Central Executive Committee, Communist Party of Canada, July 5, 2016
Since the United States-orchestrated coup d’état in Ukraine in February 2014, NATO has escalated its campaign of aggression against Russia, to the point that there is currently a very real risk of open war between nuclear weapons states. NATO’s current Anakonda 2016 war games – its largest military training exercises in more than two decades – combined with the push to deploy a large multinational military force in Latvia, are the latest steps in this dangerous warmongering march that threatens the survival of the entire planet.
The Communist Party of Canada denounces the Canadian government’s decision to deploy and command Canadian military as part of NATO’s permanent anti-Russia contingent in Latvia. We demand that the Canadian government immediately halt this deployment, withdraw from the Anakonda wargames, and actively oppose NATO’s anti-Russia escalation in Latvia and other areas of Eastern Europe. We further call on Canada to withdraw unilaterally from NATO, as a necessary first step to adopting an independent foreign policy of peace.
NATO’s military buildup and posturing are part of a comprehensive political and military campaign – including pressure to increase military spending – in the lead-up to NATO’s Warsaw Summit on July 8-9, 2016. Among the stated objectives of this meeting are massive military deployments in the Baltic and Black Sea regions; billions of dollars in increased military spending by all NATO members, including Canada; and expanding NATO’s activity throughout the Middle East region.
These objectives relate to the overall increased aggressiveness of imperialist countries, in the context of the deepening capitalist crisis and the lingering effects of the 2008 financial meltdown. As the dominant imperialist centres – particularly the US and the European Union – scramble to preserve and advance their individual interests at one another’s expense, they are maneuvering to divide and re-divide the world in a desperate and dangerous rush for profits, resources and markets. This explains the rapid eastward expansion of the EU, and the related expansion of NATO, right up to Russia’s borders.
In order to justify such a costly and dangerous expansion, Western powers have launched a renewed Cold War as the vehicle to ideologically bombard the people in their own countries. This propaganda aims to demonize Russia, promote huge increases in military spending and an expanded arms trade, and justify US-NATO aggression.
In Canada, the government and corporate media continuously parrot the view that NATO’s expansion in Eastern Europe is necessary to counter Russian aggression. But this message avoids the truth: the aggressiveness of the NATO states, who have allied with fascist and reactionary groups in their effort to impose “regime change” in countries like Ukraine and Syria, is what prompted popular resistance. In the case of Ukraine, that resistance led the people of Crimea to hold a referendum in which an overwhelming majority voted to rejoin Russia. In Syria, that popular resistance prompted the government to invite Russia and Iran to form an alliance against armed foreign intervention.
The narrative from the Canadian government and corporate media talk about increased Russian military buildup, but this also avoids an unsettling reality: military spending by NATO states accounted for $920 billion USD in 2014, over half of the entire world total. The United States alone spent $610 billion. Some of the largest overall increases were in the current key theatres of NATO aggression: the Asia-Pacific region, the Middle East and Eastern Europe.
Clearly, NATO and its member states are the biggest provocateurs, the most dangerous aggressors, and the fundamental problem when it comes to global militarism and war.
Canada’s decision to send 1000 new troops to the multinational force in Latvia is part of a massive deployment that will directly facilitate increased NATO provocation against Russia. This will draw Canada deeper into a process of escalating tensions, a renewed arms race, aggressive warmongering, and a possible nuclear war.
But there is an alternative. The people of Canada must oppose this dangerous escalation. The Canadian government must be forced to stay out of the Baltic region, to oppose NATO warmongering, and to withdraw from NATO. NATO, the US and EU must be forced to stand down from their reckless drive to war.
The Communist Party of Canada calls upon all peace, labour and progressive organizations across the country to oppose Canada’s participation in NATO’s military escalation against Russia. We encourage all peace-supporting people and organizations to work together to educate, organize and mobilize the broadest possible resistance to this disastrous drive to war.
