ONE has to dig down pretty far into the BBC News website pages to find any analysis of this week’s big Nato summit meeting in Warsaw. Fair do’s, internal British politics is quite interesting at the moment, what with both the main establishment parties at Westminster in existential crisis. Unfortunately, as the doorstopper-sized Chilcot report reminds us, the British media frequently conspires to hide inconvenient facts about UK participation in foreign adventures.

This Nato summit was something special: the Warsaw gathering made key strategic decisions that effectively transform the global political balance of forces. In a nutshell, Nato has completed its transformation from being a (post-war) defensive shield for America’s European allies into a global extension of Western military might.

The most significant military development announced at the summit was the alliance’s new anti-missile defence screen, which went operational on Friday. Supposedly, this missile shield is to deter (and in extremis shoot down) missiles fired by “rogue” states such as Iran. Russia thinks otherwise. The Kremlin sees the new missile system as a signal to Vladimir Putin – post the annexation of Crimea – that Nato is developing the capability of nullifying Russia’s nuclear deterrent.

Russia has a point. The new anti-missile system is suspiciously elaborate simply as a means of dissuading Iran from lobbing the odd rocket at Europe. It centres on a massive radar and missile complex in…er, Romania. A second radar and rocket complex is being constructed in Poland. The first anti-missile missiles are based on US naval vessels, as well as in Romania. Even if all this amounts to a minimal defence against stray rockets from the Middle East, it clearly sticks two fingers up to the Kremlin.

In response, Russia has been rattling its sabre in the Baltic. The potential flashpoint is Kaliningrad, a sliver of Russian territory sandwiched between Poland and Lithuania. The Kremlin is busy fortifying Kaliningrad, named after Mikhail Kalinin, one of Stalin’s henchmen. The place is now an armed redoubt though so far the Kremlin has deferred from deploying nuclear-tipped Iskander-M ballistic missiles in Kaliningrad. If and when it does, we are definitely in a new Cold War.

Not to be outdone, the Warsaw summit upped the stakes in the Baltic. Four battalions of soldiers from other Nato states will be deployed to reinforced local troops in Poland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – with 500 UK troops going to Estonia. They will act as a tripwire: any Russian intervention in the Baltic would instantly draw US and UK forces into combat.

In anticipation, the UK is involved in a significant programme of military expansion of its ground forces. As one senior UK general put it to me, the British army was “bent out of shape” by the counter-insurgency in Afghanistan, now it is “returning to division-size warfare”. The army is getting 600 new American-designed Ajax battle tanks, plus the upgrade of our Apache attack helicopters. Using the RAF’s new Atlas tactical airlifters, that general told me the army could deploy in division-strength to a distance of 2,000km. The Baltic is roughly 1,700km from the UK. QED.

Nato’s force projection reaches further than the Baltic. There is to be a new intelligence “Fusion Centre” in Tunisia plus support for Tunisian Special Operations Forces. Tunisia is now a major base for Nato intervention in North Africa, especially in neighbouring Libya. Speaking of Libya – reduced to near anarchy by Nato bombing in 2011 — the summit agreed to launch a new maritime security operation in the Mediterranean called Operation Sea Guardian. This mission is cloaked in the usual rhetorical guff: “providing situational awareness” (i.e. intelligence gathering) and the ever-popular “contributing to regional capacity building” (a.k.a. selling weapons to regional puppets).

One dog that didn’t bark in Warsaw was Nato’s long-standing plan to put 6,000 troops into Libya to protect the new, Western-backed Government of National Accord (GNA). What gives? I had a private briefing with a senior British diplomatic source close to the situation. The Western powers are getting cold feet regarding ground forces as they fear (rightly) this would unite the feuding jihadist and semi-criminal militia groups into a common front against Nato. At the moment, these militia have gone quiet in Tripoli, so the GNA government is under no immediate threat.

This lull could be short-lived. It is not unconnected with the UK airlifting to Tripoli a staggering $1bn in Libyan dinars, freshly printed in Basingstoke. That largesse has ensured a peaceful Ramadan, as (bizarrely) the cash machines still work in the Libyan capital. I also hear from diplomatic sources that some militia (e.g. the so-called Petroleum Facilities Guard) are being bribed with cash to keep quiescent. Warning: with so much paper currency flooding the country, hyper-inflation – and Nato intervention – is only a step away.

There is fresh evidence this weekend that British and Nato Special Forces are already fighting in Libya. Reputable Middle East media sources, including Aljazeera, are reporting air-traffic control recordings which reveal British and US Special Forces coordinating air strikes in support of General Khalifa Haftar, of the self-styled Libyan National Army. Haftar was a Gaddafi loyalist before being exiled in the 1980s. He has now emerged as a potential Libyan strong man, with backing from Egypt and the Gulf States. Why is Nato suddenly seeming to back Haftar? Possibly because he has had some success against the Daesh-ISIS forces in Libya. And partly because the new GNA administration has been proving difficult for the West to control: it point blank refused to take back refugees headed for Italy.

Finally, the Warsaw summit saw President Obama reverse his long-stated plan to reduce US troop numbers in Afghanistan, claiming the security situation on the ground was “precarious” and that the Taliban had “gained ground in some places”. Previously Obama had argued that local Afghan forces were capable of dealing with the Taliban. Recent events have shattered that illusion. US intelligence experts reckon the Taliban now control 39 districts and contest another 43. US poodle as ever, the UK agreed at Warsaw to increase its troop deployment in Afghanistan from 450 to 500. David Cameron justified the extra 50 troops as proof (post-Brexit) that Britain would “continue to play a leading role on the world stage”. Pathetic.

Is there a pattern in all this? The era dominated by globalisation is stuttering to an end in deflation, financial panic and the intensification of rivalries between national blocs of the sort that preceded the outbreak of the First World War.

Globalisation was nothing but a slogan to hide the rape of the planet’s natural resources while hundreds of millions in the developing world were recruited into the ephemeral joys of the consumer society. Meanwhile, the working class in the West found itself de-skilled and trapped in debt. The Brexit revolt was one result. The drift to war – as national elites seek scapegoats – is another.

The solution? Progressive forces, in Scotland and elsewhere, have to raise the flag for internationalism and anti-militarism – beginning here in Europe. In particular, we need a defence policy based less on brinkmanship and US force projection, and more on protecting Europe’s legitimate interests. The alternative is the highway to war, signposted this weekend in Warsaw.


Afghanistan: Nato agrees to fund security forces until 2020