by Stephen Lendman

US-dominated NATO's post-Cold War transformation into a global police force threatens humanity's survival. America calls the shots.

Involving NATO in wars on three continents - Europe, Asia and Africa. After Soviet Russia's dissolution, the Alliance expanded exponentially.

From 16 to 28 members. Twenty-two Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council (EAPC) ones. Seven Mediterranean Dialogue countries. Four Istanbul Cooperation Initiative (ICI) states.

Comprising nearly one-third of world nations. Planning much more expansion. Intending new members and partners.

On all continents. Virtually everywhere. For a US-controlled global military alliance. A dagger at humanity's heart.

According to Stop NATO founder/editor Rick Rozoff:

"Post-Cold War NATO has repeatedly and without disguise identified its purview and its area of operations to be international in scope, and over the past 22 years its efforts to achieve that objective have steadily accelerated to the point where the military alliance is well poised to supplant the United Nations as the main, indeed the exclusive, arbiter of conflicts not only between but within nations throughout the world."

"A US-dominated armed bloc which includes three nuclear powers and accounts for an estimated 70 percent of global military spending has expanded deployments, operations and partnerships around the planet."

Rozoff quoted former UN Assistant Secretary-General/Iraq humanitarian coordinator Hans von Sponeck's scathing denunciation, saying:

"In 1999, NATO acknowledged that it was seeking to orient itself according to a new fundamental strategic concept."

"From a narrow military defense alliance it was to become a broad-based alliance for the protection of the vital resources needs of its members."

"Besides the defense of member states’ borders, it set itself new purposes such as assured access to energy sources and the right to intervene in ‘movements of large numbers of persons’ and in conflicts far from the boarders of NATO countries."

"The readiness of the new alliance to include other countries, particularly those that had previously been part of the Soviet Union, shows how the character of this military alliance has altered.”

“(T)he United Nations monopoly of the use of force, especially as specified in Article 51 of the Charter, was no longer accepted according to the 1999 NATO doctrine."

"NATO’s territorial scope, until then limited to the Euro-Atlantic region, was expanded by its member to encompass the whole world in keeping with a strategic context that was global in its sweep."

US-dominated NATO intends replacing the UN, says Rozoff. Initially as its military wing. Heading toward becoming an unstoppable freedom-crushing monster.

Operating globally. Proliferating violence and instability. Ravaging and destroying one country after another.

Raping them. Plundering them. Stealing their resources. Exploiting their people. Claiming exceptionalism and moral superiority.

Waging permanent wars in the name of peace. State terror on an unimaginable scale.

Replacing independent governments with pro-Western stooge ones. Making the world safe for monied interests.

Risking East/West confrontation. Possible global war. Threatening world peace. It hangs by a thread.

Perhaps severed if Ukraine joins NATO. Something Russia won't tolerate. Both countries share a nearly 1,500 kilometer land and sea border.

As an Alliance member, Ukraine threatens Russia's security. It took the first step toward NATO membership. Its parliament voting 303 - 8 for closer military/strategic Western ties.

By rescinding its nonaligned status. A 2010 pollcy of "non-participation…in military-political alliances."

Illegitimate oligarch president Petro Poroshenko is Washington's man in Kiev. He prioritized changing Ukraine's status.

To "deepen cooperation with NATO in order to achieve the criteria required for membership in this organization."

Russia intends going all-out to stop it. Putin spokesman Dmitri Peskov saying "(w)e would like to hear a 100 percent guarantee that no one would think about Ukraine's joining NATO."

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg calls the "idea of giving some kind of guarantee…against the fundamental principles on which we are basing our security."

"It's up to each and every independent nation to decide itself what kind of security arrangements it wants to be part of," he said.

"So therefore there is no way we can guarantee. Or we don't want to deliver that kind of guarantees; because we are basing our policies on the open-door policy."

"Countries should decide themselves whether they want to become member of a military alliance as NATO or not."

"No third country outside NATO can veto the enlargement of NATO. That's a relationship between NATO and the aspirant country."

Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov called ending Ukraine's nonaligned status "counterproductive. It only pumps up confrontation, and creates the illusion that by passing such laws it is possible to settle a deep domestic crisis within Ukraine."

"A much more productive and sensible path is to start, at last, a dialogue with that part of their own people which has been completely ignored since the state coup was carried out."

"There is no other way. Only constitutional reform, with participation of all regions and political forces of Ukraine, can give a correct tone."

Russian lower house State Duma international affairs committee head Leonid Slutsky said rescinding nonaligned status "may mount tension in Russian-Ukrainian relations. (It'll) complicate restoration of very difficult talks."

United Russia party first deputy head Frants Klintsevich called Kiev's action "a direct challenge to Russia."

Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev was uncharacteristically harsh. Suggesting an appropriate Russian response.

"The US president signed an anti-Russian law empowering any US president to introduce sanctions against Russia anytime," he said.

"Like it was with the Jackson-Vanik amendment, our relations with America will be poisoned for decades to come."

"The Ukrainian President has submitted to (its parliament a bill on dropping the country's off-bloc status or, in essence, an application for joining NATO, which turns Ukraine into a potential enemy of Russia."

"Both decisions will have extremely deplorable aftermaths and our country will have to react to them."

Deputy State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said NATO has an open door policy,

"Countries that are willing to contribute to security in the Euro-Atlantic space are welcome to apply for membership. Each application will be considered on the merits."

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon reacted as expected. Through his spokesman. Saying Ukraine…has the sovereign right to decide on its own future."

Ignoring Kiev's putschist government illegitimacy. With no right to decide anything.

Following Tuesday's parliamentary vote, Poroshenko posted a Facebook comment saying "(f)inally we have rectified the error."

"European and Euro-Atlantic integration is a non-alternative way for Ukraine." Days earlier he called refusal to join NATO in 2010 "the (greatest) mistake of the former Ukrainian leadership."

NATO's Article 10 explains its membership process, saying:

"The Parties may by unanimous agreement, invite any other European State in a position to further the principles of this Treaty and to contribute to the security of the North Atlantic area to accede to this Treaty."

"Any State so invited may become a Party to the Treaty by depositing its instrument of accession with the Government of the United States of America."

"The Government of the United States of America will inform each of the Parties of the deposit of each such instrument of accession."

Article 4 calls for members to "consult together whenever, in the opinion of any of them, the territorial integrity, political independence, or security of any" is threatened.

Article 5 considers an armed attack (real or otherwise) against one or more members, an attack against all. Collective self-defense is called for.

NATO membership requires ratifying and implementing numerous standardization agreements (STANAGs).

So weapons, equipment, communications procedures, processes and procedures comply with common guidelines.

Ukraine is nowhere near up to NATO standards. Nor will it be any time soon. It's close to economic collapse. Needs tens of billions of dollars to avoid bankruptcy.

Spends its resources servicing Western banker debt. Waging war on Donbas. Replenishing evaporating foreign exchange reserves. Paying for Russian gas supplies.

It'll take years at best to resolve its economic crisis conditions. No matter. The die is cast. Expect eventual Ukraine inclusion in NATO.

New US bases near Russia's border. Targeting its heartland. Flashpoint conditions for potential conflict.

Ukraine is a NATO partner. The Alliance pledge support.

Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told illegitimate prime minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk "NATO stands with you." An ominous sign of things to come.

-###-

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

His new book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks World War III".

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network.

It airs three times weekly: live on Sundays at 1PM Central time plus two prerecorded archived programs.