Do you agree with the view that the USA uses NATO as a traditional tool of strategy to perpetuate its hegemony in the world? 15 Marks. (UPSC CSE Mains 2024- Political Science and International Relations, Paper 2).
- Established in 1949 with 12 founding member states, NATO has expanded to include 32 members. Throughout NATO''s history, the US has controlled the defense system of European countries, regarding it as a symbol of its hegemony.
- NATO''s core task is to support the US'' hegemonic ambitions.
- NATO''s expansion and militarization pose a serious threat to the global arms control regime, and disarmament and nuclear non-proliferation efforts. The US pulled Ukraine into the Western camp by helping NATO expand eastward, thus creating an imbalance in the European security landscape and triggering the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Subsequently, the US used the Ukraine crisis to prompt NATO''s European members to "generously" increase their military spending and purchase large amounts of US military equipment to aid Ukraine.
- The US has manipulated NATO into conducting large-scale military exercises. For instance, NATO''s Exercise Steadfast Defender 2024 involved more than 50 naval assets, 80 aircraft, 1,100 combat vehicles and over 90,000 troops. The displays of NATO''s combat power have provoked Russia into taking countermeasures, exacerbating tensions in the European Union and Eurasia. What has raised tensions further is Russia''s withdrawal from the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe and deployment of tactical nuclear missiles on the Russian-European border.
- In order to fuel NATO''s eastward expansion, leading to conflict between Russia and Ukraine, Washington forced NATO''s European members to join hands with the US to weaken Russia. The security panic thus created prompted even French President Emmanuel Macron to stop advocating for Europe''s strategic autonomy and independent foreign and defense policies.
- NATO''s arms buildup will weaken international cooperation to address common global challenges. Washington is obsessed with the Ukraine crisis, because it believes the longer Moscow is engaged in the conflict the weaker it will become and the easier it will be for the US to use NATO to maintain its global hegemony, even at the cost of global peace and development.
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