Resist Nato!

On 18th March 2025 the Bundestag [the German parliament] voted to change the German constitution to allow unlimited debt for military spending. A majority of the “old” parliamentarians, who were voted out on 23rd February, revealed their plans to expand German imperialism by preparing the country for war at the expense of its residents.
The Bundestag has set aside a 500 billion euro special fund for “infrastructure,” meaning the military. Instead of investing in basic needs and public social services like schools, hospitals and smaller initiatives that uphold social welfare, Germany is investing in anti-social warfare.
Although Christian Democratic Union leader and likely next Chancellor Joachim-Friedrich Merz claims this fund is to “defend” Germany from Russian attack and the need for Nato, the German government is playing into the hands of weapons companies seizing the billion-dollar cash-in from the arms race, and US imperialism that has turned its attention to the Asia-Pacific region in its preparation for war with China.
The law is a pathway to weaponise public spending – a service that won’t be returned. Imperialist countries fuel global conflict, colonialism and conquest by supplying weapons, exploiting land and resources and forcing people from their homes. All the while, they use migrants as easy scapegoats to gain votes and at the same time profit off the backs of exploited migrant workers. Out of proportion with the growing inflation, salaries won’t rise, and several sectors are on strike due to burnout of health care workers and loss of public funding. We will not bow down.
Yet military facilities grow. Volkswagen factories’ management are resuming conversations with weapons factory supplier Rheinmetall to repurpose the car factories into military infrastructure for production. These are the same factories once used to fuel the war economy of Germany in the 1930s.
While millions of euros are spent on “defence” the people will suffer. In Berlin and across Germany, cuts to social services, education, health care and welfare programmes leave many people unsupported – especially working people, migrants, women, LGBT people and children.
Rather than seeking solutions to the root causes of violence on the continent, Germany is playing a leading role in militarising the European Union for the benefit of the arms industry.
These cracks in the US-led Nato alliance are an opportunity for the anti-war, anti-fascist and pro-people movements to expose the German parties and Nato for their fundamental role in causing instability and violence across the world, from Palestine to the Philippines.
At the same time as the vote, people gathered across Germany to raise their voices against Germany’s warmongering and further militarization. Let us unite against our primary enemy, US imperialism and its European lackeys.
We oppose Germany’s imperialist expansion of the war machine! We call on all anti-war, anti-fascist and peace-loving people to join the RESIST NATO 2025 Campaign.
The organisations of Resist NATO 2025 are conducting an education and mobilization campaign to mount mass opposition from across Europe and around the world to directly confront the NATO Summit in The Hague, Netherlands, happening this coming June.

Escalation leads both ways

 In a final act of madness Joe Biden has sanctioned the use of NATO-supplied weapons of mass destruction against the Russians in Ukraine. Shamefully, the Starmer government has followed suit on a blatantly obvious attempt to stymie any efforts by the incoming Trump team to end the conflict. It didn’t take long for Biden’s Ukrainian puppets to do their master’s bidding launching American long-range rockets and British-made Storm Shadow missiles on targets deep inside Russian territory.
These decisions by the US and British governments were made without any debate or decision by the US Congress or the Westminster Parliament. The Stop the War Coalition is calling on Starmer and Biden to stop these provocations immediately and to focus on securing a negotiated end to the war while Jeremy Corbyn wants Starmer to explain to the public whether we are now “at war” with Russia,
Corbyn, who now leads the Independent Alliance in parliament, says Starmer “must tell the British public if this means we are now at war with a nuclear power, what risk this poses to people in Britain, and why this action was taken without any approval from parliament. As we edge closer and closer to catastrophe, we should be doing everything in our power to bring about de-escalation and peace. Instead, our political leaders have added fuel to the fire and gambled with people’s lives for political gain”.
What happens next nobody knows. Biden’s provocation clearly crosses a Russian red line. The Kremlin has, so far, not responded in kind. But Vladimir Putin, the Russian leader, warns that use of such Western-made systems in the conflict has drastically changed its nature. “A regional Ukraine conflict instigated by the West has acquired elements of a global one,” he said. Russia’s air defence systems have successfully repelled all the attacks made with these Western long-range missile systems. “The goals that have apparently been set by the enemy have not been achieved,” he said.
Russia reserves the right to strike the military facilities of countries that allow their weapons to be used against Russian territory Putin said. “We will determine the targets during further tests of our newest missile systems based on the threats to the security of the Russian Federation. We believe that we have the right to use our weapons against the military facilities of those countries that allow their weapons to be used against our facilities”.
Russia has always favoured a peaceful resolution and the Russian Federation is ready to resolve all contentious issues. “But we are also ready for any development. Do not doubt it, there will always be a response”.
Donald Trump has long said that he’s going to swiftly end the Ukraine war which he rightly sees as a drain on American resources while serving no purpose for the American people. But he put out mixed messages on Ukraine during his campaign for the presidency, rhetorically posing as the peace candidate yet having a friendly meeting with Ukraine’s President Vladimir Zelensky at Trump Tower in September. We’ll soon see one way or the other which way Trump turns – or indeed what other tricks Biden has up his sleeve to wrong-foot the incoming Trump administration.
Escalation works both ways. These long-range British and American missile systems cannot be used without the direct involvement of Western military specialists and there clearly will be long-term repercussions unless there is a speedy return to the negotiating table.

NATO: Notorious, Aggressive and Threatening

by John Maryon

The American-led North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, NATO, was founded in April 1949.  As an imperialist military alliance it was seen as a clear threat to peace in Europe by the Soviet Union.  In response when West Germany joined a few years later the Warsaw Pact was established, to counter the new threat in May 1955.  Following the collapse of the Soviet Union the Warsaw Pact was dissolved in February 1991. NATO however continued to exist.        
And without the Warsaw Pact to hold it to account NATO soon revealed its true purpose.  In spite of assurances given to the new neo-liberal regime in Moscow it acted quickly with armed aggression against Yugoslavia followed by Afghanistan and Libya.  The alliance was expanded up to Russia's border. Yugoslavia was destroyed by the now familiar tactic of fermenting conflict as an excuse to send in the bombers. The Chinese embassy in Belgrade was deliberately attacked.  NATO attempted to take over Georgia but by this time Russia had woken up and the plot failed. Today the new NATO crime is Project Ukraine. 
NATO’s proxy war in Ukraine, which had been planned in the 1990s and commenced in February 2014, is its latest act of aggression.  Power was seized in a coup by the pro-Western bourgeoisie allied with neo-fascists and criminal elements. Pyotr Simonenko of the Communist Party of Ukraine said "it was through these forces that the USA unleashed a fratricidal civil war against the citizens of Donbas who are upholding their constitutional rights and freedoms".  Opposition parties are banned, their leaders imprisoned and trade unionists have been murdered. 
Project Ukraine has four principal objectives.  Firstly to weaken and destabilise Russia with the aim of regime change.  Secondly to expand NATO up to Russia's border and gain full military control of the Black Sea. Thirdly to steal the minerals and rich fertile soil areas that were once the bread basket of the USSR. Fourthly to dominate the region by expanding the malignant control of the European Union.  Project Ukraine is failing as Russia continues to win the war of attrition. The tragic conflict, like all of NATO S other adventures, has destroyed a country and led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people. 
NATO has just held its 75th Anniversary summit in Washington.  Sustained by hate, fear, greed and hysteria the aggressive organisation fans confrontation and sabotages peace.  Hungarian Prime Minister, Viktor Orban, one of its few Western critics, has said that NATO should focus on peace rather than engage in wars.  Russian commentators have noted that the US and its allies are mobilising maximum resources to preserve their collapsing hegemony.  NATO preaches security, freedom and human rights while causing death and destruction on a large scale. 
The 75th NATO conference was itself a public relations debacle.  President Biden introduced President Zelensky as President Putin.  The Turkish President, Recep Erdogan, made strong criticism of Biden's role in the Gaza conflict and blasted US complicity in war crimes in regard  to the murder of civilians and the targeting of hospitals and Aid centres with US supplied weapons. He called for sanctions against Israel and an immediate halt to the genocide taking place. As expected no peace proposals were adopted at the summit.  The gathering of almost all clowns, lame ducks, failed politicians and neo-con war mongers enabled Europe's most boring and incompetent so-called leaders to bond and agree to promote and finance more wars. 
China, unlike NATO, has put forward it's own peace proposals to end the war in Ukraine.  The 2021 Brussels NATO Summit communique demonstrated its hostility towards the People's Republic by alleging systematic challenges to the “Rules (US Rules) Based International Order”. The policy was taken a step further at the Washington Summit with claims that Beijing is helping Russia with its special military operation in Ukraine. The Chinese foreign ministry has said in response that NATO was smearing China with fabricated disinformation. Under the Belt and Road Initiative China has invested billions of yuan in European infrastructure upgrades. US-led NATO is mulling the seizing of these investments.  If they were foolish enough to take this option no-one would be prepared to invest in Europe and a number of Middle-Eastern countries may then withdraw all their money. 
While ignoring the critical state of their own economies the NATO allies of the US continue to impose sanctions against China and Russia which are backfiring badly.  They have also committed to spending 2.5 per cent of their GDP on the military. Arms suppliers must be rubbing their hands with glee, particularly as no peace initiatives were forthcoming at the meeting.  Germany, the industrial and economic powerhouse of  Western Europe, is on a self imposed road to de-industrialisation and economic collapse by following US diktat. A situation made worse by the terrorist attack on the Nord Stream pipelines which could not have taken place without the knowledge and convenience of NATO. This in my book makes NATO a terrorist organisation which Britain should leave at once. 
New threats against China, if carried out, would turn a crisis into a disaster for much of the European Union.  Sinister moves to expand NATO to the Pacific region have led China and Russia to take steps to deepen their strategic partnership. Claims by the Western media that China is a security threat have no basis in reality.  China, unlike the USA, does not have 800 military bases round the world or killed millions of people in endless wars. China seeks peace and international cooperation. 
The world is changing rapidly. American hegemony is being challenged and new emerging economies are increasingly using non-dollar currency payment exchange.  NATO states remain in denial and are still stuck in a colonial mindset. They are no longer in a position to dominate as in the past.  NATO is, however, still a serious threat to world peace as it's actions continue to create tension and conflict with a constant risk of another world war.  In 2020 Britain contributed £1,000 per person to NATO coffers to promote war. That money is urgently needed to save essential public services and repair a crumbling infrastructure.  Say no to NATO now for a peaceful and prosperous new world for us all to enjoy. 

Britain joins the war in Ukraine

by K Hill

While the US has brought about regime change in Ukraine with the Maidan coup in 2014, installing a thinly disguised neo-Nazi government of Banderites and corrupt politicians to loot its resources, sell its land and saddle it with massive debts thanks to dodgy IMF loans, the UK has been heavily involved in the training of their military – now the second largest European army (after Turkey) in NATO.
The UK involvement has involved everything from bringing Ukrainian commanders for "special training" in the UK, Nazi tattoos on show much to the embarrassment of the British media, to the existence of special advisors, in reality SAS and SBS units, to supervise "on the ground" the attacks on Snake Island and Kerch Bridge.
This is the real reason our British press has been so obsessed with these two "targets" over the past two years, despite their lack of strategic importance, because they are great PR and distract the British public from the grim reality of millions of dead and wounded Ukrainians over the past years.
This is a war Ukraine can't win, never could win, but a war that the UK along with the US said would be worth it because if the Ukrainians "weakened Russia" they would be rewarded with European Union and NATO membership – despite the fact that they didn't qualify, and never would. Now the EU and NATO are so weak, they may well become members simply because both are on their last legs, completely ruined by this unwinnable war along with the rest of Europe and the UK.
When offered more than reasonable terms of peace by Russia, the US sent Boris Johnson to persuade Zelensky to continue the war, while the US funded billions of dollars of "loans" Ukraine can never repay to stay in the war, knowing they would be defeated, but determined they should keep on fighting until Biden is re-elected.
The tragedy is that Ukraine could never win "the war" and the Americans knew that. Russia has more and better weapons than NATO, can produce more and better weapons than NATO can in the future, even if Europe and the UK move to a "war economy". Russia now has a bigger, better trained armed forces than NATO, although it didn't before the Americans provoked this war in 2014. In fact Russia was reducing its armed forces in order to focus more on rebuilding its economy after US sanctions and building up international relationships with other victims of American imperialism.
Sanctions have now bankrupted the West, and BRICS will make US hegemony irrelevant, but the UK's real humiliation has come with Sunak's admission that the UK won't "directly fight Russia", because it exposes the fact that we already have been secretly fighting Russia for a decade, in an unwinnable war that has exposed our complete inability to do anything but start what we cannot finish.

Sweden: swapping Kurds for NATO

by Evgeny Glebov

NATO has a lot to gain from Sweden's entry into the transatlantic military bloc. Sweden is one of the few Western countries that has maintained it own strong industrial manufacturing sector and its own military industry. Swedish weapons are modern and effective and are listed on the world market.
    Geography is also important: Sweden's accession would turn the Baltic and North Seas into NATO lakes. Russia still has small areas along the Baltic coast of the Kaliningrad enclave and the St Petersburg region. But even without conflict Swedish accession to NATO would still pose problems to Russian shipping. In fact the Swedish, Danish, Norwegian press, for example, are already openly discussing how to cause economic damage to Russian shipping in peacetime.
    And it's very easily done. Why do the Swedes and Finns need to raise their navies to NATO standards? The answer is to conduct coordination and general naval exercises with the Western alliance. Why?
    Well large sections of the sea will inevitably be closed for these exercises, and commercial vessels will have to bypass these sections, get stuck in straits, stand in line for pilotage, etc, etc. And note – all of this without any formal hostile activity.
    Covert hostile reconnaissance and sabotage penetration, including underwater, will also be facilitated.
    It is also important to note that the Swedes, who have been neutral for more than two centuries, are not simply abandoning it. They are going to immediately join the most aggressive military bloc on the planet. It is a very sad signal for the countries not only of the Non-Aligned Movement, but also for the "multi-vector" states in general.And what prevents such a pleasant prospect for NATO? The Turkish-Kurdish conflict.
    It stretches back to the Middle Ages. The story is long and complex, and even the presentation of that part of it that began in the last quarter of the twentieth century is a topic for several dissertations. So many troubles and claims have accumulated between the Turks and the Kurds that the end of this conflict is still not in sight. Both sides committed many atrocities in the struggle, all still bitterly recalled across the generations.
    Sweden’s involvement is through its long-standing Kurdish community. Kurdish refugees have been settling there since the 1960s, and now they have become an economically strong and politically influential part of Swedish society. Many ethnic Kurds are citizens of Sweden. They have their deputies in parliament. They enjoy authority and influence. And they willingly help their compatriots in Turkey and other countries. Money (and weapons, too), goods, shelter and propaganda.
    Of course, seeing the prospect of Sweden joining NATO, and the dependence of the final decision on Turkey's vote, the Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdoğan did not fail to take advantage of the opportunity.
    He set a condition – the Swedes must stop all activities of the Kurds hostile to the Turks in their country. It is clear, to begin with, that he overstated Turkey’s requirements as much as possible for bargaining purposes. But Erdoğan will be quite satisfied with simply reducing the political and economic role of the Kurdish community in Sweden, depriving it of representation in the Swedish parliament, the Riksdag, and deporting those who are listed as terrorists in Turkey (that is, all members of the Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK) and the Kurdistan National Liberation Front). Many of them are Swedish citizens, by the way.
    That will however mean that the Swedes will have to restrict democracy, violate the rights of their citizens and hand over at least several hundred people to the tender mercies of the Turkish state.
    The Swedes will have to choose between the economic, military and geopolitical benefits of NATO or the demands of democracy and humanism. What will they do?
    You don't have to be Nostradamus to guess the answer. The Swedish government will, of course, try to soften the blow. It will “let” the Kurdish deputies lose their seats in the next election. It will adopt laws solely for the sake of “democracy” and “competition” to deprive the Kurdish community and the Kurdish refugees of the special advantages they current enjoy in Sweden.
    The most odious militants in Turkish eyes and those who were publicly proud of fighting the Turks will be expelled. Turkey will get all sorts of preferences and advantages in trade both with Sweden and with other NATO countries. And Greta Thunberg will be left to grieve about the Kurds…

Starmer the warmonger

Sir Keir Starmer has denounced the Stop the War movement as some sort of tool of Russia in a desperate attempt to further ingratiate himself with what he thinks is the dominant section of the British ruling class. Writing in the Guardian following talks with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg in Brussels the Labour leader says the anti-war movement is at best 'naive' and at worst a force bolstering those who threaten democracies while telling the Times that Labour is the “party of NATO”.

   Conjuring up the ghosts of Labour’s old right wing Starmer said “Attlee, Healey and Bevin saw communism for what it was and were prepared to stand up to its aggression,” he said. “Today’s Labour party has the same clear-eyed view of the current regime in the Kremlin. We know, as they did, that bullies only respect strength. Russian tanks sit, engines revving, on the verge of annexing Ukraine but protest placards waved here by the usual suspects condemn NATO not Moscow... to condemn NATO is to condemn the guarantee of democracy and security it brings and which our allies in eastern and central Europe are relying on as the sabre-rattling from Moscow grows ever louder”.
   The people of Serbia, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan and Syria will, no doubt, have other ideas about NATO.
Starmer may think that posing as a super-patriot will convince the ruling class of his usefulness when the time comes to get rid of Boris Johnson. He also clearly believes that there is widespread public support for wars and military interventions in Britain. He’s wrong both counts. The Tories don’t need Starmer and the people don’t want war.

Bye Bye Cressida Dick

No one will shed any tears over the departure of Dame Cressida Dick, the Metropolitan Police chief who was finally forced to resign after a damning indictment from the Mayor of London last week.
London Mayor Sadiq Khan said he was "not satisfied" Dame Cressida could "root out the racism, sexism, homophobia, bullying, discrimination and misogyny that still exist" in the force or restore Londoners' trust in the Metropolitan Police.
   The Labour politician said the last straw was the Commissioner’s less than robust response to police watchdog's report into the Charing Cross cops who joked about rape, LGBT people and violence towards women on the social media. Khan said that "the response from the Commissioner wasn't up to the scale of the change required in the Met Police Service".
   It’s surprising it took so long for Khan to see through her though to be fair, Cressida Dick’s talent was in brushing aside criticism from the public the police claim to protect. . Repeated claims of misogyny and racism in the force; the dismal handling of the “spycops” scandal and the “partygate” investigation and accusations of that the Met had failed to properly investigate claims of indecent exposure by one of the force who raped and killed a woman in 2021.
None of us will miss Cressida Dick. Whether her successor will be any better remains to be seen.