As the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation ‘celebrates’ its 75th anniversary this year, CHRISTINE THOMAS looks at the conditions that led to the formation of this capitalist military alliance and how NATO’s role has evolved as the global economic and political order itself has changed.
The signing of the North Atlantic Treaty, between the US, Canada and Western European powers in April 1949, can only be understood as one more brick being laid in the overall construction, in the post-war capitalist world, of a US-dominated economic and geopolitical architecture.
US imperialism had emerged as an economic colossus from the ravages of the second world war, with more than 50% of the world’s manufacturing production, holding two-thirds of gold internationally, and boasting a GDP three times that of the Soviet Union, and five times greater than Britain. As the war was drawing to an end, debates began to take place within the US ruling class about how best it could take advantage of its overwhelming economic supremacy amongst the capitalist powers to secure stability and maximum access for US corporations to markets and raw materials globally. Economic reconstruction of a devastated Europe was not initially a post-war aim, and aid was limited, mainly through loans with stringent conditions. But from 1947 US policy shifted towards a massive injection of economic assistance, beginning with the Marshall Plan, alongside of the utilisation of multilateral US-dominated institutions like the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation (OEEC), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the World Bank etc, to promote international free trade and the interests of US capitalism and the global capitalist order.
Read more →