The new NATO treaty is of major significance in the affairs of mankind.

There was no public debate in the UK on whether or not the British people would like to scrap the 1949 NATO Treaty, which has served Britain for 50 Years, and no debate or even discussion in parliament. There has been a secretive and undemocratic transformation of Britain’s defence and foreign policy, and the role of the UK armed forces and arms industries.

Mankind’s best hope for world peace rests with the United Nations Charter and the United Nations Organisation. For over 50 years these have enjoyed general support around the world. Till now.

The new NATO treaty signals that for NATO countries, nineteen of the world’s most powerful nations, war has once again become an acceptable means of advancing national interests. NATO nations have abandoned the United Nations Organisation and its principles, except as a public relations tool to defuse and deflect world opinion. From now on NATO will use the United Nations as a cover for illicit and immoral actions.

The new NATO treaty is written in New Speak, the language of the New Politicians of the New World Order. The words are familiar, but they are being used with new meaning or without meaning.

The purpose is to send coded signals to participants in the game, and decoy signals to the world at large. We are dealing with a sophisticated form of mendacity, or perhaps collective madness. It’s hard to be sure.

Yet there is a simple key to its understanding. It’s the reality test. Read the words and simultaneously look at what the politicians are doing.

The new treaty bears the title, The Alliance’s Strategic Concept. Some people will claim that this document is not a treaty. We were intended to overlook this possibility. It is no accident that it is not called a treaty.

However, The Alliance’s Strategic Concept document plainly shows that NATO plans wipe out and replace the 1949 NATO Treaty. Its purpose is clearly stated. “The Strategic Concept will govern the Alliance’s security and defence policy, its operational concepts, its conventional and nuclear force posture and its collective defence arrangements.” It was signed by NATO Heads of State in Washington on 24 April 1999.

Avoiding the suggestion that this document is a treaty has made ratification by parliaments apparently unnecessary. Its innocuous title enabled Tony Blair to avoid parliamentary attention or debate on its world-shaking provisions. Nobody had any idea what he was talking about. He simply announced to Parliament on 26 April 1999 that the alliance's new strategic concept was now in the House of Commons library. End of discussion. And went on to the urgent matter of NATO’s bombing.

The new treaty pays lip service to the United Nations and United Nations principles, but what does this New Speak mean when read alongside the actions of the New Politicians?

As the new treaty was being signed the bombing of Yugoslavia by NATO countries was at its height. They were committing a crime against humanity in flagrant contravention of their commitment to several international treaties and to the Charter of the United Nations. The UK Government had taken no vote to go to war. Yet the new treaty reaffirmed that the Alliance was “based on common values of democracy, human rights and the rule of law.” It stated, “the Alliance will continue to respect the legitimate security interests of others, and seek the peaceful resolution of disputes as set out in the Charter of the United Nations.”

NATO had gone to war in defiance of the Security Council of the United Nations. It alone could authorise military action against another country. Yet the new treaty claimed respect for the Security Council. The treaty states, “The United Nations Security Council has the primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security.”

As NATO bombs fell on Yugoslavia the new NATO treaty also confirmed its commitment to “the peaceful resolution of disputes, in which no country would be able to intimidate or coerce any other through the threat or use of force.”

The document speaks of its commitment and success in arms control. Whilst not wishing to deny the reality of some of these moves the overall situation is the increased arming of the world. The ploy of NATO expansion for example, means that new member states must radically increase their arms spending to “harmonise” their “capability” with NATO partners to achieve “interoperability.” NATO sells 80 per cent of the world’s arms to its own tax-payers.

Moves have been made to eradicate land mines, but cluster bombs are legal and worse. Whilst the US may talk the language of arms control it does so from the position of spending more on arms per year than the combined total of the next thirteen biggest spenders. Britain and the US have substantially increased spending on arms since the bombing of Yugoslavia.

The bombing of Yugoslavia, which was going on as the new treaty was being signed, demonstrated the rejection by NATO leaders of all the above treaty elements that they were pretending to commit themselves to.

The new treaty strives neither for clarity nor excitement. The mention of “non-Article 5 crisis response operations” is not the kind of language that sets the pulse racing. But perhaps it should.

“Article 5” refers to the core sentence of the 1949 NATO Treaty. “The parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe and North America shall be considered an attack against them all.” It affirmed that NATO was a purely defensive alliance and that its area of concern was limited to the stated territory. The old treaty was legal within the United Nations Charter. Defensive war is the only kind of war sanctioned by the United Nations without Security Council agreement.

The vague and anodyne language of this new document spells out NATO’S self-given permission to wage wars of aggression, (bomb, destroy, dominate, take control) anywhere in the world, for an array of reasons or pretences that could occur - and which, in fact, already are occurring around the world. Self defence remains an element of the treaty but the sovereignty and inviolability of nations is no longer accepted as a limit on military action.

Nothing in the United Nations Charter could possibly sanction military action for NATO’s “non-Article 5” stated purposes. The Charter is emphatic. There can be “no threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.” ( Article 2,4)

The authors of this new treaty, therefore, clearly intend to override the United Nations’ Charter and dismiss the authority of the United Nations. Is it possible that NATO countries could do anything more alarming to put world peace at risk? No wonder Russia, China, India and others have reacted so strongly.

NATO sees its military might as offering something superior to any form of economic aid, or mediation or counselling, or policing, or expert advice or negotiation. It is ready to act militarily to deal with almost any problem within any state.

These are NATO’s new excuses for aggression. Notice that NATO, now taking the world as its area of operation, asserts the right to take military action in support of trade. “Alliance security must take account of the global context. . . . acts of terrorism, sabotage and organised crime, the disruption of the flow of vital resources. . . the uncontrolled movement of large numbers of people, humanitarian emergencies.”

“Alliance military forces . . . may also be called upon to contribute to the preservation of international peace and security by conducting operations in support of other international organisations [unspecified], complementing and reinforcing political actions [unspecified] within a broad approach to security [unspecified]. . . The Alliance’s forces will have to deal with a complex and diverse range of actors, risks, situations and demands.”

“Essential tasks will include controlling, protecting, and defending territory; ensuring the unimpeded use of sea, and land lines of communication; conducting independent and combined air operations [bombing?]; surveillance, intelligence, reconnaissance and electronic warfare.”

NATO control of territory is the opposite of democracy, and is currently being demonstrated in Kosovo and Bosnia where the appointed High Representatives (dictators) rule by decree. (See Chandler.) In the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia the carrot of desperately needed aid, following NATO’s destruction of Yugoslavia’s industry, ensures economic subjugation. With over $50 billion of war damage the Yugoslav government has put 4,500 state owned enterprises up for foreign investment.

The bombing of Yugoslavia demonstrates the new NATO treaty, in action. It shows that NATO sees taking military, economic and political control of other countries as a legitimate activity. The treaty shows NATO, which had lost its purpose at the end of the cold war, taking on new roles to ensure the continued expansion of the arms trade. It shows NATO as the amoral military enforcer for the new NATO imperialism. It is indifferent to the principles of the United Nations Charter, truth, justice, and democratic accountability. NATO is attempting to justify wars of aggression on the grounds that it is attempting to achieve peace. NATO asserts its right to rule the world.

We have a serious problem here.

The Prime Minister (Mr. Tony Blair): With permission, I will make a statement on the NATO summit in Washington on 23 to 25 April. I was accompanied by the Foreign and Defence Secretaries and the Chief of the Defence Staff. Copies of the Washington declaration, the alliance's new strategic concept, the summit communiqué, and other summit documents are being placed in the Library of the House.

[End of discussion. No-one could say he hadn’t been told. Mr Blair continued as follows.]

The summit was naturally dominated by Kosovo. NATO reaffirmed its basic and unalterable demands . . . [which had, of course, been altered, and everyone turned their attention to Kosovo.]