Speech from Revolutionary Unification (Greece) for the 1st Session “NATO Expansion and the Balkans” of the International Colloquium in Belgrade on June 29
Dimitrios Patelis
Contents
Introduction
The Position and Role of NATO in WWIII
NATO expansion in the Balkans
The New US Strategic Doctrine
The militarisation of the economy and society in the EU
Some conclusions
Introduction
26 years ago, one of the most brutal war operations was launched by the USA & NATO against the people of Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia was a concrete symbol of the peoples’ anti-fascist victory in World War II and a unique variety of early socialism resisting the hegemony of Western capital. In accordance with the strategic aims of the Euro-Atlantic axis, this country had to be dismantled, and its insubordinate people had to be punished. The brotherly people of Yugoslavia have paid dearly for their heroism and dignity. The losses in human lives and logistical infrastructure were huge.
It was another imperialist crime against humanity.
It was a warning of what the imperialists had in store for every country, for every people, for every movement that resists their thieving plans.
It was a bloody act at the first stage of the same war that is escalating today in the battlefields of Ukraine, in the volatile confrontation in Taiwan and on the Korean peninsula and in many other parts of the world.
The missile attack on the embassy of the People’s Republic of China on May 7th & 8th of 1999 foreshadowed the strategic aims and objectives of the US-led imperialist axis.
The communists and all progressive forces of humanity understood from that time on that US & NATO imperialist aggression and the destruction of Yugoslavia was a pivotal move, a general rehearsal for the further escalation of the war, with a clear objective, as far as the counter-revolutionary dissolution of the USSR had been achieved, to dismantle the largest, the most powerful remaining state formation, which could act as a centripetal force, as a pole of attraction and reunification of peoples and countries in the region: the Russian Federation.
According to the analysis of the international research group “The Logic of History”, the first war in the Persian Gulf, the dissolution of Yugoslavia, the war against Afghanistan and Iraq, mark the beginning of the Third World War (if the “Cold War”, which ended without a fight, is not considered the third). An aggressive imperialist war, which shares many similarities and analogies with the two previous ones, but also important differences, which must be indicated in order to avoid confusion.
However, the rhetoric and alternating ideologemes of the aggressors (war “against terrorism”, “war of civilizations-religions”, war “for the establishment of democracy”, war “against authoritarian and totalitarian regimes”, war “against failed states”, against “terrorist states” and so on) obscure the situation and exacerbate confusion, even among the components of the left. Theoretical poverty and lack of distinguishing criteria often lead to absurd positions.
Humanity is battered by the deadly waves of the escalating Third World War (WWIII) across multiple theatres of operations and fronts.
The unevenness and unresolved contradictions of the global socio-economic system, coupled with the radical and rapid shifts in the global balance of power resulting from the weakening of imperialist powers and the rapid strengthening of their rivals, have driven the axis of parasitic imperialist countries, led by the USA, towards increasingly overt aggression.
This axis is attacking forces that de facto unite the majority of the world’s peoples. These forces gradually forming as the opposing pole to the axis:
- possess the majority of humanity’s fundamental productive and creative power of the global working class.
- possess real production, through which the majority of humanity’s material and spiritual wealth is created.
- refuse to submit to the parasitic, deadly axis’ violent economic, political, cultural and military subjugation without a fight, or to the imposition of a neo-colonial ‘new world order’ based on the predatory and murderous interests of the most aggressive circles of the financial oligarchy. These interests are increasingly being codified and proclaimed as ‘universal rules’ and ‘global governance’, i.e. a brutal, imperialist planetary dictatorship.
During the escalation of WWIII, all relations of production, interstate relations, transnational bodies with planetary ambitions and the integrations of the global imperialist system are being restructured to meet the demands of the conflict.
The Position and Role of NATO in WWIII
Historically, imperialist economic and political integrations, such as the European Union (EU) and the remaining military alliances, with the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) at the forefront, have played a key role in this conflict.
“NATO is a political and military alliance. Its purpose is to guarantee the freedom and security of its members through political and military means.
POLITICAL – NATO promotes democratic values and enables members to consult and cooperate on defence and security-related issues to solve problems, build trust and, in the long run, prevent conflict.
MILITARY – NATO is committed to the peaceful resolution of disputes. If diplomatic efforts fail, it has the military power to undertake crisis-management operations. These are carried out under the collective defence clause of NATO’s founding treaty – Article 5 of the Washington Treaty or under a United Nations mandate”.[1]
NATO was launched with 12 founding member states in 1949. Following successive expansions, particularly after the establishment of bourgeois counterrevolutions and the restoration of capitalism in the USSR and other European countries of early socialism, despite assurances that it would not expand eastwards, it now has 32 member states.
Under its “collective defence” clause (Article 5), “an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all”. Moreover, “NATO’s
Strategic Concepts lay down the Alliance’s core tasks and principles, its values, the evolving security environment and the Alliance’s strategic objectives for the next decade. The 2022 Strategic Concept reaffirms that NATO’s key purpose is to ensure the collective defence of its members, based on a 360-degree approach, and outlines three core tasks – deterrence and defence, crisis prevention and management, and cooperative security”.[2]
The first update to the NATO Strategic Concept since 2010 redefines ‘challenges and threats’, setting out guiding principles, goals, priorities and objectives. Russia, (the economically weak link on the opposing side, with a ruling class historically inclined to bargain for privileged intermediary roles in the exploitation of natural resources and labour power against imperialism) is prioritised as “the most significant and direct threat to Allies’ security and to peace and stability.” The People’s Republic of China is labelled for the first time as posing a “strategic challenge”. The writers of this document claim that Moscow “seeks to establish spheres of influence and direct control through coercion, subversion, aggression and annexation’ using ‘conventional, cyber and hybrid means”.[3]
This update was a coordinated response to “The Russian Federation’s war of aggression against Ukraine’ after the start of the ‘Special Military Operation’ as is termed by Russia”.
As a result, NATO announced changes to the deployment of its forces, including an expansion of the Rapid Reaction Force and the deployment of additional US Armed Forces and base facilities to Russia’s borders. These changes include an eightfold increase in the size of the Rapid Reaction Force (from 40,000 to 300,000 troops), a significant expansion of the US military presence in Europe, and the establishment of a permanent headquarters for the US Fifth Army Corps in Poland. Other changes include the deployment of an additional 5,000 troops to Romania, an increase in the rotational deployment of US Armed Forces to the Baltic countries (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania), the addition of two squadrons of F-35 fighter aircraft to the UK, the installation of additional air defence systems at bases in Italy and Germany, and an increase in the number of destroyers in Rota, Spain (from three to six).
The Doctrine extensively references China, whose “stated ambitions and coercive policies challenge our interests”, while declaring that “The Indo-Pacific is important for NATO, given that developments in that region can directly affect EuroAtlantic security”.
The only certainty is that countries in the imperialist core of the Axis and their subordinates will see the rapid imposition of war economy conditions, the militarisation of the economy and society, authoritarian control and a police state.
NATO expansion in the Balkans.
In 1990, negotiators reached an agreement that a reunified Germany would be in NATO under West Germany’s existing membership.
Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, many former Warsaw Pact and post-Soviet states sought to join NATO. Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic became members in 1999, amid much debate within NATO itself.
NATO then formalized the process of joining the organization with “Membership Action Plans”, which aided the accession of seven Central and Eastern Europe countries shortly before the 2004 Istanbul summit: Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia. Two countries on the Adriatic Sea—Albania and Croatia—joined on 1 April 2009 before the 2009 Strasbourg–Kehl summit. The next member states to join NATO were Montenegro on 5 June 2017, and North Macedonia on 27 March 2020.
The first step for the NATO expansion in the Balkans is the brutal war operations against the people of Yugoslavia. After that, several countries “joined” the alliance. Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo also have aspirations to join. Serbia, while participating in NATO’s Partnership for Peace program, has maintained a neutral stance.
The New US Strategic Doctrine
Donald Trump announced the creation of an extremely ambitious and complex new anti-missile defence system called “Golden Dome”, which is scheduled to be fully operational by 2029 at a cost of over $175 billion. The project aims to achieve total dominance in the field of aerospace defence and is a resurrection of Ronald Reagan’s infamous failed ‘Strategic Defence Initiative’, also known as “Star Wars”.
The system is expected to operate using multi-layered, sequential detection, tracking and interception of missiles. Ground-based, superfast lasers and hypersonic interceptors will be capable of striking ballistic missiles within the first 60–90 seconds of launch before they release their multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles (MIRVs). If this is achieved, the US will destroy its adversary with its own weapon systems, which will detonate over enemy territory.
This will be followed by interception using swarms of low-orbit (LEO) microsatellites with infrared tracking sensors and electro-optical systems and active destruction systems using explosive charges or directed electromagnetic pulses (EMP).
In the final stage, close to the target, the system will incorporate a new generation of upgraded Patriot PAC-4 and THAAD missiles, which are capable of countering hypersonic glide vehicles. Iron Dome Block III units will protect critical infrastructure areas.
The Sentinel AI Command platform is expected to serve as the system’s integration matrix: a supercomputing artificial intelligence system with real-time sensor fusion capabilities that can process threats and decide to intercept within 5–6 seconds of initial detection.
Particular emphasis is placed on the system’s ability to counter hypersonic weapons, which have unpredictable trajectories and move at speeds exceeding Mach 5 (6,000 km/h). Integrating Glide X interceptors, developed in collaboration with Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman, enables the system to engage such targets with precision within 40 kilometres, even if they perform evasive manoeuvres.
However, it remains unclear to what extent and when this plan will be possible, given the US’s documented lag in areas where the axis of resistance has achieved technological breakthroughs in weapon systems capable of asymmetric strikes.
Notably, the US has failed to develop hypersonic missiles (which achieve speeds between 5 and 25 Mach[4] with the help of scramjet engines) beyond the experimental stage.
Conversely, Russia, the People’s Republic of China, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Iran and North Yemen have manufactured and deployed such missiles. Therefore, the question arises: how and when will the US succeed in intercepting weapons that it does not possess itself?
This is further confirmation that certain countries, outside of the imperialist core, have achieved technological superiority in strategically important areas.
By pursuing this plan, the US is effectively militarising space, which is in violation of the fundamental principles of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty. This is prompting its opponents from the socialist and anti-imperialist camp to take symmetrical and, more importantly, asymmetrical measures (such as developing anti-satellite (ASAT) weapons and a new generation of S-700 anti-satellite/anti-missile systems).
This creates a vicious cycle of arms competition and provides an environment conducive to profiteering and the squandering of public funds by monopoly groups in the imperialist military–industrial complex.
However, even as a declaration, this doctrine makes ‘pre-emptive defence’ (through attack) the ‘technical norm’, allowing for the early neutralisation of enemy missile installations or launch units before they can launch missiles.
This exponentially increases the likelihood of activating various enemy and/or incompatible automated instant retaliation systems, i.e. complete global annihilation! Furthermore, the existential threat to humanity is transferred not only to technologically advanced means of enormous destructive power, but also to a black box system consisting of ‘artificial intelligence’ that is uncontrollable due to military secrecy!
The militarisation of the economy and society in the EU.
The mainstream media presents the conflict between the US and the UK/EU over the continuation of the war, with the ‘new’ US administration playing the roles of ‘peacemaker’, ‘mediator’ and Pontius Pilate. However, this is actually a propaganda campaign to manage changes in positions, roles and jurisdictions/responsibilities in the ‘division of labour’ of WWIII.
The European Commission’s White Paper on Defence and its ReArm Europe proposal aim to allow the 27 Member States to spend an additional 800 billion euros over the next four years, on top of their existing budgets.
The unelected and virtually unchecked bureaucrats of the EU’s transnational dictatorship have identified the following priority areas: air and missile defence, artillery systems, munitions and missiles, drones and anti-drone systems, artificial intelligence, quantum technology, cyber warfare, electronic warfare and strategic catalysts.[5]
The ideological-propagandistic framework of the militaristic transformation of EU member states is quite clear. For example, Article 24 of the European Parliament Resolution of 2 April 2025 begins with an abstract wish-list on the ‘respect, protection and fulfilment of human rights around the world’, before calling on the EU and its member states ‘to continue supporting the work of the UN […] and to push back against the influence of authoritarian and totalitarian regimes’. For this aim, the ‘legislator’ demands ‘that the EU has a seat in international organisations, including the UN Security Council’, in addition to existing member seats. The resolution ‘Is deeply concerned by growing attacks against the rules-based global order by authoritarian and totalitarian regimes […] and through the undermining of the functioning of UN bodies, namely the abuse of veto power at the UN Security Council […] calls on the Member States and like minded partners to develop a robust strategy and to intensify their efforts to reverse this trend and to send a united and strong message of support to those organisations when they are attacked or threatened […].’ [6]
It is clear that the imperialist integration of the EU is strategically aligned with the political, diplomatic and ideological aims of the axis of aggression, as evidenced by the EU bureaucracy’s increased presence and the push for reactionary UN reforms. They even consider any resistance to the dictatorship they are seeking to impose on the UN to be an enemy act of war. They refer to this resistance as ‘unprovoked and unjustified aggression through the undermining of the functioning of UN bodies, namely the abuse of veto power at the UN Security Council’.
In both the EU and UN institutions, a transnational dictatorship of imperialist countries and monopolies is being imposed by the financial oligarchy. The EU institutions consider the institutionally established legacies in the composition of the UN organs, especially the Permanent Members of the Security Council, to be a “Great obstacle” to the imposition of this dictatorship, as the presence of Russia and China is very annoying to the oligarchy! They therefore want to rectify any ‘dysfunction and inefficiency’, such as the right of veto.
The full alignment of the component parts of the US-NATO-EU axis of aggression is evident from the use of US-coded terminology in this resolution and other official texts. Even the formal reference to international law has been omitted and replaced with the “rules-based global order”.
When the selfish, predatory interests of the financial oligarchy of imperialism are crudely installed in place of any international law, codified with the claim of imposing and adopting them as if they were universally accepted ‘rules of the world order’, the axis calls into question any institutional remnants of WWII, declaring that it will impose its own rules by force, through total military confrontation.
Whatever power the law may once have had is now overshadowed by the bloodthirsty assertion that the powerful should enforce their will by any means necessary, including extortion and genocide, and the threat of the total annihilation of humanity.
The racist, neo-colonialist aggression of the imperialist axis cannot be concealed behind the rhetorical schemes and propaganda excuses it invokes.
Following the ‘9/11 attacks on the USA’, when imperialist decision-makers dubbed WWIII the ‘War on Terror’, they invented the propagandistic ideological constructions of the ‘preventive humanitarian interventions for the imposition of free market and democracy’.
The rhetoric and alternating ideologies of the aggressors (the ‘war on terror’, the ‘war of civilisations and religions’, the ‘war for the imposition of democracy’, and so on) obfuscate the reality of the situation and exacerbate confusion, even among the remaining left.
Today, they are using the fear of supposedly “growing attacks against the rules-based global order” to justify the escalation of the axis’ aggression in WWIII!
Some conclusions
WWIII is a confrontation between the imperialist axis of aggression and the forces of socialism and anti-imperialism.
The imperialist forces are readjusting and restructuring the position and role of the state and interstate components of the axis on the basis of technical, institutional and organisational means that they believe will ensure their victory in WWIII and subjugate the planet to their predatory interests. They are therefore revising and restructuring the structure and technical/organisational functions of NATO, as well as the strategic doctrines and corresponding ideology/propaganda in the US, NATO, the EU, their member states and subordinates.
At the World Anti-Imperialist Platform, our three main goals are:
- The victory of the forces of socialism and anti-imperialism, and the defeat of the US-NATO-EU axis of aggression in all fields of the conflict, including the ideological field.
- The theoretical unmasking of manipulative bourgeois and opportunist/revisionist ideological constructions and dogmas that cause confusion and prevent the realisation of the need for, and practical steps towards the formation of the collective subject of the victorious anti-imperialist struggle.
- The theoretical and practical strengthening and unification of all consistent communist forces on an internationalist basis, so they can fulfil their vanguard role in the victorious frontal struggle with the prospect of socialist revolution and communism.
[2] NATO 2022 Strategic Concept
[3] As above.
[4] The Mach number is a measure of speed, particularly in atmospheric fluids, and is defined as the ratio of an object’s speed to the local speed of sound. Mach 1 corresponds to the speed of sound at sea level, which is around 1,225 km/h.
[5] European Parliament resolution of 12 March 2025 on the white paper on the future of European defence.
[6] European Parliament resolution of 2 April 2025 on human rights and democracy in the world and the European Union’s policy on the matter
