by Kishore Mahbubani
Dear Friends,
Many Western minds believe that Western societies are inherently peaceful while East Asian societies (including China) are more belligerent. There’s some realistic basis for this assumption: prospects of war between any two Western societies are practically zero. They are not practically zero between East Asian societies.
Yet curiously, despite this pacifist streak, it’s shocking that just in the past 20 years, Western powers have dropped 326,000 bombs in the greater Middle East/North Africa region. This total amounts to an average of 46 bombs dropped per day over the past 20 years. By contrast, the total number of bombs dropped in inter-state conflicts in East Asia in the past 20 years is: ZERO!
Many Western minds believe that Western societies are inherently peaceful while East Asian societies (including China) are more belligerent. There’s some realistic basis for this assumption: prospects of war between any two Western societies are practically zero. They are not practically zero between East Asian societies.
Yet curiously, despite this pacifist streak, it’s shocking that just in the past 20 years, Western powers have dropped 326,000 bombs in the greater Middle East/North Africa region. This total amounts to an average of 46 bombs dropped per day over the past 20 years. By contrast, the total number of bombs dropped in inter-state conflicts in East Asia in the past 20 years is: ZERO!
This huge disparity calls for some serious investigation. The East Asian societies may have worked out a pragmatic peace-preserving culture. If so, this culture should not be disrupted. This is why I decided to publish the attached piece in the Straits Times with a simple message to my fellow Asians: say no to NATO.
It reflects a key point I also make in “Has the West Lost it?”: the West should just stop dropping bombs!
With warm regards,
Kishore
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Asia, say no to Nato
The Pacific has no need of the destructive militaristic culture of the Atlantic alliance
By Kishore Mahbubani
Published by Straits Times, 25 June 2021
Something very dangerous happened a few weeks ago when the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) held its meeting in Brussels. In its communique after the meeting on June 14, it identified China as a “systemic challenge” to areas “relevant to Alliance security”.
By Kishore Mahbubani
Published by Straits Times, 25 June 2021
Something very dangerous happened a few weeks ago when the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) held its meeting in Brussels. In its communique after the meeting on June 14, it identified China as a “systemic challenge” to areas “relevant to Alliance security”.
The implicit message was clear: Nato would like to expand its tentacles beyond the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. All of us who live close to the Pacific Ocean, especially in East Asia, should be deeply concerned. If Nato comes to the Pacific, it only means trouble for us. Why? Three reasons.
First, Nato is not a geopolitically wise organisation. It did a brilliant job in the Cold War, deterring Soviet expansion into Europe. During the Cold War, it was careful and restrained, building up military capabilities and avoiding direct military conflicts.
The Cold War ended 30 years ago. In theory, after “mission accomplished”, Nato should have shut down. In practice, it desperately looked for new missions. In the process, it destabilised Europe.
It bears remembering that relations between Russia and Nato used to be much better, so much so that in 1994, Russia officially signed up to the Partnership for Peace, a programme aimed at building trust between Nato and other European and former Soviet countries. But things fell apart because Nato rejected Russia’s repeated requests to refuse to accept new members in its “backyard”. Then, in April 2008, Nato pushed things further, opening the door to membership for Georgia and Ukraine at the Bucharest summit.
As US commentator Tom Friedman noted: “There is one thing future historians will surely remark upon, and that is the utter poverty of imagination that characterised US foreign policy in the late 1990s. They will note that one of the seminal events of this century took place between 1989 and 1992 – the collapse of the Soviet Empire… Thanks to Western resolve and the courage of Russian democrats, that Soviet empire collapsed without a shot, spawning a democratic Russia, setting free the former Soviet republics and leading to unprecedented arms control agreements with the US. And what was America’s response? It was to expand the Nato Cold-War alliance against Russia and bring it closer to Russia’s borders.”
The result was inevitable. Russia had tried to be a friend of the Nato countries after the Cold War ended. Instead, it was slapped in the face with Nato expansion. Many Western media reports portray Russia as a “belligerent, aggressive actor”. They fail to mention that Nato actions generated this response.
A truly dangerous moment surfaced in 2014 when it looked as if Nato was about to encroach into Ukraine with the ouster of its pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych by Western-supported demonstrators. For President Vladimir Putin, that was the last straw, and soon after came the seizure of Crimea, which the Russians consider part of their cultural heartland.
Viktor Yanukovych
The dangers of Western expansion into Ukraine were well known. Dr Henry Kissinger had pointed out that the Ukrainians “live in a country with a complex history and a polyglot composition. The Western part was incorporated into the Soviet Union in 1939, when Stalin and Hitler divided up the spoils. Crimea, 60 per cent of whose population is Russian, became part of Ukraine only in 1954, when Nikita Khrushchev, a Ukrainian by birth, awarded it as part of the 300th-year celebration of a Russian agreement with the Cossacks. The west is largely Catholic; the east largely Russian Orthodox. The west speaks Ukrainian; the east speaks mostly Russian. Any attempt by one wing of Ukraine to dominate the other – as has been the pattern – would lead eventually to civil war or break-up. To treat Ukraine as part of an East-West confrontation would scuttle for decades any prospect to bring Russia and the West – especially Russia and Europe – into a cooperative international system”.
Sadly, since 2014, Ukraine has become a divided country. If Nato had shown greater geopolitical restraint, these problems could have been avoided.
The second major weakness of post-Cold War Nato is that its behaviour reflects the old adage: If you are a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.
Curiously, during the Cold War, Nato dropped very few bombs on foreign countries. Since the end of the Cold War, Nato has dropped a massive amount of bombs on many countries. Between March and June 1999, Nato bombing campaigns were estimated to have killed 500 civilians in the former Yugoslavia. Nato also dropped several thousand cluster bombs there, despite their use being illegal under the 2010 Convention on Cluster Munitions Treaty.
Nato air strikes in Libya in 2011 resulted in 7,700 bombs dropped, and killed an estimated 70 civilians.
It’s Time to Admit It. NATO Killed Civilians in Libya and must face responsibilities
Journalists and locals gather next to the rubble of buildings in Tripoli, Libya, on June 19, 2011. During a government-led tour, the group was shown damaged houses and the bodies of civilians said to have been killed in a NATO coalition bombing.
MAHMUD TURKIA/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
Many of the bombing missions were illegal under international law. I vividly remember having dinner at the home of a former Canadian diplomat in Ottawa when Nato decided to bomb Yugoslav forces in 1999. This Canadian diplomat was deeply worried. Since this military campaign was neither an act of self-defence nor authorised by the United Nations Security Council, it was clearly and technically illegal under international law.
Indeed, Ms Carla Del Ponte, a former special prosecutor in the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia, tried to investigate whether Nato committed war crimes in the former Yugoslavia. Even though most Nato countries believe in the sanctity of international law, they applied so much political pressure that Ms Del Ponte could not carry out her investigations.
Even worse, Nato has often started a military campaign and then walked away from the disastrous consequences of its intervention. Libya is a classic example of this. The Nato countries were exultant when Muammar Gaddafi was removed from Libya. However, after the country split apart and became caught up in a civil war, Nato just walked away. Many years ago, a wise former US secretary of state, Mr Colin Powell, warned against such military interventions by citing a common statement in crystal shops: “If you break it, you own it.” Nato failed to own the wreckage it left behind.
This leads to the third danger: East Asia has developed, with the assistance of Asean, a very cautious and pragmatic geopolitical culture. In the 30 years since the end of the Cold War, Nato has dropped several thousand bombs on many countries. By contrast, in the same period, no bombs have been dropped anywhere in East Asia.
This is therefore the biggest danger we face in Nato expanding its tentacles from the Atlantic to the Pacific: It could end up exporting its disastrous militaristic culture to the relatively peaceful environment we have developed in East Asia.
Indeed, if Nato was a wise, thinking and learning organisation, it should actually be studying the East Asian record – especially the Asean record of preserving peace – and learning lessons from it. Instead, it is doing the opposite, thereby creating real dangers for our region.
In view of the risks to East Asia through the potential expansion of Nato culture, all of East Asia should speak with one voice and say no to Nato.
Kishore Mahbubani is a distinguished fellow at the Asia Research Institute at National University of Singapore, and the author of Has The West Lost It? and Has China Won?
Many of the bombing missions were illegal under international law. I vividly remember having dinner at the home of a former Canadian diplomat in Ottawa when Nato decided to bomb Yugoslav forces in 1999. This Canadian diplomat was deeply worried. Since this military campaign was neither an act of self-defence nor authorised by the United Nations Security Council, it was clearly and technically illegal under international law.
Indeed, Ms Carla Del Ponte, a former special prosecutor in the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia, tried to investigate whether Nato committed war crimes in the former Yugoslavia. Even though most Nato countries believe in the sanctity of international law, they applied so much political pressure that Ms Del Ponte could not carry out her investigations.
Even worse, Nato has often started a military campaign and then walked away from the disastrous consequences of its intervention. Libya is a classic example of this. The Nato countries were exultant when Muammar Gaddafi was removed from Libya. However, after the country split apart and became caught up in a civil war, Nato just walked away. Many years ago, a wise former US secretary of state, Mr Colin Powell, warned against such military interventions by citing a common statement in crystal shops: “If you break it, you own it.” Nato failed to own the wreckage it left behind.
This leads to the third danger: East Asia has developed, with the assistance of Asean, a very cautious and pragmatic geopolitical culture. In the 30 years since the end of the Cold War, Nato has dropped several thousand bombs on many countries. By contrast, in the same period, no bombs have been dropped anywhere in East Asia.
This is therefore the biggest danger we face in Nato expanding its tentacles from the Atlantic to the Pacific: It could end up exporting its disastrous militaristic culture to the relatively peaceful environment we have developed in East Asia.
Indeed, if Nato was a wise, thinking and learning organisation, it should actually be studying the East Asian record – especially the Asean record of preserving peace – and learning lessons from it. Instead, it is doing the opposite, thereby creating real dangers for our region.
In view of the risks to East Asia through the potential expansion of Nato culture, all of East Asia should speak with one voice and say no to Nato.
Kishore Mahbubani is a distinguished fellow at the Asia Research Institute at National University of Singapore, and the author of Has The West Lost It? and Has China Won?
Wakakakaka…
ReplyDeleteWhat would that mfering Yankee acolyte say NOW?
Kishore Mahbubani is a LEFTIST!
Kishore Mahbubani writes as if the NATO intervention in the former Yugoslavia was an act of gratuitous aggression.
ReplyDeleteI think he deliberately ignored, for his ideological purposes , the history of Ethnic Cleansing and Crimes against Humanity perpetrated during the Bosnian genocide 1992 - 1995.
The massacres in Sebrenica, Sarajevo etc. etc. It was NATO intervention , under UNSC resolutions (Russia actually did not veto this) which led to the Dayton Peace Accords, backed by American Air Power, and armour on the ground.
In Kosovo 1999, former Yugoslavia again, Russia vetoed any UN action,
NATO again intervened, lesson learnt, don't wait until genocide has already been carried out.
Wakakakakaka…
DeleteDid u mentioned Ethnic Cleansing and Crimes against Humanity?
Ooop… u think that such acts were committed by the Serbs ONLY to the Bosnians. Never the other way!
Thus the non-UN sanctioned military aerial bombings against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia during the Kosovo War.
Only Serbian territories were bombed heavily, resulting in massive Serbian casualties.
5 US Joint Direct Attack Munition guided bombs hit the People's Republic of China embassy in the Belgrade district of New Belgrade, killing 3 Chinese journalists and outraging the Chinese public.
Lessons learnt?
1) US/NATO can carry out military operations w/o UN sanctions!
2) genocide is always been committed the party identified by US/NATO!
3) along the way, use the opportunity to bomb the outside party's (weak China) representative office.
Leaked internal closed-door speech by French president Emmanuel Macron !
ReplyDeleteExcerpts :
" Western hegemony is nearing its end ! The international order is being upended in a whole new way, and I'm sure this is a major upheaval in our history, and it has far-reaching consequences in almost all regions.
It is a transformation of the international order, a geopolitical integration and a strategic reorganization.
Yes, I must admit that Western hegemony may be coming to an end.
We have become accustomed to an international order based on Western hegemony since the 18th century.
France, the United Kingdom and the United States have made the West great for 300 years.
We are used to this greatness that gives us absolute dominance over the global economy and politics. But things are changing. Some crisis come from our own mistakes in the West, while others come from the challenges of emerging countries.
Within Western countries, the many wrong choices the United States has made in the face of crises have deeply shaken our hegemony.
Note that this didn't start with Trump administration, other presidents of the United States made other wrong choices long before Trump. Clinton's China policy, Bush's war policy, Obama's world financial crisis, and quantitative easing policy.
The wrong policies of these American leaders are all fundamental mistakes that shake Western hegemony. However, on the other hand, we have greatly underestimated the rise of emerging powers....not just two years ago, but as early as ten or twenty years ago.
We must admit that China and Russia have achieved great success over the years under different leadership styles. [ Macron also mentioned India as a rapidly emerging economic power ]
In France, the market economy is increasing income inequality at an unprecedented rate. [ Macron then elaborated on the internal failings in UK, United States and he said...'Even though the United States and Europe are deeply aligned, our differences have always existed' ]
Europe cooperates with the United States to expel Russia, which may be the biggest geopolitical mistake of Europe in the 21st century.
The result of expelling Russia is that Putin has no choice but to embrace China, and this just gives China and Russia to warm up.
[..to continue ]
..continue :
ReplyDelete" Let one of our competitors to combine with another to create a huge trouble, which is what the Americans do.
If Europe hadn't expelled Russia, then Russia's policies would never have been so anti-Western. Now in terms of geopolitics, it is impossible to give so much help to the great powers of the East.
But Europe's problem is the military.
Because of the existence of the NATO, it becomes very difficult for Europe to form another European army, and as long as the 'European army' does not exist, Europe will be controlled by the political orders of the United States.
Sadly, when I talked about this with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, were all pessimistic. European military is the key point to check and balance the United States. Without the European military, Europe would have no real independence at all.
Yes, the United States is an ally, our long-term ally, but at the same time, he (sic) is also an ally who has been kidnapping us for a long time [ he he he he ]
We need to build Europe's own new trust and security architecture, because if we don't ease relations with Russia, there will be no peace on the continent.
[ Macron then went on to talk about other challenges of information turmoil, on top of the economic and geopolitical turmoil ]
Ultimately, the world will revolve around two poles : America and China.
And Europe will have to choose between these two rulers.
[This is a very long speech, lasting 1 hour, a monologue. The rest of the speech pleads for Europe to take control of European's own destiny and to " return control to our people" ]