Pax Atlantica
FEW know that following the defeat of Hitler’s Germany in 1945, Great Britain, which had ridden to victory on America’s shoulders, made a furtive attempt to destroy its other ally of convenience — Stalin’s USSR.
Without consulting the US, PM Churchill developed a plan — Operation Unthinkable — “to launch an immediate pre-emptive war against the Soviet Union in mid-1945”. He wanted to deliver a knockout blow to the USSR while it was still reeling from World War II.
Churchill had reasons to fear Stalin. By 1950, the Soviet Union had four million troops on hand, with another 800,000 on call from its Eastern bloc. The US had about 1.5m, spread thinly across the globe.
Saner voices in the US, however, saw merit (especially after the Berlin blockade of 1948 and North Korea’s attack on South Korea) in creating an alliance of like-minded Eurocentric countries as a bulwark against the Soviet bloc.
By parenting Nato, the US ended its policy of isolationism.
The Americans took the initiative. They worked towards the formation of Nato. The North Atlantic Treaty of 1949 became Nato’s birth certificate. It came at the expense of its sibling — the UN. While the UN aimed supposedly at ensuring “a globalised, peaceful world”, Nato was committed to defend only the North Atlantic area in “defensive action only, but built for confrontation”; ie, to be a dove, but with teeth.
For centuries, Britannia had ruled the waves. From the early 1900s, Pax Britannica had to yield supremacy to the more powerful Pax Atlantica. By parenting Nato, the US ended its policy of isolationism. It crossed its Rubicon — the Atlantic — and converted the rest of the world into its parade ground.
The US, instead of being a guarantor of peace in the last resort, became a belligerent of the first resort. On 9/11, two commercial aircraft flying into the World Trade Centre and one into the Pentagon fused that resolve into foreign policy.
The early years of Nato were mired in dissension. No one could be found to head Nato, and those who were exiled to it deplored its “organised controversy”. As one Nato official put it, the threats in the 1940s and 1950s were external. In the 1960s and 1970s, they were all internal.
Nothing, though, unifies as quickly as a common foe. The US paranoia of ‘a Red under every bed’ changed to ‘a beard under every turban’. Nato was induced to involve itself in Bosnia, Herzegovina, Somalia, Iraq, and, for the longest period (18 years), in Afghanistan, where at one time 130,000 Nato-led troops were deployed.
On July 8, 2021, President Joe Biden announced the withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan by Aug 31. He reminded his allies of the reasons why they had invaded Afghanistan in the first place. Converting that forlorn failure into a mission accomplished, he argued disingenuously: “The US [and they] went to get the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11, to deliver justice to Osama bin Laden, and to degrade the terrorist threat [and prevent] Afghanistan from becoming a base from which attacks could be continued against the United States.” (The 50 Nato and non-Nato nations had nothing to fear.)
And in case the Afghans thought they might (like the postwar Germans and Japanese) benefit from the charred fruits of defeat, he disappointed them: “We did not go to Afghanistan to nation-build. And it’s the right and the responsibility of the Afghan people alone to decide their future and how they want to run their country.” In Afghanistan’s destruction lay its resurrection.
On Aug 30, 2021, the last US combatant to flee Afghanistan was Lt-Gen Chris Donahue. Eight months later, he would be in Europe — one of the first US soldiers there after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Only an American rattlesnake could swallow its own tail.
Some within Nato nurture ambitions to exploit its enormous potential. Collectively, its 32 member nations have a total population of over 955m. In their manpower and economics, if combined, Nato ranks third after China and India.
China, however, sees Nato through Russian lenses. It does not want to get involved in foreign conflicts. History has taught it the perils of invasion. India has yet to learn. Goa, Hyderabad and Jammu & Kashmir were in-house incursions. Since geography began, India has been paddling with one foot in the Bay of Bengal and the other in the Arabian Sea. It shares its Indian Ocean with other continents. The Atlantic Ocean, however, is 11,000 kilometres away.
PM Modi’s recent visit to Ukraine tests India’s 75-year-long friendship with Russia. To celebrate that anniversary in New Delhi, the Russian ambassador declared recently: “Dosti se zyada kuch nahi hota”. (Nothing is more precious than friendship).
Another slogan — ‘Hindi-Chini bhai-bhai’ — had a shorter shelf life.
The writer is an author.
Published in Dawn, August 29th, 2024