Prof Michel Chossudovsky: “NATO-Exit: Dismantle NATO, Close Down 800 US Military Bases, Prosecute the War Criminals”

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Written by Prof Michel Chossudovsky; Originally appeared at Global Research

This text prepared in the context of the April 7 2019 Florence International Conference: No War, No NATO will centre on the key relationship between US-NATO military operations directed against targeted countries and the imposition of  far-reaching neoliberal economic reforms both before and in the wake of US-NATO military interventions. 

This article will also address the dangers and consequences of a Third World War as well the nature of advanced weapons systems deployed by the broader US-NATO coalition.

Extensive war crimes have been committed by NATO member states.

The object of the Florence Venue is NATO-EXIT. The Dismantling of NATO and the closure of US military bases. 

There is a (somewhat contradictory) clause within the Treaty of the Atlantic Alliance (Article 13) which enables withdrawal from NATO. This clause has to be examined and a strategy must be envisaged.

In our conclusion we will address what types of actions are required by mass movements to reach this objective, bearing in mind that since the war on Iraq (2003), protest movements have been coopted and manipulated. While global warming makes the headlines, the dangers of nuclear war are barely mentioned. Why?

Odeon Theatre, Florence, Sunday April 7, from 10am to 18pm, Italian and English

Introduction and Overview

Washington’s unspoken hegemonic objective is Worldwide militarization and economic conquest. This imperial design  is carried out through acts of war, military intervention, coups d’Etat, regime change, US sponsored insurgencies, cyber-warfare, economic sabotage and destabilization. “All options are on the table”.

We are at an important threshold in our history

In relation to all previous wars, today’s advanced military arsenal includes nuclear, biological, chemical and electromagnetic weapons which have the ability to destroy human life on a Worldwide scale.

War Propanganda

This military agenda is supported by an extensive propaganda apparatus.

The dangers of a World War are casually dismissed. War is portrayed as a humanitarian endeavor. The Mainstream media contends that war is a peace-making undertaking and that NATO should be granted the Nobel Peace prize.

Propaganda sustains the war agenda.

It provides a human face to war criminals in high office. Without media disinformation which upholds war as a peacemaking endeavor, America’s military agenda would collapse like a house of cards.

The imminent dangers of modern warfare are not front page news.

War is portrayed as a Peace-making endeavour.  War Becomes Peace, Realities are turned upside down.

When the Lie becomes the Truth, there is no turning backwards. War criminals are portrayed as peace-makers.

War and Globalization. The Neoliberal Agenda

9/11 and the Invasion of Afghanistan. NATO and the “Global War on Terrorism”

The September 11, 2001 attacks (9/11) constitute an important and historical threshold. On the 12th of September 2001, the North Atlantic Council in Brussels invoking for the first time the doctrine of collective security (art. 5 of the Washington Treaty) adopted the following resolution:

“if it is determined that the [September 11, 2001] attack against the United States was directed from abroad [Afghanistan] against “The North Atlantic area“, it shall be regarded as an action covered by Article 5 of the Washington Treaty”. (emphasis added)

This historic decision was supported by media propaganda. There was no attack against the US by a foreign power. There were no Afghan jet fighters in the skies of New York. There was a terror event. But it was not an act of war by a foreign power against the United States of America.

Without a shred of evidence, Afghanistan was tagged as the state sponsor of the 9/11 high-jackers, all of whom were Saudi nationals. Allegedly Afghanistan was “protecting” 9/11 terror mastermind Osama bin Laden  (who was an “intelligence asset”, recruited in the early 1980s by the CIA ). Osama bin Laden’s whereabouts were known. On the 10th of September (as documented by Dan Rather CBS News) Osama had been admitted to the urology department of a military hospital in Rawalpindi, by America’s staunchest ally Pakistan.

Moreover, in the course of September and early October 2001, the Afghan Taliban government on two occasions contacted the US State Department through diplomatic channels and offered to extradite bin Laden to the U.S. This issue was not covered by the media.

Bush responded:” We do not negotiate with terrorists”.

Barely 4 weeks following the 9/11 attack on October 7, 2001, US-NATO invaded Afghanistan, invoking the doctrine of collective security. There was no evidence that “Afghanistan had attacked America” on September 11, 2001.

It is worth noting, confirmed by military analysts that you do not prepare a large scale theatre war in Central Asia, thousands of miles away in a matter of 28 days. This issue was casually dismissed by the mainstream media. The war on Afghanistan had been prepared PRIOR to 9/11.

US-NATO’s Role in Recruiting and Financing Al Qaeda Affiliated Terrorists

NATO has self-proclaimed mandate to go after the terrorists.

Yet there is ample evidence that NATO was involved in supporting as well as recruiting Al Qaeda affiliated mercenaries in Kosovo, Libya and Syria.(among other countries)

Video: NATO is Helping to Fight Terrorism Every Day  (Source NATO)

In Syria, from Day One (March 17, 2011), the Islamist “freedom fighters” were supported, trained and equipped by NATO and Turkey’s High Command. According to Israeli intelligence sources (Debka, August 14, 2011):

NATO headquarters in Brussels and the Turkish high command are meanwhile drawing up plans for their first military step in Syria, which is to arm the rebels with weapons for combating the tanks and helicopters spearheading the Assad regime’s crackdown on dissent. … NATO strategists are thinking more in terms of pouring large quantities of anti-tank and anti-air rockets, mortars and heavy machine guns into the protest centers for beating back the government armored forces. (DEBKAfile, NATO to give rebels anti-tank weapons, August 14, 2011)

This initiative, which was also supported by Israel, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States involved a process of organized recruitment of thousands of jihadist “freedom fighters”, reminiscent of  the enlistment of  the Mujahideen to wage the CIA’s jihad (holy war) in the heyday of the Soviet-Afghan war (1979-89).

In NATO’s war on Libya in 2011, support was channelled to the Al Qaeda affiliated jihadist opposition to the Gadaffi government.

The Legitimacy of  Humanitarian Warfare

The twisted justifications for US-NATO led wars are:

• “The Just War” (Jus ad Bellum). NATO contends that all its wars are morally justifiable. This is tantamount to legitimizing extensive war crimes.
• “The Global War on Terrorism”. The counter-terrorism campaign is fake. Amply documented, NATO is involved in supporting and recruiting jihadist mercenaries (Syria 2011).
• “Responsibility to Protect” (R2P) with a view to instilling (Trump style) Western “democracy” Worldwide.
• Pre-emptive war as a means of “self-defense”, Attack them before they attack us. This doctrine also pertains to nuclear weapons, i.e. blow up the planet as a means of ‘self-defense”
• RussiaGate, “Self-defense” against Russia under the doctrine of collective security
• Pivot to Asia, Targeting China.

Financing US-NATO led Wars

In recent developments, President Trump has proposed major spending cuts in health, education, social infrastructure “while seeking a large increase for the Pentagon”. At the outset of his administration, president Trump confirmed that he was increasing the budget for the nuclear weapons program launched by Obama from 1.0 trillion to 1.2 trillion dollars. The stated objective was to make the world safer.

Throughout the EU, extended military spending coupled with austerity measures is leading to the demise of what was called the “Welfare State”.

NATO is committed to increasing military spending. It is the right thing to do to “keep our people secure, according to NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg

Source NATO

This favors the weapons producers at the expense of social programs. Mass movements against neoliberal economic policy and social inequality (Yellow Vests) cannot, therefore, be divorced from the anti-war movement.

Globalization and the Corporate Power Structures

Global warfare sustains the Neoliberal Agenda and vice versa.

Neoliberalism broadly defined is not limited to a set of economic paradigms and structural reforms. What we are dealing with is an imperial project broadly serving powerful global overlapping interests:

• Wall Street and the Global Banking Apparatus
• The Military Industrial Complex,
• Big Oil,
• the Biotech conglomerates, Bayer-Monsanto et al
• Big Pharma,
• The Global Narcotics Economy and Organized Crime,
• the Media Conglomerates and the Information and Communication Technology Giants.

The military agenda is geared towards supporting and endorsing these powerful interests groups. There is of course within  these sectors, mounting conflict between global conglomerates, each of which have their lobby groups.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)

NATO and the De Facto US Military Occupation of Western Europe

70 years ago NATO was born. In April 1949, The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) established what was designated as the doctrine of “Collective Security” under Art. 5 of the Washington Treaty.

NATO has a sordid history of aggression and war crimes:

Ever since its founding in April 1949, NATO has served as the vehicle to spur the arms race in the name of ‘peace through strength’. In that very same year, the Truman Administration in the United States secretly developed “Operation Dropshot’ to launch a devastating ‘first-strike’ against the former Soviet Union to completely obliterate that country. Throughout the ‘cold war’ years, the U.S. and its NATO allies always maintained an overwhelming military superiority over the USSR and the Warsaw Pact – a fact that they cynically concealed from public view at the time, but now readily admit. (Canadian Peace Congress)

The unspoken objective of  NATO –which is of significance to our debate in Florence–, was to sustain under a different label, the de facto “military occupation” of Western Europe.  The US not only continues to “occupy” World War II “axis countries” (Italy, Germany), it has used the NATO emblem to install US military bases throughout Western Europe, as well as in Eastern Europe in the wake of the Cold War, extending into the Balkans in the wake of NATO’s war on Yugoslavia.

Today, NATO consists of  29 member states, most of which have US military facilities on their territory, with the largest deployments of US forces in Germany and Italy. Bear in mind these are not NATO bases. The latter are limited to command and logistics: e.g. SHAPE Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe, Casteau, Belgium, NATO Allied Command Transformation, Norfolk, Virginia

• 12 founding member states in 1949 Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal,
• Greece and Turkey (1952),
• Germany (1955),
• Spain (1982)
• Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland (1999),
• Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia (2004),
• Albania and Croatia (2009),
• Montenegro (2017)

A number of other countries have established partnership agreements with NATO. Israel is a de facto member of NATO, based on an agreement reached in 2003. In turn, the US has established a host of military alliances on a regional basis.

According to an unconfirmed source, In Italy, there are about 100 US military bases and facilities

We are at the juncture of the most serious crisis in World history. A Third World War using nuclear weapons is terminal. This is not an understatement. 

Military interventions are not limited to conventional warfare. What is at stake is a process of global warfare using advanced weapons systems. The safeguards of the Cold War era have been scrapped. The concept of “Mutually Assured Destruction” pertaining to the use of nuclear weapons has been replaced by the doctrine of preemptive nuclear war.

The INF Treaty is defunct. Nuclear weapons are portrayed by the media as peace-making bombs. They are no longer tagged as Weapons of Mass Destruction. They are to be used in what the Pentagon calls “bloody nose” operations.

In the 2001 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) under the Bush administration, the Pentagon introduced the notion of pre-emptive nuclear war, namely the use of nuclear weapons on a first strike basis as a means of “self defense”.

The new generation of so-called tactical nuclear weapons (mininukes) has been been categorized as “low yield” and “more usable. The US Senate in 2002 approved their use in the conventional war theater. They are contemplated for use against North Korea and Iran.

They are tagged as “safe to the surrounding civilian population because the explosion is underground.”  These “low yield” tactical nuclear bombs have an explosive capacity between one third and twelve times a Hiroshima bomb.

“More Usable” “Low Yield Nuclear Weapons Deployed in Five Non-Nuclear Weapons States: Germany, Italy, Belgium,The Netherlands, Turkey

It is worth noting that North Korea was the only declared nuclear weapons state which voted YES at the UN General Assembly, in favor of the prohibition of nuclear weapons under Resolution L.41.

Nobody knows about this. WHY: Because the mainstream media has not mentioned it (“Fake News” through Omission) or as in the case of The Guardian and Bloomberg, the DPRK was casually lumped together with the other nuclear weapons states which voted NO (against the resolution).

“Oops News”. “We made a mistake”. We did not really check the UN General Assembly documents.

Israel: “Undeclared Nuclear State”

The nuclear weapons capabilities of these five countries including delivery procedures are formally acknowledged. The US has supplied some 480 B61. thermonuclear bombs to five so-called “non-nuclear states”, including Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey. In recent developments the B61.11 mini-nukes are to replaced by the recently developed B61.12. Based on 2014 data Italy possesses 50 B61 tactical nuclear weapons at its Aviano base. It is unclear whether these bombs are under US or National Command.

Casually disregarded by the Vienna based UN Nuclear Watchdog (IAEA), the US has actively contributed to the proliferation of nuclear weapons in Western Europe. As part of this European stockpiling, Turkey, which is a partner of the US-led coalition against Iran along with Israel, possesses some 90 thermonuclear B61 bunker buster bombs at the Incirlik nuclear air base. (National Resources Defense Council, Nuclear Weapons in Europe , February 2005) By the recognised definition, these five countries are “undeclared nuclear weapons states”.

The stockpiling and deployment of tactical B61 in these five “non-nuclear states” are intended for targets in the Middle East. Moreover, in accordance with  “NATO strike plans”, these thermonuclear B61 bunker buster bombs (stockpiled by the “non-nuclear States”) could be launched  “against targets in Russia or countries in the Middle East such as Syria and Iran” ( quoted in National Resources Defense Council, Nuclear Weapons in Europe, February 2005)

Click to See Details and Map of Nuclear Facilities located in 5 European “Non-Nuclear States”

The stockpiled weapons are B61 thermonuclear bombs.  All the weapons are gravity bombs of the B61-3, -4, and -10 types.2 . Those estimates were based on private and public statements by a number of government sources and assumptions about the weapon storage capacity at each base .(National Resources Defense Council, Nuclear Weapons in Europe , February 2005)

Germany: Nuclear Weapons Producer

Among the five “undeclared nuclear states”, “Germany remains the most heavily nuclearized country with three nuclear bases (two of which are fully operational) and may store as many as 150 [B61 bunker buster ] bombs” (Ibid). In accordance with “NATO strike plans” (mentioned above) these tactical nuclear weapons are also targeted at the Middle East. While Germany is not categorized officially as a nuclear power, it produces nuclear warheads for the French Navy. It stockpiles nuclear warheads (made in America) and it has the capabilities of delivering nuclear weapons.

Moreover,  The European Aeronautic Defense and Space Company – EADS , a Franco-German-Spanish  joint venture, controlled by Deutsche Aerospace and the powerful Daimler Group is Europe’s second largest military producer, supplying .France’s M51 nuclear missile. Germany imports and deploys nuclear weapons from the US. It also produces nuclear warheads which are exported to France. Yet it is classified as a non-nuclear state.

Fidel’s Message on the Dangers of Nuclear War

In 2010, October 12 to 15, 2010, I had extensive and detailed discussions with Fidel Castro in Havana, pertaining to the dangers of nuclear war, the global economic crisis and the nature of the New World Order.

Fidel Castor and Michel Chossudovsky, October 2010

These meetings resulted in a wide-ranging and fruitful interview which was subsequently published by Global Research.

Recorded on the last day of the Conversations, October 15, 2010, Fidel Castro made the following statement:

In a nuclear war the “collateral damage” would be the life of all humanity.

Let us have the courage to proclaim that all nuclear or conventional weapons, everything that is used to make war, must disappear!

“The use of nuclear weapons in a new war would mean the end of humanity. This was candidly foreseen by scientist Albert Einstein who was able to measure their destructive capability to generate millions of degrees of heat, which would vaporize everything within a wide radius of action. This brilliant researcher had promoted the development of this weapon so that it would not become available to the genocidal Nazi regime.

Each and every government in the world has the obligation to respect the right to life of each and every nation and of the totality of all the peoples on the planet.

Today there is an imminent risk of war with the use of that kind of weapon and I don’t harbour the least doubt that an attack by the United States and Israel against the Islamic Republic of Iran would inevitably evolve towards a global nuclear conflict.

The World’s peoples have an obligation to demand of their political leaders their Right to Live. When the life of humankind, of your people and your most beloved human beings run such a risk, nobody can afford to be indifferent; not one minute can be lost in demanding respect for that right; tomorrow will be too late.

Albert Einstein himself stated unmistakably: “I do not know with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones”. We fully comprehend what he wanted to convey, and he was absolutely right, yet in the wake of a global nuclear war, there wouldn’t be anybody around to make use of those sticks and stones.

There would be “collateral damage”, as the American political and military leaders always affirm, to justify the deaths of innocent people.

In a nuclear war the “collateral damage” would be the life of all humanity.

Let us have the courage to proclaim that all nuclear or conventional weapons, everything that is used to make war, must disappear!”

Fidel Castro Ruz,  October 15, 2010

Flashback: The Unspoken History of Nuclear War 

The Manhattan Project established in 1939 together with Britain and Canada developed the first atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. What was the purpose of the Manhattan Project?  The official explanation is that it was America’s  response to Nazi Germany’s intent to develop the atomic bomb. Bear in mind, the Manhattan project was launched in 1939, two years prior to America’s participation in World War II.

What is never mentioned in the history of nuclear weapons is that the Manhattan Project had formulated a plan to use nuclear weapons against the Soviet Union as early as 1942. In other words, the Nuclear Arms Race was not the product of the Cold War. It took it roots during World War II when the US and the Soviet Union were allies. And present US military doctrine is largely a continuation of the nuclear weapons program initiated under the Manhattan Project:

According to a secret document dated September 15, 1945, “the Pentagon had envisaged blowing up the Soviet Union  with a coordinated nuclear attack directed against major urban areas.

All major cities of the Soviet Union were included in the list of 66 “strategic” targets. The tables below categorize each city in terms of area in square miles and the corresponding number of atomic bombs required to annihilate and kill the inhabitants of selected urban areas.

Six atomic bombs were to be used to destroy each of the larger cities including Moscow, Leningrad, Tashkent, Kiev, Kharkov, Odessa.

The Pentagon estimated that a total of 204 atomic bombs would be required to “Wipe the Soviet Union off the Map”. The targets for a nuclear attack consisted of sixty-six major cities.

To undertake this operation the “optimum” number of bombs required was of the order of 466 (see document below)

One single atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima resulted in the immediate death of 100,000 people in the first seven seconds. Imagine what would have happened if 204 atomic bombs had been dropped on major cities of the Soviet Union as outlined in a secret U.S. plan formulated during the Second World War. (Michel Chossudovsky, “Wipe the Soviet Union Off the Map”, 204 Atomic Bombs against 66 Major Cities, US Nuclear Attack against USSR Planned During World War II, Global Research, October 27,

The document outlining this diabolical military agenda had been released in September 1945, barely one month after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (6 and 9 August, 1945) and two years before the onset of the Cold War (1947).

Video produced by South Front

The secret plan dated September 15, 1945 (two weeks after the surrender of Japan on September 2, 1945 aboard the USS Missouri, see image below) , however, had been formulated at an earlier period, namely at the height of World War II,  at a time when America and the Soviet Union were close allies.

 War with Russia and China

Nuclear Weapons were contemplated to be used against Russia since 1942, and against China since October 1949

Currently, there are detailed plans by the US military (which are in the public domaine) to wage war against both Russia and China.

Four non-compliant countries including China, Russia, Iran and North Korea have been singled out.

World War III scenarios have been contemplated by the Pentagon for more than ten years. They are the object of military simulations (which are classified). Leaked to the Washington Post in 2006, see Vigilant Shield global war scenario using nuclear weapons against China, Russia, Iran, North Korea

At the outset of 2019, War against China and Russia is on the drawing board of the Pentagon. The use of nuclear weapons is contemplated on a preemptive first strike basis.

• Recent reports (2015-2018) commissioned by the Pentagon confirm the details of  Washington’s military agenda against China and Russia (see reports by the Rand Corporation’s  War against China project  and the 2018 National Defense Strategy Commission, War against China and Russia.
• On March 1st, 2018 president Vladimir Putin unveiled an array of advanced military technologies in response to renewed US threats to wipe the Russian Federation off the Map, as contained in Trump’s 2018 Nuclear Posture Review. 

Below is a review of detailed war plans  against Russia and China. These plans are in the public domaine. They are based on the premise that the US can win a nuclear war.

In May 2014, the  Russian Aggression Prevention Act (RAPA) was  introduced in the US Senate (S 2277), calling for the militarization of Eastern Europe and the Baltic States and the stationing of US and NATO troops on Russia’s doorstep:

S.2277 – Russian Aggression Prevention Act of 2014

Directs the President to: (1) implement a plan for increasing U.S. and NATO support for the armed forces of Poland, Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia, and other NATO member-states; and (2) direct the U.S. Permanent Representative to NATO to seek consideration for permanently basing NATO forces in such countries.

In 2018:  the US National Defense Strategy Commission report entitled “Providing for the Common Defense” outlines the contours of a war with Russia

Attack China Preemptively  (“In Self Defense”)

The report is notoriously ambiguous. It focusses on how a war can be avoided while analyzing the circumstances under which a preemptive war against China is a win for the US:

The presumption of this report is that China is threatening us, which justifies pre-emptive warfare. There is no evidence of  a Chinese military threat.  The purpose of the RAND report is that Chinese policymakers will read it. What we are dealing with is a process of military intimidation including veiled threats:

The concluding comments of the report underscore the potential weakness of China in relation to US-allied forces “…they do not point to Chinese dominance or victory.”

The report creates an ideological war narrative. It is flawed in terms of its understanding of modern warfare and weapons systems. It is largely a propaganda ploy directed against the Chinese leadership. It totally ignores Chinese history and China’s military perceptions which are largely based on defending the Nation’s historical national borders.

In other words, China has the option of being totally destroyed or surrendering to the US. The report concludes as follows:

Unconventional Warfare (UW)

Included in the Pentagon’s arsenal is the use of  various instruments of subversion including the support of  terrorist insurgencies as outlined the Army Special Operations Forces Unconventional Warfare manual (leaked by Wikileaks).

The emphasis is on using “surrogates”, namely irregular forces, non-state and paramilitary terrorist entities which will do the dirty work for us:

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