At it's heart yes. But didn't that bring along the capability to form coalitions?
If we dismantled NATO what framework would a wide western coalition, as was deployed in Libya rely on?
Can you magically make distinct militaries of different counties coordinate logistics and operations together?
My point is that, besides the mutual defense agreement, NATO coordinates training and integration of capabilities across borders, without which I doubt we launch coalitions as we did in Libya or Kosovo.
Both of these followed a UN resolution. In Libya there were participation from non-NATO members, yet these coalitions were NATO-led, why? Probably because NATO was the only organization with experience, training and infrastructure to coordinate such a coalition.
It is so in words, but not action. The only time this has happened was after the terrorist attacks on the twin towers. Some NATO countries have been invited on other occasions, but it has never been considered an "attack on all nations". All the while NATO has been more and more comfortable participating in invasions.
In writing NATO says they are a defense pact, but history shows it is very much an invasion force.
Historically an invasion force? Afghanistan is the only place where NATO has been involved in anything like an invasion. Unlike the Warsaw Pact which helped subjugate Chechoslovakia and Hungary.
Before Afghanistan there was Bosnia and Herzegovina, and since there is have been some missions in Iraq, and the Gulf of Aden and a full scale intervention in Libya.
Your not doing your cause any favor by pointing to another military alliance to proof a point. Too the contrary what you say about the Warsaw Pact is my point exactly. Military alliances are dangerous and need to be condemned by the UN.
Can you give some examples of how military alliances are dangerous? Not all alliances automatically require members to fight. Usually there's enough wiggle room for a country to say "not my business."
WW1, the seven years war, current conflicts in the middle east (including foreign interventions in the Syrian Civil War), the Napoleonic Wars, all escalated to catastrophic proportions in part because of complications in relations to military alliances.
Even the recent war between Azerbaijan and Armenia is made more complex and harder to resolve peacefully because of relations to Russia and especially Turkey.
There is a reason why many nations are currently condemning Israel’s opening relations to Morocco. It is seen as a normalization of (a) Israel’s occupation of the Palestine territories and (b) normalization of Morocco’s occupation of Western Sahara. So if a war breaks out in either of these places, it is gonna be more devastating as a result.
Finally, I would refer to Clausewitz; military alliances always serve political means. War is effectively another means of politics (Clausewitz's quote is often mangled a bit). So if you would prefer no military alliance, you would first need to abolish all political alliances. No trade agreements, no environmental agreements, so on and so forth. What causes conflicts isn't military issues, it's political issues.
> So if you would prefer no military alliance, you would first need to abolish all political alliances.
I think that is actually why there are international organizations, like the WTO, WHO, UN, International Criminal Court, etc. So political conflicts between nation states can be resolved peacefully.
If no nation had an army every conflict between nations would have to be resolved peacefully. This Clausewitz quote—or this interpretation of it—is simply wrong.
Condemning the establishment of peaceful diplomatic relations between Israel and Morocco is just bizarre. They haven't established a military alliance.
The reason people condemn it, is because those two nations are both occupying forces of a different nation. It is not explicit, but people suspect that both are in fact silently supporting each others occupation.
If say the Polisario front starts an armed insurgence for a Sahrawi liberation in Western Sahara and it is met with brutal forces from the Moroccan military, a peaceful resolution seems less likely because now Israel has stakes in allowing Moroccan military to advance as brutally as they wish—knowing that similar brutality might be preferably against an armed Palestinian insurgence.
If you don't like Israel then just come out and say so. It's ridiculous to single them out for occupying another nation. You could criticize Spain, China, Iraq, Russia, the USA, India, Mexico, Denmark, and half the other countries in the world on the same basis. Quit using a double standard to complain about normal diplomacy.
But I just did... I gave Morocco the same weight for occupying Western Sahara as Israel for occupying Palestine.
But, I mean, sure... The same thing can be said about Mexico having military relations with the USA and Canada if each of them is going to acknowledge the rights of the other to fail to uphold treaties for the indigenous population.
Elsewhere in this thread I’m giving the UK a similar “singling out”, but that is unfair, since France is just as guilty of the things I say there. Alas the UK and France are both NATO members (and both control nuclear weapons), I wonder if their colonies would be liberated by now, or if we had finally enacted an international nuclear weapons ban if it weren’t for the countries most guilty of doing precisely that banding together with a huge and deadly military to back it up.
How did a military alliance contribute to Israeli/Moroccan relations? AFAIK Morocco relies largely on Russian military purchases, and there doesn't seem to be more than a diplomatic quid pro quo in effect regarding their normalization of relations.
The Syrian conflict seems to be completely devoid of any influence by countries in alliance. Russia is just looking to sell gear to Syria as they always have, and to poke a finger in the eye of Turkey. They also have long craved a naval base in the Med and succeeded. Turkey has geopolitical ambitions as well, not wanting to see a Kurdish state get developed, plus wanting to flex some muscle. I don't see any treaties or alliances having a significant role in that conflict at all.
If an alliance is credible, then it's a solid deterrent.
The alliances in 1914 was less credible than NATO. Many were secret, as was mobilization plans and implications of such plans. It's my impression that the list of things triggered WWI is very long :)
Note that I’m never saying Military alliances are the thing that cause wars, but they do tend to escalate them and they do seem to hinder peaceful solutions to conflicts.
An analysis of all the wars that didn't happen, might show otherwise :)
I don't have the evidence to say that it will show otherwise. But we know that any participation in international organizations reduces risks of war, whether by correlation or causation I don't recall.
Either way, armed conflict is becoming less frequent and less violent. One could argue that progress could come faster without NATO, but given that we have no evidence that a dramatically different cause of action will reduce risk of war, and we know that current trajectory is bending towards less war. Maybe staying on the current trajectory isn't so bad :)
Generally speaking, any kind of quick major changes tends to cause conflicts. So even if we did want to end NATO, it's probably be best to do it slowly.
Ideally, we would just slowly extend NATO to cover all countries. That way nobody can attack anyone else :)
I would want countries to be reasonably democratic before they join though...
