AUKUS and other troubles

From END Info 27 - download

Norway’s decision to send observers to the TPNW Meeting of State Parties, scheduled for March 2022 in Vienna, should we warmly welcomed. Norway is the first NATO member state to ‘break ranks’ with that organisations’ determined effort to undermine the global nuclear ban. Norway’s decision is the product of a coalition agreement between the Labor Party and Center Party embodied in the ‘Hurdal platform’, named after the Norwegian municipality where it was drafted.

Prior to the elections, Labor had moved decisively to strengthen commitments to making progress on nuclear disarmament. Unlike many other political parties, Labor maintained pre-election commitments on this question after the polls closed.

NATOs reaction to this development, represented by comments from Jens Stoltenberg - himself a former Norwegian Prime Minister - are instructive:

"NATO's position on the Treaty of Prohibition is very clear; we do not believe in that treaty as a path to nuclear disarmament. And I expect everyone to take this into account when addressing nuclear weapons issues and consulting closely with other NATO allies."

Stoltenberg’s school-masterly scolding of the new Norwegian government has not gone down well. Two other former Norwegian Prime Ministers took Stoltenberg to task in the pages of the Verdens Gang newspaper, writing:

73 percent of Norwegians believe that nuclear weapons create more risk than security, according to a survey conducted by Respons Analyze for Norwegian People's Aid. This majority deserves a government that takes the nuclear threat seriously. The Hurdal platform gives us hopes that we now have this. For as the UN Secretary-General says: "We must reject" the toxic and erroneous logic "of nuclear deterrence”, because "humanity remains one misunderstanding, one mistake, one miscalculation, one push of a button away from being wiped out."

Rather than take such matters seriously, Stoltenberg, the organisation he represents and the dominant political forces within it – nuclear powers one and all – continue with their determined crusade re-arm, expand and increase global tensions.

That such efforts continue without pause following the shambolic evacuation of NATO forces from Afghanistan would be remarkable if not for the fact that NATO ultimately serves – as it has always served – the geopolitical and strategic interests of the United States.

One example of the dynamics of these interests is to be found in the recent announcement of the AUKUS agreement between Australia, the UK and United States. What else to make of this agreement other than as another artefact of the ongoing and accelerating ‘tilt to Asia’. Stoltenberg didn’t find the time to issue warnings to the UK and US about “consulting closely with NATO allies” when fellow-NATO member France lost out financially from the agreement.

What of the fact that all NATO members are also full participants in the Non-Proliferation Treaty? What of the serial breaches of nuclear-armed NATO members and the arms race they have sparked? No word from Stoltenberg.

What of the ‘carbon bootprint’ of NATO operations? When the world is focussed on COP26, Stoltenberg’s appearance in Glasgow came with no commitments on this question.

The new Norwegian government was right to follow the instructions of the electorate – and their own political good sense – in deciding to attend the Meeting of State Parties. Will more follow their lead? There is hope!