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North Atlantic Terrorist Organization’s (NATO’s) Oath To ‘Peace’ Is The Road To ‘War’

— Mark Blacklock | May 17, 2024

Illustration: Liu Xiangya/Global Times

The combatants in the largest land conflict in Europe since the World War II may be Russia and Ukraine, but there is no mistaking that it is really NATO's war. It has claimed it for itself. Whether by intention or unforeseen consequence, it is so deeply enmeshed in the strategies, intelligence, supplies, tactics and weapons employed by Kiev that it is impossible to become disentangled, and that means it cannot afford to let Ukraine lose.

What this also means, of course, is that for as long as fighting between the two countries continues, NATO is committed to supporting Ukraine militarily. Its military leaders believe that Russia no longer has the power to overwhelm Ukraine, but it is also the case that Russia is not about to lose the war any time soon. Does this mean an eternal and bloody stalemate?

NATO's commitment to a nation which is not even a member of its bloc is almost total. This week the alliance's Military Committee - its highest military authority - met at the organization's Brussels headquarters with Ukraine crisis high on the agenda and high-ranking Ukrainian military officials present, despite their country's lack of membership credentials. Also present were the defence chiefs of NATO member states, and NATO's top brass, including secretary general Jens Stoltenberg.

Three separate sessions in a day-long conference covered NATO's multi-domain readiness to wage war on land, sea, and air, and in space and cyberspace. They were briefed by Ukraine's armed forces chief Anatoliy Barhylevych of the reality on the ground. The committee's chair Admiral Rob Bauer declared, rather pompously: "There is nothing they [Ukraine] cannot do." Then he pointedly added: "All they need… is our help".

That help is no small consideration. In addition to the many billions in support already given by NATO members, the US has additionally just approved a $61bn package of aid which includes missiles, ammunition, and air defence systems. The real danger, however, is of NATO being drawn into the conflict itself.

The Military Committee's attitude is understandable, predictable even. Its comprises military personnel, and wars - how to fight them, how to win them, and how to avoid losing them - are their soldierly stock-in-trade. However, there is scant evidence of this military activity being balanced by any serious political activity to try to prevent escalation or seek an end to the slaughter. Words like "truce" and "ceasefire" are difficult to find among the political rhetoric. On the contrary, when serious proposals are made for ending the fighting they are dismissed out of hand by NATO.

Mark Blacklock

It scoffed at China's 12-point plan as firstly an attempt to distract from what it claimed was Beijing's support for Moscow, and then criticized the proposals for not condemning Russia. This misses the entire point that China could not claim to be an honest broker if it were to blame one of the combatants for the entire war. Little coverage was given to the fact that Ukraine's president Volodymyr Zelenskyy gave China's plan a cautious welcome. Earlier this month Viktor Orban, the president of Hungary - a NATO ally for 25 years - renewed his endorsement of Beijing's peace plan.

He said: "Today, Europe is on the side of war". Hungary is the sole NATO nation calling for an immediate ceasefire and peace negotiations.

Meanwhile NATO's own commanders have been talking up the possibility of war. Already this year several of them have warned their own nations to prepare for war with Russia, positing the reintroduction of conscription and mooting the idea of a citizen army. That's their only idea: to let Ukrainians continue to die on their behalf in NATO's proxy war until it escalates to a full-on, direct conflict with Russia. It is a strategy for the hard-of-thinking, with consequences which are the stuff of nightmares.

Those opposed to an urgent cessation to the killing are fond of saying that to stop hostilities would be tantamount to rewarding what they see as Russia's aggression. That aggression should not be rewarded, is a fine principle. Surely it is finer to believe that further slaughter should be prevented? Both sides are mourning tens of thousands, yet continued fighting guarantees only that more will be mourned. There will be no winner, only more victims.

What kind of principle rigidly precludes the triumph of compromise, negotiation, and common sense? If I was living there and my friends and family were among the slaughtered, I would ache for justice and for revenge: I would want the war to be fought to the last man or woman standing, because that is the natural human reaction. This would be human, and understandable, but I would be wrong. NATO's single, relentless strategy to just keep fighting, guarantees only enduring misery. Its path to so-called peace could lead us all on a journey to war.

— The Author is a Journalist and Lecturer in Britain. Mark Blacklock grew up in Sunderland and has since lived in Sheffield, Oxford, Tokyo, London and York. His first novel, I'm Jack, was published by Granta in 2015. Telling the story of the Yorkshire Ripper hoaxer in his own voice, it was described by Iain Sinclair as 'Spare. Swift. Smart. And dangerous,' and by Tom McCarthy as 'a gripping study of self-creation and - ultimately - self-erasure.'

Mark teaches at Birkbeck College, University of London. His scholarly monograph, The Emergence of the Fourth Dimension, was published by Oxford University Press in 2018.

Mark's second novel, Hinton, a higher-dimensional romance, was published by Granta in 2020 and longlisted for the Walter Scott Award in 2021.

Mark's edition of JG Ballard's Selected Non-Fiction is published by MIT Press on 24th October 2023.

— Mark Blacklock | January 12, 2024

Illustration: Liu Rui/Global Times

In recent years, Britain's Secret Intelligence Service has intensified its attacks on China for alleged spying activities in Britain. However, if the SIS wants to root out operatives working undercover to steal the country's secrets, they should perhaps ask themselves. The arrest of a businessman surnamed Huang by China's Ministry of State Security brings attention to the hypocrisy of the spymasters at MI6.

Huang, the head of an overseas consultancy, is accused of serious offences. He is said to have worked for SIS for about nine years, using the specialist skills and equipment provided to him after being recruited to steal state secrets. The MSS says that behind his façade as a businessman, his undercover job was to collect China-related intelligence for the British espionage agency and identify potential recruits.

It smacks of double standards. What else would you call repeatedly attacking another state by accusing it of something, and then cynically behaving in the same way?

Last year, the head of MI6, Richard Moore, said in2023 that China presented "an epoch-defining challenge" and that his organization commits more of its resources to Beijing's activities than to any other country. It is not the first time he criticized China. In 2021, he described China ominously as "an authoritarian state, with different values from ours."

The UK's assaults on China come in many forms. They can be a warning of vague, unsubstantiated allegations about individuals having undue influence on British politicians. They can come as personal attacks on people of Chinese heritage simply because they work with influential decision-makers to raise issues of concern to the UK's Chinese community (but without real evidence to back up the slurs). They can even come in the form of sudden arrests by police accusing people of serious espionage offences - and then letting those people go free without charge. A common feature of these events is that they created a great deal of smoke without fire - generating much Sinophobic sentiment fueled by unsupported allegations. Nothing came of them.

Mark Blacklock! Mark Blacklock is Lecturer in Modern and Contemporary Literature at Birkbeck College, University of London. He is the author of the cultural history The Emergence of the Fourth Dimension, and his most recent novel Hinton was longlisted for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction in 2021.

The most recent example is of Chris Cash, a researcher in the UK parliament, who was arrested, with an associate, under espionage laws. He could hardly be described as pro-China - he actually worked for an anti-China research group and vehemently denied wrongdoing. The substance of the investigation seems to have been that he had contact with influential politicians interested in Chinese affairs. It looked like guilt by association. Neither he nor his colleague have been charged.

Cash's arrest happened almost a year ago, but it did not become public knowledge until it was leaked to the British media six months later, creating negative publicity, at about the same time that Beijing was hoping to improve China-UK relations at a high level.

Two years ago, Christine Lee, a London-based lawyer of Chinese origin, was accused by Britain's domestic intelligence service, MI5, of being a spy for Beijing - and yet again, no arrests or charges followed. All that happened was that her reputation - and goodwill toward China - was severely damaged. The agency accused her of being "involved in political interference activities" in the UK. Lawmakers in the House of Commons were also given a so-called "interference alert" - the first issued in at least 80 years. Lee knew nothing about it until she saw media reports branding her "an enemy of the state." She later launched legal action against MI5 in a bid to clear her name.

Britain's intelligence services have clearly identified China as a target for their operations. Is one aspect of that to cast suspicion on people simply because of their Chinese background or with personal connections to China, or with a special interest in China? Why is there so much smoke without any fire, so many accusations without substantiation? In the Huang case London stands accused of doing the very thing it accuses Beijing of doing. It's astonishing hypocrisy, especially when the West has so often been caught out in the past.