In ancient Greece, to be a cynic was morally estimable. Cynics (exemplified by Diogenes the Cynic) were renowned for their honesty: brutal, but honesty nonetheless. They were regarded as truth tellers who were not afraid of power. Today, the term has come to mean almost the opposite of what it would have signified to the ancient Greeks. Cynicism retains its connection to honesty, but honesty in the pursuit of one’s own interests. Contemporary cynics can cut through bullshit, to be sure, but not to subordinate power to truth. The truth for a contemporary cynic is the truth of power.

It is in this light that we must examine the results of the recently conclude NATO summit. There is much that sounds like platitudinous hypocrisy, but beneath the platitudes are important political truths asserted cynically. What sound like universal principles are in fact bald expressions of the interests of NATO members, of which the United States is the most important. Below, I cite the most politically important of such passages from the communique issued on first day of its summit, July 11th 2023, and add brief, critical comments that supply what the communique leaves out.

“We, the Heads of State and Government of the North Atlantic Alliance, bound by shared values of individual liberty, human rights, democracy, and the rule of law, have gathered in Vilnius as war continues on the European continent, to reaffirm our enduring transatlantic bond, unity, cohesion, and solidarity at a critical time for our security and international peace and stability.”

Note that these values remain undefined and hence they cannot be used reflexively, to criticise alliance policy on the same grounds that they use to justify it. When we decode their meaning in the context of this document, liberty, democracy, and human rights are equated to the institutions of the member states. But whether people in NATO countries enjoy the means to live according to their choices, whether the expression of the collective considered judgements of the people as a whole governs policy and law, and whether the fundamental interests of human beings as asserted in key human rights documents are satisfied are not examined. Rhetorically, one is supposed to uncritically accept the claim that NATO defends democracy, etc., because NATO protects countries that call themselves liberal democracies. That those societies might need fundamental changes in order to become liberal, democratic upholders of human rights is not raised as a serious possibility. But this is not just hypocritical rhetoric: there is no reason to think that politicians and statespeople do not actually believe their platitudes. Their convictions are key impediments to change through rational argument (supposedly the primary political virtue of liberal-democracy, as understood by thinkers from Mill to Rawls). They simply cannot see their actual policies as their opponents might see them (undemocratic and coercive), and so could never be persuaded to change course. Opponents’ arguments re simply dismissed as propaganda while their own pronouncements assumed to be necessarily true.

“NATO is a defensive Alliance.”

It is true that in its origins NATO was formed to contain the Soviet Union and it did not undertake offensive actions during the Cold War. But it did bomb Serbia to help secure the independence of Kosovo (contrary to international law) and it also participated in the Afghan war, when the United States manipulated Article 5 of the Washington Treaty, falsely claiming that the 9/11 attacks were undertaken by the government of Afghanistan. (People forget that the Taliban offered to turn over bin Laden if the United States provided them evidence that he was behind the attacks). Those are two cases of NATO engaged in offensive military operations with an aim to re-define the map and replace governments. I exclude the dozens of solo US interventions of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

“NATO’s three core tasks [are] deterrence and defence, crisis prevention and management, and cooperative security.

NATO played a deterrent role during the Cold War and it should have been disbanded when the Warsaw pact was disbanded. Instead, it carried on because of the inertial force that the past exercises on the future. The problem with anachronistic institutions is that uses must be found for them. Their existence prevents their supporters from seeing that new possibilities open up under new historical conditions. NATO no longer had an objective or historically specific function once the Soviet Union collapsed, but it carried on. Not only did it carry on, it grew. Not only did it grow, it expanded right to the borders of the Russian Federation, provoking the very sort of nationalist security reaction that underlined the 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Hence this “defensive” alliance provoked the very thing it was supposed to prevent: war in Europe.

“We reaffirm our commitment to NATO’s Open Door policy and to Article 10 of the Washington Treaty. Every nation has the right to choose its own security arrangements.”

The policy that created the context for war in Ukraine continues, despite the catastrophe it has brought about. As I noted above, the contemporary cynic equates truth with their own power and cannot rise above to look critically at the objective results of its exercise. Thus, despite the fact that their refusal to negotiate Russian security concerns created the conditions for open warfare, they persist– but ambiguously– with teasing membership for Ukraine. This teasing of offers of admission without actually offering them all the while demanding that Ukraine sacrifice more and more of its men to the killing fields is the height– or perhaps better, the depth, of NATO hypocrisy.

Not only is this position murderous, it is also self-undermining if it is supposed to justify NATO policy and discredit Russia’s. It is of course true that every sovereign nation can choose its own security arrangements, but if this principle is the universal that it is asserted to be, it must hold for Russia too. Where there are competing security interests war, can only be prevented if both sides listen to each other and take one another’s concerns seriously. That did not happen in this case: Russia presented written proposals to the US that would have helped resolve the conflict. The US did not respond seriously. An agreement to end the fighting was negotiated in the early days of the war; the US and the UK urged Ukraine to reject it. They did, and now there are probably 100 000s of thousands of dead and no sign that the fighting will end soon.

“Peace in the Euro-Atlantic area has been shattered. The Russian Federation has violated the norms and principles that contributed to a stable and predictable European security order.”

In fact, NATO and the US de-stablised this order by failing to change their strategic thinking when the strategic situation in Europe changed after the Cold War. Russia was then in no position to invade Europe but sought deeper integration, which it achieved, as a major supplier of energy and resources to Europe. Russia had no reason to upset those trading relationships. That it did was a function of the Maidan coup (shaped by Washington policy) and later the refusal to implement the principles enshrined in the two Minsk Treaties.

“The People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) stated ambitions and coercive policies challenge our interests, security and values. We remain open to constructive engagement with the PRC, including to build reciprocal transparency, with a view to safeguarding the Alliance’s security interests.”

It is unclear how does anything China has done domestically or in its own sphere of interest threatens Europe. European and United States’ capital has benefited tremendously since the 1980’s from off-shoring manufacture to China. In turn, Chinese policy has channeled resources into the biggest poverty elimination scheme in human history. Like every state, China has the sovereign right to organise its internal affairs and “determine its own security arrangements.” No country, including China, is above reproach or criticism, but problems of the Chinese state are for the Chinese people to resolve. Provoking a massive military confrontation will hardly promote the values of individual liberty, democracy, and human rights that NATO asserts that it upholds.

“Russia bears full responsibility for its illegal, unjustifiable, and unprovoked war of aggression against Ukraine, which has gravely undermined Euro-Atlantic and global security and for which it must be held fully accountable.”

Russia bears responsibility for its decision to invade. That decision was egregiously stupid and has ensured the very encirclement by NATO forces that it was designed to prevent. Sweden and Finland have now joined the alliance, and whether Ukraine gains formal admission or not, there is no scenario in which it emerges outside of the Western security umbrella. The invasion was rash and will most likely end up being one of the major strategic political and economic blunders of the past 100 years. At the same time, those decisions were made in reaction to two decades of provocative NATO expansion. As with the Cold War, the people of a smaller nation are the primary victims of great power competition, made even more tragic because there were no objective economic or ideological causes of this conflict but only the inertia that prevents major power from changing course when the historical situation makes it possible to do so.

“We do not and will never recognise Russia’s illegal and illegitimate annexations, including Crimea.”

That is probably true as regards Donbass, but Crimea will likely have to be formally ceded if there is ever to be peace. Whatever happens, this claim is the height of hypocrisy, given NATO’s role in cravinf Kosovo off from Serbia. Kosovo’s independence was forced by a 78 day NATO bombing mission.

“There can be no impunity for Russian war crimes and other atrocities, such as attacks against civilians and the destruction of civilian infrastructure that deprives millions of Ukrainians of basic human services.”

Fair enough, but of course the universalisation of the underlying principle would require the investigation and punishment of war crimes committed across the Middle East, Central Asia, and North and East Africa during the ‘War on Terror.’ Everyone knows that will not happen. Remember the hundreds of thousands of deaths of Iraqi children that Madeleine Albright said were “worth it?” They died mostly because of the destruction of civilian infrastructure.

“We urge all countries not to provide any kind of assistance to Russia’s aggression and condemn all those who are actively facilitating Russia’s war.”

… while we continue to pump more and more offensive military hardware into the theatre of operations.

“We underline that this cannot be realised without Russia’s complete and unconditional withdrawal. While we have called on Russia to engage constructively in credible negotiations with Ukraine, Russia has not shown any genuine openness to a just and lasting peace.”

As I noted above and has been extensively documented, this claim is simply untrue. Russia asked for negotiations and was ignored’ they had an agreement worked out with Ukraine that the US and UK undid.

“We fully support Ukraine’s right to choose its own security arrangements. Ukraine’s future is in NATO.”

This claim sounds like a naked contradiction. According to whom is Ukraine’s future in NATO? The present government of Ukraine, it is true, is demanding NATO membership, but governments change. Is it not possible that Ukrainians, waking up to the way in which they have been sacrificed for US-NATO policy, will come to regard it as a de-stabilizing force and prefer some other security arrangement?

“Ukraine has become increasingly interoperable and politically integrated with the Alliance, and has made substantial progress on its reform path”Ukraine has become increasingly interoperable and politically integrated with the Alliance, and has made substantial progress on its reform path.”

Not according to Transparency International, which gave Ukraine a score of 33/100, ranking it 166th out of 180 countries. It has also engaged in a systematic campaign of Russophobic historical revisionism, including the inexcusable removal of Russian language books from the nation’s libraries.

“As part of a broader effort to better respond collectively to this threat, we will further develop Allies’ capabilities, and continue to engage with the Global Coalition to Defeat Da’esh and with partner countries in order to support their efforts and to help them build their capacity to counter terrorism. … Our approach to terrorism, and its causes, is in accordance with international law and the purposes and principles of the UN Charter, and upholds all relevant United Nations Security Council Resolutions on the fight against terrorism.”

Terrorism will never be defeated save by the elimination of its causes, of which armed invasion of small countries is a primary cause. Terrorism is a malign tactic in support of legitimate causes. Until the US stops interfering in the affairs of other countries there will always be resistance. Unable to match up to the US militarily, guerrilla and terrorist tactics will be adopted. In pursuit of its interests the US has never worried about international law. At this moment the US occupies parts of Syria in open contradiction to international law.

“Russia is fuelling tensions and instability across these regions. Pervasive instability results in violence against civilians, including conflict-related sexual violence, as well as attacks against cultural property and environmental damage.”

Indeed it does, and the US has been the major destabliser of “these regions” (in Africa). In the current conflict no African nation has openly supported the US. They have instead remained neutral and agitated for peace. having suffered from centuries of imperialist domination African nations are well-positioned to cut through NATO’s platitudes. They are certainly mistaken if they think that Putin’s Russia is a consistent opponent of imperialism, but they are correct to identify the US and Europe as the major historical sources of their own oppression.

“The People’s Republic of China’s stated ambitions and coercive policies challenge our interests, security and values … he PRC’s malicious hybrid and cyber operations and its confrontational rhetoric and disinformation target Allies and harm Alliance security.”

As above, there is no evidence that China has any ambitions beyond securing its own borders and spehere of interest. It is does not claim the right, as NATO does, to decide policy for the whole world, but only insists on the consistent application of the principle which NATO purportedly believes, that each nation has the right to “decide its own security arrangements.” If African nations prefer Chinese to Western investment, that is again their sovereign right to choose. All the “confrontational rhetoric” blows into China from Europe and America.

“The PRC seeks to control key technological and industrial sectors, critical infrastructure, and strategic materials and supply chains.”

Has Chinese policy sought to embargo key technologies? Has China strong-armed allies to stop trading with the US. This assertion is an inversion of reality. Biden has continued Trump’s policy of economic war against China. He could in fact learn a lesson from the last forty years of Chinese history. The Chinese have used the wealth generated by economic growth to lift hundreds of millions out of poverty. Yes, inequality has increased in relative terms, but no one can deny that there has been world-historical improvement in living standards, an improvements which the US seeks to de-rail.

“The deepening strategic partnership between the PRC and Russia and their mutually reinforcing attempts to undercut the rules-based international order run counter to our values and interests.”

As a number of realist commentators in the US have pointed out, the alliance between Russia and China is a direct function of US policy.

“We reiterate our clear determination that Iran must never develop a nuclear weapon. We remain deeply concerned about Iran’s escalation of its nuclear programme.”

Even the US admits that Iran is not actively pursuing nuclear weapons. As with the Russian-Chinese alliance, the escalation referred to here is tactical and a direct response to Trump’s walking away from the agreement that the Obama administration reached, Biden, of course, has not rejoined, so whatever happens, America has only itself to blame.

“The threat to critical undersea infrastructure is real.”

Where better to end than on this astounding assertion. The destruction of Nordstream 2 was either brought about by the US directly, indirectly, or with its silent approval and yet the inclusion of this claim implies that forces other than the US-NATO were involved. Only a group that assumes that it makes reality rather than responds to it could make such a claim. As it is finding out– sadly, at the cost of other people’s lives– NATO’s beliefs do not constitute the world, but they do help make it worse than it might otherwise be.