NATO. 73 years and not a day without a war

When and where did the United States and the countries of the North Atlantic Alliance leave their bloody trails after the Second World War

Since World War II, more than 250 military conflicts have taken place in 153 countries. Eighty percent of them were perpetrated by the US and its henchmen in NATO. In fact, there is not a single year out of 73 since the founding of NATO, when the military bloc would not take part in an armed conflict in any part of the world...
Over the 73 years of its existence, the alliance has not defended anyone, but only attacked, gradually turning into a tool for expanding American influence in the world.

Fatal mistake

The United States likes to emphasise its exclusivity, commitment to peace, freedom and democracy. And under these straplines, it is not considered a sin to invade a foreign country, bomb the civilian population, arrange another coup and plunder resources. The owners of the White House and their NATO allies are so convinced of their holiness and exclusivity that they had all but wiped out all norms of morality and law. 
The operation of NATO aggressors in North Korea, Vietnam, the Persian Gulf, Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria and other countries caused large-scale tragedies that claimed millions (!) of lives. 
In recent wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and other countries alone, 244,000 civilians have been killed. 
The United States invaded sovereign states, destroyed the established order there, as well as economy and infrastructure, brought disasters and misfortunes to these lands on various pretexts (‘protection of peace, human rights and democracy’, ‘countering the spread of communism’, ‘restoring justice’, ‘fighting terrorism’, ‘preventing the spread of weapons of mass destruction’).


The expansion of NATO to the East after the collapse of the USSR became the source of new problems and conflicts in the European region. Back in 1997, the famous American diplomat George Kennan said, “Expanding NATO would be the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-cold-war era… Such a decision may be expected to restore the atmosphere of the cold war to East-West relations, and to impel Russian foreign policy in directions decidedly not to our liking.”
In addition to direct involvement in conflicts, Americans and NATO forces often prefer to act indirectly. They support internal protests and riots, train ‘revolutionaries’, supply weapons and other assistance to the rebels.


 According to Deputy Speaker of the Federation Council of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation Konstantin Kosachev, the 21st century has finally made sense of it: NATO is not a security guarantor for Europe, but a guarantee of problems for its security. Not a solution, but a source of crises and conflicts, “The blindness of one’s own power and the certainty of always being ‘on the right side of history’ makes the alliance absolutely incapable of negotiating. And this is perhaps the saddest conclusion to this anniversary of the ‘dinosaur’ ideology of the Cold War.”



IN THE SEARCH FOR PEACE
Scientists at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University have calculated that 38 million people have been displaced on the planet as a result of the wars started by the United States and its NATO allies since September 2001. It should be noted that this is a conservative estimate, the researchers say. In fact, there may be 60 million such people, which exceeds the consequences of, for example, the Second World War.


FACTS AND FIGURES

Since September 11th, 2001, Americans have spent about $6.5 trillion on military affairs, mostly in the Middle East and Asia. 
 
 For 73 years, the number of NATO Member Countries has increased by 2.5 times — from 12 to 30. The maximum increase occurred in the period after 1990 — the end of the Cold War. At the very time when the USSR no longer existed, as well as the Warsaw Treaty Organisation, which means that there was no ‘Soviet threat’ anymore.

The USA and NATO made or tried to stage ‘colour revolutions’ in the post-Soviet space in Georgia (2003), Ukraine (2004, 2014), Kyrgyzstan (2005), Armenia (2008, 2015), Russia (2010, 2013), Belarus (2020) and Kazakhstan (2022).



  The major military operations involving the US and NATO countries since 1949

1950–1953 Korean War
US Secretary of State Dean Acheson claimed the territory as part of the American defence perimeter in 1950. Taking advantage of the USSR boycott of the UN Security Council, the Americans led the military intervention of UN forces on the Korean Peninsula. As a result of the war, four million Koreans died, and the peninsula was divided by the 38th parallel.

1959 Laotian Civil War
The American bombing of Laos was part of a covert attempt by the CIA to wrest power from a communist group allied with North Vietnam and the USSR. During the entire period of the war (1959-1975), the United States dropped about 3 million tonnes of bombs on the territory of Laos, an average of 10 tonnes per square kilometre and half a tonne per inhabitant of Laos. The number of dead is still impossible to calculate.

1964–1975 Vietnam War
Many books have been written about American war crimes during this war. ‘Human rights defenders’ not only killed thousands of civilians, raped women, burned livestock, destroyed crops, but also sprayed poison over the fields — millions of tonnes of highly toxic chemicals. During the war years, three million people died in the country.

1989 ‘Defending democracy’ in Panama
In December 1989, US aircraft attacked the cities of Panama, airborne and disembarked personnel and equipment. The operation lasted only five days. As a result, a regime loyal to the United States was established in Panama. On the Panamanian side, 68 military and about 500 civilians were killed.

1995 The shelling of Bosnia and Herzegovina
The NATO Deliberate Force air operation against the Bosnian Serbs lasted 16 days. According to the latest data, the total number of deaths in the Bosnian War (1992-1995) was about 100,000 people.

1999 Destruction of Yugoslavia
Nineteen NATO countries participated in the Operation Allied Force military operation against Yugoslavia. From March 24th to June 10th, 1999, the aircraft of the alliance carried out about 2,300 missile and bomb strikes against 990 targets in Serbia and Montenegro. The total number of dead civilians was more than 2,500 people, including 400 children, about 10,000 people were seriously injured. The Americans, with the support of their satellites, achieved the breakup of a single country into separate states.

2001 War in Afghanistan
The war in Afghanistan has become the longest conflict in the history of NATO. Fifty thousand dead Afghan civilians, almost completely destroyed economy and millions of refugees were the result of the 20-year military operation called Operation Enduring Freedom.                The Americans and their allies were forced to leave the country in disgrace, so the Taliban came to power.

2003 Invasion of Iraq
The war in Iraq turned out to be an even bigger setback for the US and its allies. Having overthrown President Saddam Hussein, the American fighters did not become heroes for the people of Iraq. From 655,000 to 1,000,000 people died during the hostilities and occupation of Iraq. Anger against the Americans resulted in the rise of radical Islam in the region.

2011 Air strikes on Libya
In 2011, the NATO coalition invaded Libya without any sanction of the international community, killed the Head of State, Muammar Gaddafi, and plunged the country into chaos. The civil confrontation is still going on in the country. According to various estimates, from 15,000 to 30,000 people died during the armed confrontation. 

2014 Intervention in the Syrian civil war
A military coalition led by the United States, with the active participation of Great Britain, Canada and other countries, intervened in the internal affairs of Syria in order to overthrow the country’s President Bashar al-Assad. According to various estimates, from 585,000 to 1,000,000 Syrians died during the years of the war.

By Yevgeny Kononovich
Open source photos