become a political one too. The American
national interest demanded prevention of Continental unity.
Anticipating the creation of NATO, the leading American geopolitician
of US postwar expansionism Nicholas Spykman, propounded in 1943 the
idea that " European power zone can be organized in a regional League
of Nations with the United States as a extra-regional member."(58)
Commenting on Spykman's proposal, a leading American political
scientist Clyde Eagleton pointed out that : "This is simply incredible-
either that the United States would take on such a risk , or that
other states would permit such interference from outside."(59)
Acceptance of the American proposals would only mean consent to the
establishment of American protectorate over those European states.
Reformulating the old Turnerian "Frontier thesis" Spykman wrote "We
have seen the frontier from an international point of view as an
expression of a relative power relationship, as that line where
conflicting pressures became equalized. From a national point of view
of the individual state, the frontier is the front trench held during
the temporary armistice called peace"(60)
The Europeanist influence tended to see the Atlantic system built
around American hegemony as a transitional construction, born of
exceptional European weakness, bound to be transformed if not
discarded once that weakness had passed. Implied was the view that
Europe was not to be dominated indefinitely.
Geopolitical Atlanticism envisioned just that indefinite domination.
Political Atlanticism saw NATO as a pillar for such indefinite
domination and as instrument for power managing of European
geopolitical space.
Atlanticism is a sort of political religion of expansionism with its
geopolitical catechism and doctrine of immaculate conception of
American foreign policy. (Although- befitting its Anglo-Saxon origin,
the Atlantic catechism appears less systematized and less
doctrinaire)"(61) , write David P. Galleo and Benjamin M. Rowland in
their book "America and the World Political Economy. Atlantic Dreams
and National Realities". In the frameworks of the American imperialist
Weltanschauung the establishment of American protectorate over Europe
could be accomplished through NATO.(62) The Atlantic imperial mantle
and American grand schemes for a world military empire were epitomized
in the Atlantic Alliance. David Galleo and Benjamin Rowland point out
that:
"Hull's free-trade imperialism might have been expected , but not a
new Roman Empire with an Atlantic Mare Nostrum. It was almost as the
United States , spurning Europe's colonies, had decided to annex the
mother countries instead (63) .
The Atlantic Alliance, envisioned already by Brooks Adams, "marked the
hegemony of America over Europe (64) . Henceforth an American
general , answerable to the President , will usurp the political
prerogatives of Europe. And with the Truman Doctrine a spatially alien
power -the United States, asserted and gained control over Western
Europe, obliterating thus the independent political existence of
former Great Powers, including its own ally Great Britain.
NATO AND THE MONROE DOCTRINE
The geopolitical concept of American Lebensraum-the Atlantic Great
Area of American power preponderance -needed a direct power projection
in order to guarantee American dominion. NATO became the institution
of hegemony par excellence. The architects of the American Empire
envisioned for NATO the same role as admiral Mahan envisioned for the
Navy - a vehicle for conquest of new markets and geopolitical space
and an instrument for the implementation of the "open door " policy
and geopolitical space management. In short NATO became the military
arm of the westward movement of the American Empire. The "frontier
thesis" of the American foreign policy and the Monroe Doctrine did
confluence in NATO.
The Marshall Plan, followed by NATO, began in earnest the era of
American military, political , and economic dominance over Europe,
points Stephen Ambrose.(65)
Senator Henry Cabot Lodge considered NATO as one of series of regional
organizations designed to hem in the Soviet Union. Thus NATO was also
constructed as an instrument of the strategy of blockade of the
fortress "Heartland" , identical with the Soviet Union. (Spykman's
concept of the countries of Rimland which had to be controlled by the
United States must be seen as geopolitical theory of blockade).
NATO would assert American domination over Western Europe while
simultaneously allowing the United States to assume a position of
undisputed hegemony over Europe. What that hegemony would be "was
adequately , if somewhat crudely , summed up in the frequent
references to the extension of the Monroe Doctrine. Europe would
become, for the American businessman, soldier and foreign policy
maker, another Latin America" Senator Tom Conally declared "the
Atlantic Pact is but the logical extension of the Monroe
Doctrine."(66)
NSC -68 represented the practical extension of the Truman Doctrine ,
which has been world-wide in its implications but limited to Europe in
its application . The document provided justification for America's
assuming the role of world policeman.(67) It was designed to not only
to preserving the power of USA but to extend and consolidate power by
absorbing new satellites and to prevent the rise of competing system
of power.
In order to understand the threat that NATO poses against the security
of Russia and other European countries, it is necessary to go to the
origin of the so called Atlantic Alliance. The North Atlantic Treaty,
in its origin, was not an alliance at all, but an unilateral US
guarantee of what US termed European security, and factually an
assertion of American hegemony in Western Europe under the disguise of
security. The essential condition of the original US-European
relationship , formulated in 1949, was totally one-sided. Its raison
d'etre allegedly was security- in reality it was hegemony, in fact an
enlargement of the Monroe Doctrine, such as the announcement of the
Truman Doctrine, which initially mostly effected Great Britain which
had to cease-as in the case of Greece- her spheres of influence to the
United States. It allowed the United States to gain supreme command
over Western European armed forces and also to station American troops
on European soil. An editorial in the Wall Street Journal in April of
1949 correctly characterized the North Atlantic Treaty Organization
"as nullifying the principles of the United Nations."(68)
Historically speaking the unilaterally proclaimed Truman Doctrine was
an extension of the Monroe Doctrine across the Atlantic, i.e. a major
enlargement of the American Grossraum- a globalization of the
principles of the Western Hemisphere Grossraum, where the United
States is the sole bearer of sovereignty - and thus the first direct
assault on the sovereignty of European states. Although ostensibly
promoted as a device of containment and a policy for global
intervention, it was in reality a device of subjugation and
expansionism, serving American policy of Lebensraum.. The British
foreign policy scholar Kenneth Thompson called the Truman Doctrine a
national and expedient act designed initially to replace British with
American power in Central Europe.(69)
Charles de Gaulle, the great French statesman with a kin eye for
geopolitics and propensity to dismantle American myths, rightfully
asserted that NATO was a mere appendage to the United States and that
NATO and (French) national sovereignty were incompatible objectives.
Already in 1951 (June 12) the Paris weekly Le Monde summarized the
essence of the Atlantic Alliance and its military arm NATO:
"The fundamental inequality of the alliance is turning it more and
more into a hidden protectorate in which protestation of national
pride are not enough to compensate for a growing enslavement. The
Roman Empire had its citizens, its allies, and its foreigners. The new
American Empire has its allies of the first zone (the Americans), its
allies of the second zone (the British), and its continental prot=E9g=E9s:
In spite of all their haughtiness, the latter are becoming to an ever
increasing extend the Filipinos of the Atlantic."
Leopold Kohr concluded that the Atlantic Alliance is not a partnership
of equality , and that there is only one nation which is truly free in
this new arrangement, "the imperial nation, the American."(70) As
Walter LaFeber has pointed out with the formation of NATO United
States accomplished their victory in what LaFeber calls the First Cold
War which President Wilson started already at the Versailles Peace
Conference after the end of the First World War and the end result of
which was the establishment of American control over the Western
Europe i.e. over a significant portion of Eurasia.
After the end of the Cold War the role of NATO as instrument of
American expansionism became more clear than ever. NATO was used to
undermine the pre-existing world order based on the Helsinki agreement
and to obliterate the independent role of the United Nations. NATO
became an instrument of conquest of the Eastern Europe - "peacefully"
as in the case of the Visegrad -countries (Poland, Hungary and Czech
Republic ) or by resorting to outright war of aggression (Yugoslavia).
Containment of Western Europe and conquest of the Eastern Europe are
the two main functions of NATO.
In the verdict rendered at the concluding session of the International
War Crimes Tribunal Investigating U.S. NATO War Crimes in Yugoslavia
in January 23, 2000 in Kiev . Ukraine NATO was declared a criminal
institution within the purview of the Nuremberg codex.
Once again, and now after the end of the Cold War, Europe as a
geopolitical entity is faced by a historical choice-either independent
geopolitical existence as a Mitteleuropa or European community, or a
future as dependent appendage to the American empire. An independent
geopolitical existence- Europe for Europeans- translates into a
Mitteleuropa as antihegemonic block facing and competing with the
American Atlantic Grossraum. The most simple geopolitical axiom is
that NATO is a threat to a future European independence. And above
all- NATO is a threat to Russia.
ENDNOTES
(1) see Anders Stephenson Manifest Destiny. American Expansion and the
Empire of Right (Hill and Wang, New York, 1995) p. XI
(2) Josiah Strong Our Country: Its Possible Future and Its Present
Crisis (New York, 1985) , p. 20. Here quoted from Walter LaFeber The
New Empire (Cornell University Press, Ithaca, 1963) , p. 74
(3) Amrose, Stephen E. The Military Dimension: Berlin, NATO and NCS-68
in Paterson, Thomas G.(ed.) The Origins of the Cold War (D.C. Heath
and Company, Lexington, MA, 1974) p. 178
(4) Turner, Frederick Jackson The Significance of the Frontier in
American History (Henry Holt and Co, New York, 1995)
p. 1
(5) Turner, Frederick Jackson ibid. p.33
(6) Turner, Frederick Jackson, ibid. p.p. 33, 59
(7) William Appleman Williams The Frontier Thesis and American Foreign
Policy in Henry W. Berger (ed.) A William Appleman Williams Reader
(Ivan R. Dee, Chicago, 1992) p. 90
(8) William Appleman Williams The Frontier Thesis and American Foreign
Policy p. 91
(9) Brooks Adams The Law of Civilization and Decay (The MacMillan Co,
New York, 1896)
(10) William Appleman Williams The Frontier Thesis and American
Foreign Policy p. 92
(11) William Appleman Williams The Frontier Thesis and American
Foreign Policy p. 96
(12) Brooks Adams The New Empire (The MacMillan Co, New York, 1900)
(13) ibid. p. 96
(14) Williams ibid. 97
(15) ibid. p. 98
(16) ibid. p. 99, 100
(17) Brooks Adams America's Economic Supremacy, p.p. 80, 104-05, David
P. Calleo and Benjamin Rowland America and the World Political Economy
p. 273
(18) Thomas J. McCormick America's Half-Century (John Hopkins
University Press , Baltimore, 1995) p. 18
(19) McCormick ibid. p.p. 18-19
(20) Brooks Adams America's Economic Supremacy (The MacMillan Co, New
York, 1900)
(21) Ibid. p. 100
(22) ibid. p. 101
(23) William Appleman Williams The Contours of American History ,
Norton and Company, New York, 1988, p. 474
(24) William Appleman Williams Contours of American History p. 473
(25) A.T. Mahan The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660-1783
(Boston, 1890) pp.. 53, 28
(26) Walter LaFeber The New Empire. An Interpretation of American
Expansion 1860-1898 (Cornell University Press, Ithaca, 1963) p. 88
(27) Williams ibid. p. 86
(28) Williams, William Appleman The Tragedy of American Diplomacy p.p.
71, 72
(29) Graebner p. 134
(30) Graebner p. 134
(31) (Charles Evans Hughes p.. 86)
(32) William Appleman Williams The Contours of American History p.
454
(33) Lloyd C. Gardner The New Deal, New Frontiers, and the Cold War: A
Re-examination of American Expansion, 1933-1945 in David Horowitz (ed)
Corporations and the Cold War (Monthly Review Press, New York, 1969)
p. 108
(35) Dorpalen, Andreas The World of General Houshofer. Geopolitics in
Action (New York, 1942), p.224
(36)Peter J. Taylor "Britain and the Cold War. 1945 as Geopolitical
Transition" (Guilford Publications,Inc, New York 1990) p. 17. The
concept of "Geopolitical regime of hegemony" , used by Taylor, is
quite similar to the concept of "Historical regime of hegemony " in
the political writings of Antonio Gramschi.
(37) Peter J. Taylor ibid. p. 17
(38) Peter J. Taylor ibid . p. 17
(39)Michio Kaku and Daniel Axelrod To Win a Nuclear War. The
Pentagon's Secret War Planes (South end Press, Boston, 1987) p.p.
63,64
(40)Those views were expressed by Reinhold Niebuhr who, like many
American Cold War planners viewed the American future political
destiny as Manichean interpretation of the virtually uninterrupted
warfare- from the point of the revamped Manifest Destiny Doctrine.
In this conjunction one may recall the view of the American foreign
policy by William Appleman Williams. In order to understand the
foreign policy of expansionism of the United States Williams urged his
students "to study the pirates as a protocommunity which sought in the
Renaissance era and afterwards to create its own rules , and prompted
widespread fear in the existing empires". see Paul M. Buhle and Edward
Rice-Maximin William Appleman Williams . The Tregedy of Empire
(Routledge, New York and London, 1995) p. 236
One may also recall that while still allies already during the World
War II the United States started to prepare for war with the Soviet
Union. In the summer of 1945 , at the time of the Conference in
Potsdam United States adopted a policy of 'string the first blow' in a
nuclear war against the Soviet Union. To that effect a secret document
JCS 1496 was drafted on July 19, 1945. (p. 30). The first plan for
nuclear attack was drafted soon afterwards by General Dwight
Eisenhower at the order of President Truman.
The plan. called TOTALITY (JIC 329/1) envisioned a nuclear attack on
the Soviet with 20 to 30 A-bombs. The plan earmarked 20 Soviet cities
for obliteration in a first strike: Moscow, Gorki, Kuibyshev,
Sverdlovsk, Novosibirsk , Omsk, Saratov, Kazan, Leningrad , Baku,
Tashkent, Chelyabinsk, Nizhni Tagil, Magnitogorsk, Molotov, Tbilisi,
Stalinsk, Grozny, Irkutsk, and Jaroslavl" (Michio Kaku and Daniel
Axelrod To Win a Nuclear War. The Pentagon's Secret War Planes (South
end Press, Boston, 1987)
p.p. 30, 31
(41) Michio Kaku and Daniel Axelrod To Win a Nuclear War. The
Pentagon's Secret War Planes (South end Press, Boston, 1987) p.p.
63,64
(42) Lavrence H. Shoup & William Minter Imperial Brain Trust (Monthly
Review Press, New York 1977, p. 117
(43) Lawrence Shoup & William Minter ibid. p. 118
(44) Martin Geoffrey The Life and Thought of Isaiah Bowman (Archon
Books, Hamden, Connecticut, 1980) p. 177. One may also recall that
Isaiah Bowman already in his in 1921 published book "The New World"
envisioned the coming American world empire. Carl Haushofer published
in 1934 a trilogy of books titled "Macht und Erde" which, according to
Otto Maull, was written as the German response to Bowman's "The New
World" . Martin Geoffrey, ibid. p. 165.
(45) MacKinder, Halford "The Round World and the Winning of the Peace"
in Democratic Ideals and Reality (W.W. Norton & Co, New York, NY 1962)
p. 274. MacKinder's article was originally published in Foreign
Affairs, vol. 21(July 1943) p.p. 595-605
(46) Memorandum E-B19, October 19, 1940, CFR, War- Peace Studies ,
NUL. Here quoted after Shoup & Minter, ibid. p. 130
(47) Posvolsky's statement is in Memorandum A-A11,October 19, 1940 War
Peace Studies , Baldwin Papers, Box 117, YUL from which Shoup& Minter
quote.
(48) Shoup & Minter ibid. p. 131
(49) Shoup & Minter, ibid. p. 137
(50) Shoup & Minter , ibid p. 136
(51)Noam Chomsky What Uncle Saw Really Wants p. 12 (Odonian Press,
Berkeley, 1992). The
policies of American Lebensraum and the geopolitical construct of the
American Greater Area are
discussed in dept in Joyce and Gabriel Kolko The Limits of Power. The
world and United States Foreign Policy (Harper and Row, New York,
1972)
(52)see Taylor, Peter J. Britain and the Cold War. 1945 as
Geopolitical Transition (Gilfor Publications, New York, 1990. Not only
Carl Schmitt but also General Haushofer advocated peaceful coexistence
of several competing "Grand Areas" or "Monroes". Carl Schmitt used the
concept of Grossraum, General Haushofer of "Pan-region".
(53) The political objectives stated in the NSC-68 were after the end
(sic!) of the Cold War again restated in the Pentagons Defense
Planning Guidance. With the Soviet Union gone United States embarked
on a new policy of expansionism.
(54) Nickolas Spykman Geography of Peace , New York, 1944
(55) David Galleo p. 30
(56) Hans J. Morgenthau The Mainsprings of American Foreign Policy
Robert A. Goldwin (ed) Readings in American Foreign Policy (Oxford
University Press, New York, 1971) p. 642.
(57) Ronald Steel Temptations of a Superpower ( Harvard University
Press, 1995) p. 70
(58) N. Spykman America's Strategy in World Politics p. 468
(59) Clyde Eagleton, Review of America's Strategy in World Politics ,
222 Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science
(July 1942) , 189-190, P. 190. here quoted in David Willkinson Spykman
and Geopolitics in Zippo (ed) p. 82
(60) Nickolas J. Spykman and A.A. Rollins "Geographical Objectives in
Foreign Policy I, American Political Science Review , vol. 33 , 1939 ,
p. 394
(61) David P. Galleo and Benjamin M. Rowland America and the World
Political Economy. Atlantic Dreams and National Realities (Indiana
University Press, Bloomington, 1973) p. 18
(62) ibid. p. 44
(63) ibid. p. 46
(64) ibid. p. 61
(65) Stephen E. Ambrose The Military Dimension : Berlin, NATO and
NSC-68 in
Thomas G. Paterson The Origins of the Cold War (D.C. Heath and
Company,
Lexington, 1974) p. 178
(66)Stephen E. Ambrose The Military Dimension : Berlin, NATO and
NSC-68 in Thomas G. Paterson The Origins of the Cold War (D.C. Heath
and Company, Lexington, 1974) p. 117
(67)Stephen E. Ambrose , ibid. p. 182
(68) The Wall Street Journal, April 5, 1949
(69) Kenneth Thompson -Political Realism and the Crisis of World
Politics- An American Approach (Princeton University Press, Princeton,
1960) - at p. 124
(70) Leopold Kohr -The Breakdown of Nations -ibid., at p. 203
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