Mr Stoltenberg Disagrees With Me About Who's Expanding in Europe.He's Wrong

I am grateful to contributor ‘EricD’ for drawing my attention to this interview

 

http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/the-interview-nato-secretary-general-jens-stoltenberg/

 

with Jens Stoltenberg, Secretary-General of NATO, in which he specifically dismisses my point, made in a recent Spectator article, here http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/9459602/its-nato-thats-empire-building-not-putin/

that Russia, since the fall of the USSR, has lost control of 700,000 square miles, and the EU and/or NATO have gained control of 400,000 of them. (The remaining 300,000 consist of Ukraine, 230,000 square miles, and Belarus, 700,000 square miles).

 

The author of the interview wrongly defines me as a ‘vocal defender of Russia’, when in fact I am simply a vocal defender of objective truth against propaganda, very critical of Russia. But even so, it’s nice to know that the ‘Spectator’ article has penetrated this far.

 

Mr Stoltenberg offers the usual thought-free claim that the nations now under EU control are not really under its control because they ‘chose’ their servitude. Servitude, whether chosen or not, and when nations choose servitude one can only assume that they did so because they felt they had little alternative, or that the alternative was worse. This is not what I would describe as a free choice.

 

The key exchange is here : ‘Q: Peter Hitchens is a vocal defender of Russia. He writes: “Two great land powers face each other. One of these powers, Russia, has given up control over 700,000 sq. miles of valuable territory. The other, the European Union, has gained control over 400,000 of those square miles. Which of these powers is expanding?”

A: I think that’s a completely wrong statement. It’s independent nations that have knocked on the door and wanted membership. It’s not NATO in any way moving east—it’s the east wanting to join NATO and/or the European Union. And that’s the sovereign right of every sovereign nation to decide. So this idea that this is something that is lost for Russia and gained by the European Union is the wrong concept. Every nation has the right to decide its own path, including what kind of security arrangement it will be part of. This is a fundamental principle; it’s enshrined, for instance, in the Helsinki Final Act, which Russia has also subscribed to. No one has been forced to become a member of the European Union or NATO; everyone who has joined the European Union and NATO has joined because of their own free democratic will.’

 

I am amused by the claim that NATO and the EU have not moved eastwards, but that the east has moved towards NATO. It’s  a bit like the old philosophers’ joke about whether the train is leaving the station or the station is leaving the train. Even the philosophers know that it is the train that is moving, though they will have their little jest. Likewise, it is clear to Mr Stoltenberg that membership of NASTO or the EU involves the extension of the power embodied in these organisations on to the soil of their members. But it is obviously not a good moment for him to say so, is it? It rather undermines about 90% of the neo-conservative argument.

 

 I am also not absolutely sure that his final claim is true. How much democratic input was involved in decisions to join or remain in NATO after 1991, by which time it was a wholly different organisation from the one its original members had joined?  As for the EU, Certainly Britain’s membership of the EU was the result of a very flawed, dishonest and unfair procedure which, while ostensibly democratic, involved the systematic deception of the populace about the real nature of what they were joining and an utterly unfair public campaign on the issue made worse by the failure of the BBC to observe proper impartiality. I know this for certain as I was there at the time and have spent a lot of time since looking into the matter. I wonder how many other  countries – even those which went through formal democratic procedures – might have experienced similar unfairness and dishonesty.

 

I deal with this claim in my letter to ‘the Spectator’ published this week:

http://www.spectator.co.uk/the-week/letters/9479692/spectator-letters-who-kept-us-out-of-the-euro-and-how-to-deal-with-squirrels/

 

It reads:

 

‘Joining the free world

Sir: Roger Broad (Letters, 21 March) repeats the assertion, so often made, that European countries formerly controlled by the USSR became EU or NATO members by their own free will. It depends what you mean by free will. In a world where even this country no longer feels able to assert sovereignty, few nations freely choose anything. Broken economically and morally by decades of Leninism, Moscow’s former vassals were understandably anxious to climb into any ambulance that offered to pick them up. They have already begun to pay the bill, having lost their frontiers, their ability to make independent foreign policy and (in many cases) their currencies. It may be worth it. But it is not that free, and we should not pretend it is.’