British Foreign Minister Liz Truss made at an important meeting in London on April 27 the following statement: “NATO must have a global perspective. We need to avert threats in the Indo-Pacific by working with allies like Japan and Australia to ensure the Pacific is protected.” “We need to ensure that democracies like Taiwan can defend themselves,” she added. (1)
Regarding this statement, which directly targets China, the Chinese Foreign Ministry attitudinize that “Look at the one who makes somebody talk, not the one who is talking!”
QUAD, AUKUS, global NATO’s steps
In order to militarily surround China, the Biden administration has not only declared to maintain the “QUAD”, made of the US, Japan, India, and Australia. It has additionally announced the trilateral security agreement AUKUS between Australia, the UK, and the USA on September 15, 2021. According to the agreement, the United States and the United Kingdom will help Australia acquire nuclear-powered submarines. The AUKUS agreement had caused a strong reaction from France. On the other hand, India, which is considered the backbone of QUAD, did not comply with the requests of the USA in Russia’s Ukraine operation and took a position with Russia.
Although these developments dash the US’s simple hopes, the Biden administration is trying to “put its tail up”. As a matter of fact, the ASEAN “Special Summit” with the US has come to the fore now. At the Summit, which was scheduled for last year but postponed to this year, 8 leaders of the 10-nation ASEAN union will be hosted in Washington, the US capital, on 12 and 13 May. (2)
Philippines President Dutarte does not participate due to election reasons. The United States did not recognize the military administration in Myanmar. Other members of ASEAN, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore, Brunei, Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, announced that they would attend the Summit.
ASEAN members have been forced to choose between the West and China since the mid-2010s. China reacted by actualizing RCEP, the world’s largest and most emancipatory regional economic cooperation agreement, which has counterbalanced the attacks of the West.
Australia, Japan, South Korea, and New Zealand attended the NATO Foreign Ministers Meeting for the second time on 6-7 April 2022. NATO’s expansion into the Asia Pacific Region has been made an official part of the “NATO 2030 Agenda”. Washington also announced that ASEAN members could join the QUAD, along with the USA, Australia, India, and Japan.
South Korea’s first partnership agreement with NATO
According to South Korean news agency Yonhap, South Korea’s central intelligence agency said in a statement on May 5, 2022 that it had joined the “NATO Cyber Defense Center of Excellence” as the first Asian member.
Cyber defense is part of the collective defense, which is the main task of the military alliance. By collaborating with South Korea’s spy agency, NATO is trying to turn the Korean peninsula into a chess piece for controlling China and Russia in the cyber defense field.
The newly elected Yoon Suk-yeol is expected to strengthen South Korea’s ties with the United States. It has been announced that US President Biden will visit Japan and South Korea on May 20-24. South Korea is considering also attending the NATO summit scheduled for the end of June. Yoon also announced that he would “positively review” South Korea’s participation in the Quad if invited.
By moving NATO to the East, the USA aims to seriously undermine the economic development of Asia, which is the leading power of developing countries, its growth by sharing, and the increase in the welfare of the people.
NATO’s relations with its four partners in the Asia-Pacific, Australia, Japan, the Republic of Korea and New Zealand, play a key role in achieving the “Global NATO” target. In December 2020, the four Asia-Pacific partners attended a NATO Foreign Ministers Meeting for the first time. At this milestone meeting, NATO Foreign Ministers, together with the four Asia-Pacific partners, as well as Finland, Sweden, and the Vice President of the European Commission, identified China as the archenemy.
In the North Atlantic Council, “NAC+4” meetings are held with the ambassadors of four countries. Regular meetings continue at other political and military levels. At the NATO Brussels Summit in June 2021, members agreed to increase dialogue and practical cooperation between NATO and existing partners, including the four partners in the Asia-Pacific region.
Alongside the “NAC+4” format, individual partnership cooperation programs are also conducted with each of NATO’s four Asia-Pacific partners, with various cooperation activities including cyber defense, non-proliferation, civil preparedness, and Women, Peace, and Security. (3) These efforts bore fruit with South Korea’s formal involvement in NATO’s cyber defense.
It started with the “crusade” in 2001
In the 2000s, NATO’s relations with countries outside the Euro-Atlantic region developed rapidly. The initiator of this development was the “Crusade” against Afghanistan under NATO umbrella. It was the then US President George Bush who defined this attack and invasion as the “Crusade”.
The 9/11 plot in New York led to the implementation of Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty for the first time in NATO history. According to the article, an attack on a member has deemed to be an attack on all members. On October 4, 2001, NATO decided that the attacks were in accordance with the provisions of Article 5 and launched the attack on Afghanistan, which lasted 20 years and ended in defeat.
The extension of NATO to the Asia-Pacific region, which the USA is trying to achieve with all its might, started with the Afghanistan attack. Countries like Australia, New Zealand, and Singapore have sent troops to the ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) in Afghanistan. Japan and South Korea, on the other hand, have contributed directly or indirectly to NATO’s attack on Afghanistan. The development of relations between Australia and New Zealand with NATO is largely based on sending troops to ISAF. Therefore, unlike Japan-NATO relations, the central pillar of Australia-NATO and New Zealand-NATO relations is military cooperation.
Without NATO, Australia and New Zealand would not have participated in international military work in Afghanistan. After joining ISAF, Australia and other countries were more involved in intelligence sharing. They were invited to policy-making and then encouraged to demand more say in decision-making. Australia, which has more than 1000 soldiers participating in the conflicts in the south of Afghanistan and has issued an apology through the Chief of General Staff for targeting the Afghan poor alive, has the country that voiced these issues the most. NATO also met these demands.
Under the cover of ISAF, Defense Ministers’ meetings were held regularly. Meetings held within the framework of the Policy Coordination Group between “partners around the world” who allocate troops and NATO also allowed for more comprehensive “consultations”.
It started with Korea, it will be buried in Korea
NATO’s first international war was fought against Korea in 1950. Unfortunately, Turkey’s rulers at that time committed the most calamitous mistake in the history of the Republic. They sent the “Mehmetçik”, as the Turkish soldier is called by the people and who was a “hero” in the defense of the homeland, 10 thousand km away for the benefit of US imperialism. They turned him into the “23 cent soldiers”, as our great poet Nazım Hikmet described perfectly. Moreover, one thousand five hundred Mehmetçik were sacrificed to the politics of betrayal. These lives were counted as a deposit payment for Turkey’s NATO membership. What a pity!
Chasing after Biden’s clumsy aggression increases the price pay that they will of both NATO members and countries forced to join NATO. The USA is trying to regain the world hegemony it lost by expanding NATO and with entering military adventures. But “it’s all water under the bridge” now. The attacks made by the USA with the claim of lion roar are accepted as the howl of a coyote. Now, the initiative is in developing countries, as seen by the Russian military action in Ukraine. European countries, which fall into heedlessness of following the USA, realize that they shoot themselves in the foot. The victory of Afghanistan, which put the USA on the ground, gave hope to the oppressed nations. They failed to overthrow the Assad regime, which resisted heroically in Syria. China and Russia formed a rock-solid combined power. In Africa, South America, and South Asia, the wave of independence of the states swelled. Anti-imperialism is on the rise worldwide.
Afghanistan’s rescue from the US occupation, under the leadership of the Taliban, mobilized anti-imperialism among Muslims. The Muslim population of more than one billion in the Asia-Pacific region will also take action against the new “Crusader” attack of the USA. In Pakistan, Imran Khan, who was taken from the position of prime minister by the USA, is the flag bearer of this great struggle.
We can confidently determine that efforts to expand eastward are bringing NATO closer to its grave.
Conclusion: Turkey’s historical responsibility
The Turkish nation, one of the vanguards of the Asian Age, continues to be the first in the world against the USA. We crushed Gladio, NATO’s real instrument of domination, on July 15-16, and we removed NATO’s molars in Turkey. While the big European states continued to submit to Gladio with whimpering, it was possible for Turkey to break new ground thanks to the Vatan Party.
NATO has surrounded Turkey with military bases on three fronts. NATO intensifies its hostility towards Turkey with arrogance and drumming. It put on the payroll 17,500 PKK militants, whom it described as “my black power”, at the Pentagon. Finally, it removed PKK-occupied areas in Syria from US sanctions on Syria.
Yes, NATO officers are in prison, but NATOism can still find supporters in Turkey. The AK Party administration knows the machete of its executioner, with its policy of “speaking in favor of both sides of a matter”. This situation imposes a historical responsibility on the Turkish nation. Turkey has to veto the moving of NATO to the Asia Pacific region. This is the only way to make up for the big mistake we made while entering NATO.