NATO's menu leaves much to be desired

This is an editorial from China Daily.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization celebrated the 75th anniversary of its founding on Thursday in Brussels.

Any international organization of its size, with that long a history, should have plenty to say on such an occasion. However, what the main speakers said has only proved the bloc is still living in the Cold War era in which it was born.

A de facto military extension of the Marshall Plan, NATO has been used as a tool of the United States to defend the latter's hegemony, even after the disappearance of the Soviet Union, its supposed raison d'etre. The so-called transatlantic collective security mechanism is just a fig leaf covering up NATO's true role as a roughneck of the US.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called it "a defensive alliance with no designs on the territory of any other country". But what he did not bother to mention is that the US uses NATO to prop up puppet regimes to wield its influence in other countries.

With no perceivable security threats, the bloc's continuous expansion from 12 founding members to 32 as of last month, which has not only ended its honeymoon period with Russia, but also directly resulted in the ongoing Ukraine crisis, is proof of the US' insatiable appetite for power.

That all major US "Indo-Pacific" allies, including Japan, Australia, New Zealand and the Republic of Korea, were invited to attend the NATO Foreign Ministers' Meeting in Brussels on Wednesday and Thursday should serve to alert the world to the bloc accelerating its expansion to the Asia-Pacific — a key part of the Joe Biden administration's plans for NATO. It is attempting to cojoin its bilateral security alliances and regional security mechanisms, including AUKUS, with NATO.

With Europe facing its largest military conflict since World War II, a shock therapy to resurrect the "brain dead" NATO, all regional countries should be vigilant to the US' attempts to make the Asia-Pacific grist to its war mill.

It is shame on the NATO members that instead of the organization seeking to help the world address real security threats, such as terrorism, it is hyping up the US-fabricated threat from China.

To enliven the atmosphere of a reception for the NATO foreign ministers, US ambassador to NATO, Julianne Smith, showed the bloc's first cookbook published in 1957, as well as a menu for the reception that day featuring "the specialties and a special food" of each of NATO's 12 founding members.

That was a not so subtle reminder of Blinken's remarks at the Munich Security Conference two months ago, when he said, "If you are not at the table in the international system, you're gonna be on the menu".

It also reinforced the point that the US war machine, and by extension NATO, need some to not be at the table, so that they have a menu for their chow down of the United Nations order.