Voice of Russia
April 27, 2013
NATO’s global expansion unparalleled in history and fraught with catastrophe – Rozoff
Recorded on April 21, 2013
AUDIO
US-controlled NATO dangerously and relentlessly continues its global expansion, “something unparalleled in history and something fraught with, not only danger, but with catastrophe.” In order to further hide the fact that the United States is taking over the world militarily through NATO, cleverly designed and marketed “programs” such as the Partnership for Peace, the Mediterranean Dialogue, the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative, the Partners Across the Globe and the newly created aspirant country category, are being used to hasten their, for the most part quiet, yet massive expansion.
Hello! This is John Robles, I’m speaking with Mr Rick Rozoff, the owner and editor of the stop NATO website and mailing list.
Robles: Hello Rick! How are you this afternoon, I suppose it is?
Rozoff: It’s evening here, and is probably morning there, but I’m doing fine. It’s good to talk to you again John.
Robles: Yes, it’s a pleasure to be speaking with you again. NATO’s push into East Asia and Balkan marine training exercises. Can you fill us in on the latest?
Rozoff: Yes, I’m glad you chose those two examples in relation to the formerly North Atlantic Treaty Organization, now essentially redefined by itself and by its main sponsor and director, the United States, the Pentagon, as a global military force.
By the Balkans [should be Baltics] we’re of are of course talking about Russia’s northwest border, and with the parts of Asia that the Secretary-General of NATO went to last week, South Korea and Japan, we are talking about northeast Asia. So, you see on either side of the Eurasian landmass, on either side of Russia, indeed, the fact that the US is employing NATO as a global military intervention force.
I’ll start with the second one first, perhaps. Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Secretary General of NATO, made the first-ever visit by a NATO Secretary General to the nation of South Korea, the Republic of Korea, where he signed a special partnership program with that nation. This is a country, of course, which is still in a, “technically” a state of war with its northern neighbor, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. And it is one where the Deputy Secretary General of NATO, as we discussed in your program not too long ago, Alexander Vershbow, recently mentioned, or alluded to the fact, and pretty strongly asserted it in fact that, should a military conflict erupt between North and South Korea and the US intervene on behalf the South, that NATO could activate its Article 5 mutual military assistance clause and enter the fray against North Korea, which almost inevitably would have to pull China into the vortex and you might have a global conflagration.
But also, Rasmussen, after he visited South Korea, went to Japan where he signed a partnership arrangement, or understanding, with Japan as well. And I should mention, something we’ve had occasion to talk about before John, but I don’t think it sunk in properly with a lot of listeners around the world, is that roughly a year ago, immediately preceding the NATO summit in Chicago, from where I’m speaking, NATO announced the launching of its latest military partnership program which is called, and this is a rare bit of candor, it’s called Partners Across the Globe. And it includes four countries in the Asia-Pacific region which formerly had been referred to by NATO as Contact Countries, capital C in both cases, who had lent military support and are still doing so to this day by the way for the war in Afghanistan. Those four countries are exactly South Korea and Japan, and also Australia and New Zealand.
But the new Partners Across the Globe, which is just in its infant state, it is likely if NATO has its way to expand pretty substantially, includes in addition to the four countries I’ve just mentioned Pakistan, Afghanistan, Mongolia and Iraq; that is, all countries in the broader Asia-Pacific region.
Robles: If I understand this correctly, South Korea, Japan, you said, New Zealand and Australia, they are now de facto NATO members and they fall under Article 5?
Rozoff: Not quite. They are NATO partners, now officially NATO partners, under the category of the new Partners Across the Globe, and there is discussion within NATO, particularly within the ruling circles in the United States, I should add; those in the White House, but particularly in the US Senate, the likes of John McCain come to mind. People who are saber-rattling warmongers, to be frank with you, and ones who have mooted the point quite openly, particularly with the five-day war between Georgia and Russia, when Georgia invaded South Ossetia in August of 2008, that what these architects of US and of general Western foreign policy have been advocating is the application of the Article 5 NATO mutual defense clause to NATO partners as well as NATO members.
So, in this case it would in fact apply to Japan or to South Korea, or for that matter to Afghanistan or Pakistan in various scenarios. But what I was laying out earlier was something a little different: that if conflict erupted between the two Koreas and the United States inevitably intervened on behalf of its military client, South Korea, and then North Korea responded in any way to the United States, then NATO would do what it did in 2001 after the attacks in New York and Washington DC on September 11th and invoke its Article 5 mutual defense clause ostensibly to defend the United States against North Korea.
Robles: Is this official now, they can use Article 5?
Rozoff: Since the creation of NATO they can always use Article 5 supposedly in defense of any NATO member state. But the discussion now is in terms of partners as well as members. But let me give you an idea of the extent to which things are going on.
At the end of the last month, March, NATO held what it referred to as a Military Partnership Coordination Workshop in Bosnia, in Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia. Bosnia is currently, this is another new category, and there is a proliferation of new NATO categories and partnerships and so forth, but this one is called aspirant nations [or countries], those nations aspiring to NATO membership. And they currently are Bosnia, Macedonia, Montenegro and Georgia.
These are the four countries that NATO has clearly indicated are going to be the next full member states. Of course one could argue that Georgia is not technically in Europe is all. At the end of March this workshop, or event, was held in Bosnia. It included 28 partnership nations from the Partnership for Peace, the Mediterranean Dialogue, the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative and the new Partners Across the Globe.
So, in addition to the 28 NATO member states these are 28 more states. These are, by the way, not all of NATO’s partners around the world by any stretch of the imagination, but 56 nations from around the world under one military command, that US-dominated of course.
Again, I hope it gives your listeners an understanding of how the expanding international NATO network is something unparalleled in history and something fraught with, not only danger, but with catastrophe if its momentum is not arrested.
As we’ve talked about several times in this show and you have initiated the discussion on more than one occasion, Russia has been seeking assurances from the United States and NATO for at least a decade that the joint US-NATO interceptor missile system that is already in Phase 1, and it is to go through three more phases to take in almost the entire European continent, ostensibly against Iran, and if you believe what Brussels and Washington say, North Korea, which is ludicrous, it’s an absurdity, but in fact it is targeting Russia.
Russia has sought assurances that the missile system is not aimed at it. It’s received verbal assurances to that effect but nothing else. And the US and NATO have adamantly refused to engage in what is called sectoral, or any sort of joint missile defense enterprise with Russia, which is what Russia has been seeking. Particularly through the NATO-Russia Council, which had been in abeyance for several years after the war with Georgia in 2008, with NATO of course supporting Georgia before, during and after the war. And Russia had then not participated in the council but has resumed its participation.
I should mention that with Russia being involved in that bilateral partnership with NATO, that means that every country in Europe, and I really wish your listeners would take this in, that every country in Europe, excluding the five micro-states, is either a member of NATO or a member of NATO partnership program.
This is John Robles, you were listening to part one of an interview with Rick Rozoff – the owner of the stop NATO website and mailing list.
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