NATO is now a Global alliance, not the original bloc of North Atlantic Nations

Participation of Australia, New Zealand, Japan and South Korea at Hague summit significant

- BY SEVIM DAGDELEN

At the NATO summit in The Hague on June 24 and 25, heads of state and government decided on the most significant assault on the European welfare state since World War II. US President Donald Trump gives the orders, and Europe follows like lemmings. NATO plans to spend $3 trillion on armaments equivalent to 5 per cent of GDP by 2035. That nearly doubles defence spending over the next decade, even though NATO already spends more than all other nations combined.

This massive militarisation will be paid for through cuts to pensions, healthcare, education, social services, and infrastructure. Massive debt programmes won't save future generations from ruin. The summit triggers the most profound social cuts in post-war European history.

NATO is a nostalgic, even romantic alliance it dwells in past glories, as if time froze 50 years ago. The current arms build-up is often defended by citing similar defence-to-GDP ratios from the 1960s and '70s. But then, economic growth averaged 6.4 per cent yearly in West Germany, compared to -0.3 per cent in 2023, -0.2 per cent in 2024, and projected further decline in 2025.

Invoking the past thus distorts today’s militarisation, which like fascism can end only in war and conquest. NATO is also outdated because the global South has shifted the world order: BRICS now account for 40 per cent of global GDP (with Indonesia just joining), while the G7 makes up only 29 per cent compared to two-thirds in 2006.

Efforts to cut BRICS off from key technologies through export controls (like the cold war’s COCOM list) are doomed: China leads 37 of 44 critical tech fields. The strategy of hyper-armament is turning into a boomerang. NATO topples itself. The threat of overextension is palpable especially as US allies are burdened to hold the global order together.