It's not difficult to trace where matters are proceeding; the EU is becoming integrated with NATO to the point of merging its military, security and foreign affairs policies and programs with the Alliance, and as the US is not only a member, but the central foundation, of NATO, then the EU is also inescapably linked with and in effect subordinated to Washington.
Three days ago the US House majority leader Nancy Pelosi was in Italy where she appealed to not only her host but all of Europe regarding the Afghan War in claiming that "We have to make a judgement....And I mean we, Italy, the European Union, the United States, NATO - all of us - as to what is in our national security interests...."
(Agence France-Presse, February 16, 2009)
Two days later Italy announced that it would deploy more troops to Afghanistan.
Western powers assembled under the banner of the NATO star reserve - arrogate to themselves - the exclusive prerogative of intervening in the regional and internal affairs of nations anywhere in the world and the sole right to employ military force beyond their borders.
Although paying lip service to the United Nations when it can be used against a targeted nation or to justify a war before or after the fact, Western leaders see no role for organizations like the 114-state Non-Aligned Movement, the 53-nation African Union, the 33 member Organization of American States, the 23 member Arab League, the 57-nation Organization of the Islamic Conference, the post-Soviet Commonwealth of Independent States and Collective Security Treaty Organization, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization or the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
Not in addressing global issues or even in playing a leading role in regional and local matters that impact the respective groups and their constituent member states directly.
One could be pardoned for reworking the NATO acronym as Nordic Aryan Teutonic Order.
Three days ago in a session of the European Parliament pressure was being exerted for the EU to integrate further with NATO.
Ari Vatanen, a member representing France, was among those commissioned for this purpose and said, inter alia, that the EU "can only fully realise its potential by developing a strong transatlantic tie and a complementary relationship with NATO."
To which German Member of the European Parliament Tobias Pfluger responded, "Every effort to strengthen NATO via a closer cooperation with the European Union increases the potential for international conflicts. It will also lead to a further militarization of the EU's foreign policy and accelerate the tendency to use military force in order to 'solve' conflicts."
(European Parliament, February 17, 2009)
The positions of Vatanen and Pfluger are not only opposing but exclusive, both in the sense that neither can accomodate the other and that they are the sole alternatives. This is no middle ground or third choice.
Europe, and the world as a whole, can either acquiesce in its domination by an increasingly expansionist and aggressive international military bloc - the first in history - or it can actively organize to dismantle it.
