From 1989-2009, the West has been working hard to move the Berlin Wall to Russia’s Borders

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"When the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, NATO was an Alliance of 16 members and no partners. Today, NATO has 26 members –” with 2 new invitees, prospective membership for others, and over 20 partners in Europe and Eurasia, seven in the Mediterranean, four in the Persian Gulf, and others from around the world.

"NATO matched the Partnership for Peace with the establishment of the Mediterranean Dialogue, and…NATO realized the need to reach out to new partners around the world….This included establishing the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative to reach out to nations of the Persian Gulf. In addition, Australia, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea, and now Singapore are making valuable contributions to NATO operations, especially in Afghanistan…."

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On November 9, a modest gathering of political figures and at least one long-since-its-prime American rock band will gather at Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate to make political capital or attempt to revive a flagging career.

The Fall of The Berlin Wall has been enshrined as a mythic event comparable to the parting of the Red Sea, the defeat of Bonaparte at Waterloo, Neil Armstrong hopping over moon craters and the 1985 We Are the World musical extravaganza to eliminate world hunger.

This year’s twentieth anniversary ceremony, though, will reflect the West’s preoccupation with the after-effects of the new world order that the Berlin events of a generation ago are considered to have ushered in.

The twin offspring of the end of the Cold War, global neoliberalism and the transformation of the North Atlantic Treaty organization into history’s first international military bloc, have assuredly both assisted and reflected the domination of the world by the United States and its Western allies. They have also resulted in the near collapse of the American financial sector with reverberations around the world, especially in Europe, and the worst global economic crisis since the Great Depression preceding World War II.

The expansion of NATO over the past decade into a planetary force with missions on four continents, partners on six and wars in two has also cast a shadow over this year’s Brandenburg Gate festivities, as there are currently over 100,000 troops from NATO nations in the ninth year of a war in South Asia which is escalating by the day and which will never end as long as NATO exists.

With the longest war in America’s history since its retreat from Vietnam and with the now 60-year-old NATO embroiled in its first ground war and first conflict in Asia, Western leaders – most notably U.S. President Barack Obama – have more pressing exigencies to attend to than once again pontificating on the teleological significance of a wall being torn down.

The November 9th roster, then, will be a reduced one and consist of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and assorted stars of yesteryear like Mikhail Gorbachev, Lech Walesa and Bon Jovi. Medvedev’s motivation for appearing at the Freedom Festival (Fest der Freiheit) is uncertain. Bon Jovi’s is clear: To emerge from obscurity and promote their new single, "We Weren’t Born to Follow," the title of which is a pluralized rehash of the 1968 Carole King song "Wasn’t Born To Follow." There is no reason to expect anything more original from the other participants. A thousand giant dominos may upstage them all.

In the days leading up to the Freedom Festival, which is not a free festival as the usual well-connected ones will be given the choice locations, several events have occurred which illustrate the nature of the new order which succeeded the end of the Cold War. On November 5 Irish rock band U2 headlined an MTV concert in front of Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate for an audience of 10,000 ticket holders only. A free concert, but only for those with tickets.

To keep out the unwanted from this warm-up to the November 9th celebration of freedom, however, a six and a half foot high metal barrier surrounded the concert site, leading one of the excluded to state, "It’s completely ridiculous that they are blocking the view. I thought it’s a free show, but MTV probably wants people to watch it on TV to get their ratings up." [1]

Tearing down a wall constructed of bricks is a world-historical event, a watershed in the advancement of humanity toward a luminous millennium of dozens of fast food restaurant chains, as many commercial brands of tennis shoes and the right to pay cable fees to watch MTV. Setting up a metal wall to separate the elite sheep from the mass of superfluous goats at a public relations gimmick to mark the Dawn of Liberty is not seen as an infringement of post-1989 promises.

In 1987 British recording acts David Bowie, Genesis and the Eurythmics (all big draws at the time) were flown into West Berlin for three nights of performances – Concert for Berlin – in front of the Reichstag building to audiences of over 60,000 with speakers turned toward the east. Having united Germany and expanded NATO to Russia’s borders, the West now offers Berliners…Bon Jovi. For older music aficionados, Daniel Barenboim will conduct a selection from Wagner. At the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin.

Six days before the anniversary, November 3, it was reported that "A German Luftwaffe fighter jet recently intercepted a Russian military aircraft" over the Baltic Sea. "The Bundeswehr confirmed…the incident, involving a German Eurofighter and a Russian radar plane along the Estonian-Russian border….After the German jet challenged the radar plane, the Russians scrambled two fighters, which approached at supersonic speed. Finnish jets then escorted the Russians back to international airspace, averting a further escalation of the situation." [2]

German warplanes are conducting the current six-month rotation of NATO patrols over the Baltic Sea that have run continuously since Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania became full members of the bloc in 2004. At the beginning of the year U.S. planes were in charge of the mission.

In early October the Polish Foreign Ministry confirmed that Washington will deploy theater interceptor missiles in the country – estimates range from between 92 and 196 and "Poland’s deputy defense minister previously said U.S. Patriot air-defense missiles and over 100 U.S. personnel would be deployed in Poland by the end of this year." [3]

To demonstrate that the end of the Berlin Wall and the Cold War signalled the demise – not the completion but undoing – of the post-Yalta, post-World War II era, an event of a few days ago offers an illustrative example.

The Japanese destroyer Myoko was in Hawaii to hold a joint interceptor missile test with two warships from Pearl Harbor, the USS Paul Hamilton and the USS Lake Erie. USS Lake Erie is the Aegis-class guided-missile cruiser that fired an SM-3 interceptor missile into the heavens in February of 2008 to destroy a satellite.

"The U.S. fired the test’s target from the Pacific Missile Range Facility on Kauai, and the JS Myoko destroyer detected the target, tracked it, then fired an SM-3 interceptor missile from its deck.

"The interceptor hit the target in space about 100 miles above the Pacific Ocean….The SM-3 interceptors fired from ships are designed to intercept missiles midway through their flights. The U.S. is developing other systems to shoot down missiles in their initial and final stages….Japan and the U.S. are also jointly developing future upgrades to the SM-3 missile." [4]

The U.S. missile interception system not only includes the entire European continent under NATO auspices but is global in scope.

Shortly before the first fully successful U.S.-Japanese missile shield test off Hawaii, "U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates asked Japan…to export a new type of ship-based missile interceptor under joint development by Tokyo and Washington to third countries, presumably European….The United States is hoping to get an answer to Gates’ request by the end of 2010, and envisages Japan exporting the new interceptors to European countries, including Germany…." [5]

During the Cold War era Japan was, at least in theory, expected to abide by Article 9 of its American-authored constitution which states:

"Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes.

"To accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized."

After 1989 Article 9 obstructed Western worldwide military ambitions and has been incrementally whittled away at, as has the related proscription against "collective self-defense."

During the Cold War few nations were in one or the other military bloc, NATO or the later Warsaw Pact. In fact the vast majority of countries were in neither and most nations could remain free of military entanglements. In 1989 the Non-Aligned Movement had 103 members.

Twenty years later and for the first time in history most of the world’s nations have been pulled into one variety or another of collective or bilateral military partnership, specifically with the United States and its NATO allies. The new U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) alone encompasses 53 countries.

As much as former Western political officials, historians and journalists like to claim that the fall of the Berlin Wall was a spontaneous manifestation of a long-suppressed collective longing of "huddled masses yearning to breathe free," a program for structuring the world after the end of the U.S.-Soviet bipolar era had been long in the making.

After attending the fortieth anniversary NATO summit in Brussels, then U.S. President George H.W. Bush delivered a speech in Mainz, West Germany on May 31, 1989 called A Europe Whole and Free. [6]

The title of the address warrants close attention as that identical phrase and an adaptation of it – Europe whole, free and at peace – have been used consistently by Western leaders in the intervening twenty years.

Bush’s comments, uttered seven months before the dismantling of the Berlin Wall, left little doubt as to which organization – which military bloc – was to unite Europe.

His speech included these excerpts:

"We must recall that the generation coming into its own in America and Western Europe is heir to gifts greater than those bestowed to any generation in history: peace, freedom, and prosperity. This inheritance is possible because 40 years ago the nations of the West joined in that noble, common cause called NATO.

"The NATO alliance did nothing less than provide a way for Western Europe to heal centuries-old rivalries, to begin an era of reconciliation and restoration. It has been, in fact, a second Renaissance of Europe."

"As you know best, this is not just the 40th birthday of the alliance, it’s also the 40th birthday of the Federal Republic…."

"Let Berlin be next – let Berlin be next! Nowhere is the division between East and West seen more clearly than in Berlin."

"We’ve always believed that a strong Western defense is the best road to peace."

"[W]e’re also challenged by developments outside of NATO’s traditional areas of concern. Every Western nation still faces the global proliferation of lethal technologies, including ballistic missiles and chemical weapons…."

"NATO’s first mission is now nearly complete. But if we are to fulfill our vision – our European vision – the challenges of the next 40 years will ask no less of us. Together, we shall answer the call. The world has waited long enough."

Note the words "our European vision" and in general the speaking on behalf of Europe by the head of state of a country a hemisphere removed from the continent.

Less than two years later while announcing the beginning of Operation Desert Storm, the U.S.-led, NATO nations-supported war with Iraq, Bush would develop the theme of his Mainz speech, especially his references to "developments outside of NATO’s traditional areas of concern" and "challenges of the next 40 years."

The main rhetorical device in Bush’s speech of January 16, 1991 was "While the world waited," used to open four paragraphs. Compare that to his "The world has waited long enough" in the earlier A Europe Whole and Free text.

In the announcement of the beginning of armed hostilities against Iraq, Bush tied together the two themes, the end of the Cold War and the inauguration of a new world order:

"This is an historic moment. We have in this past year made great progress in ending the long era of conflict and cold war. We have before us the opportunity to forge for ourselves and for future generations a new world order…."

On the twentieth anniversary of an event that signalled the end of the post-World War II and the beginning of an announced new world order, an examination of recent examples of the use of George H.W. Bush’s 1989 expression, which in the interim has become a Western geopolitical catch phrase and serves as a post-Cold War coded message, will reveal quite a lot.

On the same day, January 29, 2008, U.S. Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, at the time both candidates for the Democratic Party presidential nomination and now president and secretary of state, respectively, issued statements of support for Ukraine becoming a full member of NATO.

Obama: "NATO`s upcoming summit in Bucharest in April 2008 is a critical opportunity to continue to build the Europe ‘whole and free’ that has been the goal of all recent U.S. presidents. I call on President Bush and all of NATO`s leaders to seize that opportunity." [7]

Clinton: "I take great pride in Ukraine`s contributions to our common goal of building a Europe that is whole and free….

"The United States should actively encourage our NATO Allies to deepen their own ties with Ukraine…." [8]

In April of 2008 Daniel Fried, then the State Department’s Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs, testified before the U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs’ Subcommittee on Europe and said:

"The United States will continue to provide leadership in enlarging the Alliance. NATO enlargement has been a bipartisan effort from its beginning –” and the work of the last three Presidents. In his address to the Croatian people just after the Bucharest Summit, President [George W.] Bush said, ‘Today the people of Europe are closer than ever before to a dream shared by millions: A Europe that is whole, a Europe that is at peace, and a Europe that is free.’"

He continued:

"[NATO] is evolving into a 21st century role, enlarging the area in Europe…defending this transatlantic community against new threats and challenges that are often global in scope, and building partnerships around the globe with like-minded countries who want to work together with NATO to face these challenges. The Bucharest Summit further advanced NATO’s transformation in each of these areas."

"Allies strengthened their commitment to operations in Afghanistan, Kosovo, and Iraq, furthering NATO’s transformation from a static Cold War instrument…to an active, expeditionary force capable of projecting power out of area where needed."

"We must maintain our collective resolve in the face of future provocations and attempts by outside actors to instigate violence.

"[NATO members] declared unequivocally that Ukraine and Georgia will become members of NATO. The declaration language reads: ‘NATO welcomes Ukraine’s and Georgia’s Euro-Atlantic aspirations for membership in NATO. We agree today that these countries will become members of NATO.’"

"As a larger NATO tackles 21st century security challenges that know no geographic limits, NATO is increasingly working with partners who share this desire to meet today’s security challenges.

"When the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, NATO was an Alliance of 16 members and no partners. Today, NATO has 26 members –” with 2 new invitees, prospective membership for others, and over 20 partners in Europe and Eurasia, seven in the Mediterranean, four in the Persian Gulf, and others from around the world."

"NATO matched the Partnership for Peace with the establishment of the Mediterranean Dialogue, and…NATO realized the need to reach out to new partners around the world….This included establishing the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative to reach out to nations of the Persian Gulf. In addition, Australia, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea, and now Singapore are making valuable contributions to NATO operations, especially in Afghanistan…." [9]

In June of 2008 Judy Ansley, national security adviser for regional affairs, spoke of the visit of President George W. Bush – a major proponent and architect of U.S.-European Union-NATO global military cooperation [10] to a meeting of EU member states in Slovenia and said of the trip, which "coincide[d] with the 60th anniversary of the Marshall Plan and the Berlin Airlift," that the EU is "truly a partner for the U.S. now in confronting a whole series of global challenges" and Bush’s presence at the meeting "highlights the United States’ role in supporting the transition to a prosperous Europe, which is increasingly whole, free and at peace." [11]

The following month, July, "Henry Kissinger honored former U.S. President George H.W. Bush…for his commitment to Germany amid the fall of the Berlin Wall and reunification."

At the ceremony, held in Berlin, Kissinger awarded Bush the honor (if such it is) named after himself, the Henry A. Kissinger Prize, "which is bestowed annually by the American Academy in Berlin to an American or European deemed to have made an extraordinary contribution to trans-Atlantic relations."

Richard Holbrooke, U.S. ambassador to reunified Germany from 1993-1994 and now the top civilian in charge of America’s war in South Asia as Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, introduced Bush and Kissinger and said "There is no one who Germans are more appreciative of than President Bush."

Bush himself said, reprising the term from eight years earlier, "Germany had earned its place in Europe, free and whole."

He was also in Berlin to celebrate the launching of the new American embassy on Pariser Platz, home to the Brandenburg Gate, where it stood until World War II.

Holbrooke said of the dual purpose of Bush’s visit: "There is something so perfectly symmetrical about the opening of the embassy and President Bush receiving this award." [12]

Days after the end of the Georgian-provoked five-day war with Russia in early August of 2008, President George W. Bush released a statement supporting the aggressor, Mikheil Saakashvili, and the American-backed "Rose Revolution" that brought him to power which included:

"Every administration since the end of the Cold War has worked with European partners to extend the reach of liberty and prosperity. And now, for the first time in memory, Europe is becoming a continent that is whole, free, and at peace.

"I’ve just received an update from my national security team on the situation in Georgia. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is in Tbilisi. She’s conferring with President Saakashvili and expressing America’s wholehearted support for Georgia’s democracy."

"Georgia has sent troops to Afghanistan and Iraq to help others achieve the liberty that they struggled so hard to attain. To further strengthen their democracy, Georgia has sought to join the free institutions of the West." [13]

A few days afterward influential American senators Joseph Lieberman and Lindsey Graham were given a guest column in the Wall Street Journal with the title "Russia’s Aggression Is a Challenge to World Order," which contained statements like "[T]he watchword of the West must be solidarity: solidarity with the people of Georgia and its democratically elected government, solidarity with our allies throughout the region, and above all, solidarity with the values that have given meaning to our trans-Atlantic community of democracies and our vision of a European continent that is whole, free and at peace."

For anyone who still believes that the Cold War is dead or that American diplomacy is alive, the authors proceeded to rant:

"Russia’s aggression is not just a threat to a tiny democracy on the edge of Europe. It is a challenge to the political order and values at the heart of the continent."

"Russia’s invasion of Georgia represents the most serious challenge to this political order since Slobodan Milosevic unleashed the demons of ethnic nationalism in the Balkans. What is happening in Georgia today, therefore, is not simply a territorial dispute. It is a struggle about whether a new dividing line is drawn across Europe: between nations that are free to determine their own destinies, and nations that are consigned to the Kremlin’s autocratic orbit."

"The first priority of America and Europe must be to prevent the Kremlin from achieving its strategic objectives in Georgia."

"Our response…must include regional actions to…strengthen trans-Atlantic solidarity. This means reinvigorating NATO as a military alliance, not just a political one. Contingency planning for the defense of all member states against conventional and unconventional attack, including cyber warfare, needs to be revived. The credibility of Article Five of the NATO Charter – that an attack against one really can and will be treated as an attack against all – needs to be bolstered." [14]

That language like "the Kremlin’s autocratic orbit" and the invocation of NATO’s war clause in a clear allusion to Russia emanated from a man who narrowly missed becoming U.S. vice president and perhaps after that president is beyond alarming.

In October of 2008 then NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer delivered a speech in the former Soviet republic of Moldova, which in the interim has experienced a "color revolution" and is now well on its way to NATO integration.

Beginning with the standard incantation "It has been and remains a longstanding objective of the Alliance to help create a European continent that is whole, free and at peace," Scheffer provided an inventory that detailed how far from Europe, free or otherwise, the world’s only military bloc has expanded in recent years:

"NATO ships are patrolling the Mediterranean [and] off the coast of Somalia….We are assisting defence reform in Bosnia and Herzegovina. We are training Iraqi and Afghan security forces. We are [engaged with] airlifts to Somalia and…in and out of Darfur."

Regarding the ultimate target of the Alliance’s ambitions, the former Soviet Union, he added "NATO has stood by Georgia through the crisis in August….Like Georgia, your [Moldova’s] neighbour Ukraine has strong Euro-Atlantic aspirations as well, which NATO also supports…." [15]

Two days later a NATO-sponsored conference opened in Riga, Latvia, of which it was written slightly before that "Topping the bill will be Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, on his first visit to the Baltic region since his country went to war with Russia in August."

Saakashvili and his Latvian, Estonia and Ukrainian counterparts – Valdis Zatlers, Toomas Hendrik Ilves and Viktor Yushchenko – appeared on a panel called "A vision of Europe, whole and free." [16]

Less than two weeks later in neighboring Estonia Pentagon chief Robert Gates joined "his fellow NATO defense ministers [and] got down to business…in consultations on Ukraine’s course toward membership in the alliance."

An unnamed American official told a reporter with American Forces Press Service:

"We need to be clear that Russia has not succeeded in drawing a line across Europe with its invasion of Georgia.

"We also need to convey that NATO remains very much on track working with countries in the East on this process of building a Europe whole and free." [17]

Note that with Georgia the West defines Europe politically – and militarily – rather than physically.

After the Georgian-Russian war Washington started crafting the United States-Georgia Charter on Strategic Partnership, in parallel with NATO granting Georgia a new fast track program to full membership, the Annual National Plan.

Equivalents of both were offered to Ukraine.

The United States-Ukraine Charter on Strategic Partnership was activated in December of last year, the United States-Georgia Charter on Strategic Partnership in January of this.

The first contains this paragraph:

"A strong, independent and democratic Ukraine, capable of responsible self-defense, contributes to the security and prosperity not only of all the people of Ukraine, but of a Europe whole, free and at peace."

The second includes this:

"A strong, independent, sovereign and democratic Georgia, capable of responsible self-defense, contributes to the security and prosperity not only of all Georgians, but of a Europe whole, free and at peace."

The texts are virtually identical except for the word sovereign inserted in the Georgian version, a reference to Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

At the signing ceremony of the United States-Ukraine Charter on Strategic Partnership U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said, "We have long believed that Ukraine’s independence, its democracy, is essential to a Europe whole and free and at peace.

"This charter underscores our principles of relations. It outlines a way to advance cooperation in defense and security, in economics and trade, in energy security….The United States supports Ukraine’s integration into the Euro-Atlantic structures. And in that regard, I want to assure you that the declaration at Bucharest which foresees that Ukraine will be a member of NATO…." [18]

Rice added, "I would like to call your attention to the areas in this document that address defense, security…and also to the presence of the United States in Ukraine, in particular in the Crimea." [19]

In March of this year NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe at the time, General Bantz John Craddock, was in Prague to address the Czech parliament on the tenth anniversary of the nation becoming a full Alliance member.

Craddock extolled (NATO’s word) the results of the anniversary. "In the last 10 years, 10 Central and Eastern European Nations, many of whom lived behind the Iron Curtain just 20 years ago, have joined the 16 nations of a Cold War NATO in a community of democracies.

"I believe it is this enlargement of NATO, alongside that of the European Union, which has brought reality to the vision of a ‘Europe whole and free.’" [20]

In May American senator Jeanne Shaheen, who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on European Affairs, wrote in a column for the Boston Globe entitled "A new NATO for a new world":

"The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, widely considered the most successful regional security alliance in history, recently celebrated its 60th anniversary…NATO helped end the Cold War [and] is responsible for bringing together a Europe that is whole, free, and at peace…."

In insuring that the bloc would never run out of missions around the world, Shaheen also stated that "NATO’s military commitment in Afghanistan remains the most pressing issue for the Alliance in the short term. But a number of other nontraditional threats face NATO members, including nuclear proliferation, cyber warfare, energy security, piracy, even pandemic health problems." [21]

Also in May, soon-to-be-retired NATO chief Jaap de Hoop Scheffer gave an address at the NATO Defense College in Rome which made reference to this week’s Berlin Wall anniversary and related developments. In it he again connected Bush’s speech of May of 1989 with the events of November 9.

"Over the past twenty years, the Alliance – together with the European Union – has played a major role in the creation of a European continent that is whole, free and at peace."

He also marked the transition from "Europe whole and free" to "a new world order":

"A new Strategic Concept should emphasise the importance of a NATO with global partners….today, this goes well beyond what one might term as NATO’s traditional, Euro-Atlantic partners.

"My Deputy, Ambassador Bisogniero, was here just two weeks ago to give the closing address at the first fully fledged NATO Regional Cooperation Course, with active participation not only by several of our Mediterranean but also some of our Gulf partners.

"Last month, NATO celebrated its 60th anniversary as the most successful alliance in history. [T]he common spirit of security cooperation is shared by many nations – nations in the Euro-Atlantic area, in the Mediterranean and the Gulf regions, and even further beyond." [22]

Four days afterward Scheffer spoke in Paris and accentuated the role of the NATO-E.U.-U.S. triad, an effective symbiosis, accelerated by American and French Presidents Bush and Sarkozy starting at the 2008 Alliance summit in Romania, as well as adding to the list of future international NATO missions.

"In addition to terrorism, failed states, and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, the Alliance has already recognised the security implications of climate change, cyber-attacks, energy interdependence and piracy.

"But what about pandemics, mass migration, and humanitarian disasters?"

"I firmly believe there is a valuable role for enhanced NATO-EU cooperation in capability development.

"Over the past twenty years, the Alliance – together with the European Union – has played a major role in the creation of a European continent that is whole, free and at peace." [23]

In June of this year Philip H. Gordon, State Department Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs, speaking before the Subcommittee on Europe of the House Foreign Affairs Committee reiterated points made earlier by Scheffer, Lieberman and Graham.

"The objective of all Presidents since World War II, both Democratic and Republican, has been to work with Europe to realize a joint vision of a Europe whole, free, and at peace. One of the ways the United States seeks to further this goal is through our critical partnerships in Europe – which include the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the European Union (EU), and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).

"The United States also remains unequivocally committed to our Article 5 commitment; we will not waiver from the enduring premise that an attack against one is an attack against all." [24]

The following month an Open Letter from former Eastern European "dissidents" – Vaclav Havel, Lech Walesa, Valdas Adamkus, et al. – urging the U.S. to resume and intensify the Cold War era confrontation with Russia included this typical excerpt:

"Our region suffered when the United States succumbed to ‘realism’ at Yalta. And it benefited when the United States used its power to fight for principle. That was critical during the Cold War and in opening the doors of NATO. Had a ‘realist’ view prevailed in the early 1990s, we would not be in NATO today and the idea of a Europe whole, free, and at peace would be a distant dream." [25]

Late last month in an article titled "Biden rejects Russian dominance in Europe" the U.S. vice president was quoted addressing an audience in Bucharest, Romania: "You have begun to realize those dreams that only the bold imagined 20 years ago – a Europe whole and free, anchored in a European-Atlantic alliance institutions of NATO, and the European Union." [26]

Europe is hardly at peace. Great Britain and every nation on the continent except for Belarus, Moldova (for the moment), Russia and Serbia have or have had troops in Afghanistan serving under NATO command. It is not free, if freedom is understood to include the right of nations and peoples to determine their own state-to-state and defense policies.

But it is decidedly whole twenty years after the collapse of the Berlin Wall. United firmly under the banner of an American-led global military bloc and in shedding and spilling blood overseas.

Notes:

[1]. Associated Press, November 6, 2009

[2]. Rheinische Post, November 3, 2009

[3]. Russian Information Agency Novosti, October 6, 2009

[4]. Associated Press, October 28, 2009

[5]. Kyodo News Agency, October 25, 2009

[6]. http://usa.usembassy.de/etexts/ga6-890531.htm

[7]. U.S. Senator Barack Obama welcomes Ukraine`s readiness to advance MAP with NATO, UNIAN (Ukraine), January 29, 2008

[8]. Senator Hillary Clinton welcomes Ukraine`s joining NATO Membership, Action Plan, Ibid

[9]. U.S. Department of State, April 23, 2008

[10]. EU, NATO, US: 21st Century Alliance For Global Domination, Stop NATO, February 19, 2009,
http://tinyurl.com/ykn7w7q

[11]. United Press International, June 9, 2008

[12]. Associated Press, July 3, 2008

[13]. The White House, President George W. Bush, August 15, 2008

[14]. Wall Street Journal, August 26, 2008

[15]. NATO International, October 30, 2008

[16]. Deutsche Presse-Agentur, October 31, 2008

[17]. United States European Command, November 13, 2008

[18]. U.S. Department of State December 19, 2008

[19]. Ibid

[20]. NATO, Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe, March 13, 2009

[21]. Boston Globe, May 13, 2009

[22]. NATO, May 28, 2009

[23]. NATO, June 2, 2009

[24]. U.S. Department of State, June 16, 2009

[25]. Gazeta Wyborcza, July 15, 2009

[26]. Washington Times, October 22, 2009