Swedish NATO Security Forum

May 24th, 2005 at 22:03 Björn Hallberg

Though technically it’s the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council (EAPC), which is NATO’s 26 member states plus an additional 20 partnership countries. And herein lies the first problem.
This legitimizes NATO and regardless of whether Sweden really wishes to join or not, the hosting of joint war games and security forums does a good job of securing the future of NATO.
NATO is nothing but a mouthpiece for the United States and the relevancy of the organization has got to be questioned, not rubber stamped after the cold war has been over for almost two decades.

The forum opened today and will be open for the duration of one more day. A spectacle that will cost Swedish tax payers some 50 100 million SEK, most of which goes to covering the enormous security hoopla that has more or less turned Åre into a miniature police state. And herein lies the second problem.
Every time we close down a society like this, for no good reason, we slip a little further down into the abyss. Our senses are dulled and we are bit by bit becoming used to the idea of police overseers and constant surveillance. It’s as if society relishes these opportunities to show authority and demonstrate their own legitimacy and relevancy.

I’d like to give NATO the benefit of a doubt. But I can’t. Just at this forum, NATO officials underlined that they will never act on behalf of the EU, UN or any other organization or community. They underlined that they will only answer to themselves (the US I presume) and that the organization will stay true to its military origins and nucleus. To me, neither can be described as sound policy. NATO remains an instrument for the US to protect its assets and proliferate military presence, bases and influence.

Entry 106 filed under: Europe, North America. This entry was posted 3 years, 7 months ago. RSS feed for comments on this post.