BY MAURICE WILLIAMS
The U.S. Senate voted April 30 to expand the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic, pushing the military alliance 400 miles eastward toward Russia. The move bolsters NATO forces by 200,000 troops and marks a qualitative step by the U.S. rulers toward a military encirclement of Russia. The vote was 80 to 19 and formal admissions are scheduled for 1999, the 50th anniversary of the imperialist military alliance.

"Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic have met every possible requirement of membership," declared U.S. secretary of state Madeleine Albright in a New York Times opinion piece published the day before the Senate vote. "Their soldiers have risked their lives in the Persian Gulf war and Bosnia. All three have offered to contribute forces if a military strike is necessary in Iraq," she added.

The NATO expansion is part of the U.S. rulers' strategic aim of overthrowing the workers states in Russia and elsewhere in the region and reestablishing capitalist social relations there - which they must eventually attempt to do by military force. The door is open to bring some of the former Soviet republics into NATO membership as well, including the Baltic states of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia. This prospect has already increased political tensions in the area. Recently, Moscow demanded immediate repayment of debts from the government of Latvia and threatened to cut off some oil shipments there.

"The process of enlargement is ongoing," said Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott. "No one's going to be excluded on the basis of geography or history."

The debate among big-business politicians over NATO expansion reflected nervousness among a layer of the U.S. capitalist class that the move could provoke more instability in Russia and elsewhere in region.

Sen. Daniel Moynihan said the military expansion would put relations between Moscow and Washington "back on a hair trigger." Warning of a military collision with Moscow, he asserted April 27 that expanding NATO could lead Washington to "stumble into the catastrophe of nuclear war with Russia." The liberal Democrat cited his colleague Sen. Paul Wellstone who asserted, "NATO could defend the Baltic by only one means, nuclear attacks." A week earlier Moynihan delivered a speech titled "Could NATO Expansion Lead to Nuclear War?"

Moynihan approvingly cited a letter from Paul Nitze of Johns Hopkins University calling for "lending political and economic support to the development of a democratic, market- oriented society in Russia" as a better approach to achieving Washington's aims. A sharp debate occurred on the Senate floor several weeks before the vote. Moynihan described the imperialist encirclement as forming an "iron ring" around Russia. "We have no idea what we're getting into," he warned March 19.

"I find this absolutely astounding," exclaimed Democratic Sen. Joseph Biden. " If my friends are saying anyone who votes for expanding NATO to include Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary, are tying this noose around a Russian neck, this iron ring...then I don't quite get it."

When Republican Sen. John Warner voiced concerns that Washington could become embroiled in military actions similar to the Vietnam War or the U.S. military fiasco in Somalia, Biden objected, "Vietnam and Somalia are not Central Europe, they're not Poland, they're not Hungary."

New York Times writer Thomas Friedman, a staunch opponent of NATO expansion, quoted George Kennan in his May 2 column, who said, "I think it is the beginning of a new cold war." Kennan was the U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union in 1952 and chief architect of Washington's policy of "containment" of the Soviet workers state, which heralded the Cold War.

Overthrowing the workers states in Europe and defeating the struggles of workers and peasants around the world was Washington's objective when it founded NATO in 1949. It codified U.S. imperialism's immense economic and military superiority in Europe in the aftermath of World War II.

Rightist opponents of the NATO enlargement also commented on the Senate vote. "It would obligate us to go to war to defend the borders in Eastern Europe," said right- wing activist Phyllis Schlafly. "We see this as one Bosnia after another," referring to the U.S. military occupation in the Yugoslav workers state.

"With NATO expansion, we give up forever our freedom to decide when and whether to go to war," declared Patrick Buchanan in a May 2 syndicated column. "And we lock ourselves into virtually every future European war." The ultranationalist politician noted, "Moscow is now opposing U.S. policy almost everywhere."

Buchanan referred to Moscow's 10,000 nuclear weapons, which the U.S. big-business media has stepped up its propaganda against. "Russia's deteriorating control of its nuclear weapons is increasing the danger of an accidental or unauthorized attack on the United States," an article in the New York Times asserted April 30. "And Russia formally abandoned its long-standing policy that it would never be the first nation to use those weapons four years ago."

With Washington's military pressure mounting on the Kremlin, Russian president Boris Yeltsin approved a shift in security policy that asserts the right to use nuclear weapons first if attacked. "We are not speaking of making a first strike in order to secure an advantage, but if we are driven into a corner and are left with no other option, we will resort to nuclear weapons," said Boris Berezovsky, then- deputy head of the Security Council, who announced the policy change in a radio interview May 9, 1997.

The Times article omitted the fact that Washington is the only government to have ever used its nuclear arsenal - twice, in blasts that incinerated hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians in 1945. Meanwhile, U.S. Minutemen nuclear-armed missiles are still being upgraded and aimed at Russian targets. A March 20 New York Times Magazine article quoted nuclear expert William Arkin as stating, "We actually have a greater capacity to destroy Russian nuclear forces than we did 10 years ago."

The Russian government is attempting to counter the expansion of the imperialist war machine by deepening ties to governments Washington has denounced as "rogue states." U.S. government officials and Tel Aviv alleged that Moscow is helping the Iranian military develop strategic missiles that could hit Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Israel.

Washington has also begun to step up its probes for intervention in the Caspian Sea region, pressing for the withdrawal of the 15,000 Russian troops deployed in Georgia, a former Soviet republic. Under a 1994 pact that Georgian president Eduard Shevardnadze signed under "intense pressure," 4,000 Russian soldiers patrol the Georgia-Turkey border, 11,000 are stationed in Georgia, and Russian Navy vessels patrol Georgia's Black Sea coast. The Times claims the accord has not been ratified.

Shevardnadze, a procapitalist politician, recently decided to conduct military exercises with the government of Turkey, a member of NATO, and allow Turkish naval vessels to dock at Georgian ports.  
 
 
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