Committed internationalist socialists should be urging Nato to adapt and upgrade – not spreading blatant myths and mistruths about it, write Kate Dearden and Grace Skelton
Last weekend at Young Labour policy conference, delegates voted to support a motion calling on the Labour party to advocate for the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation.
The purpose of this article is not, as others have done, to suggest that young members should not debate international issues and should only discuss ‘young people politics’ like tuition fees and votes at 16. As former officers of Labour Students, we know the value of a thriving youth movement that is not afraid to debate the big issues. Rather, we want to tackle head on the criticisms made about Nato and the mistaken belief that ‘Russia is not a threat’ to western democracies. The motion also briefly mentioned Donald Trump’s politics which we can all agree are deeply troubling, but they were not the main focus of the motion or the areas of disagreement so we will not directly address them here.
The theme running throughout the Young Labour motion is an unquestioning opposition to US foreign policy, whatever the situation. This is no surprise. Many on the left of the Labour party have been obsessed with US foreign policy for years, seeing it as the great evil of the post-war period. While there have clearly been some mistakes made by the US, Vietnam being an obvious example, it is beyond doubt that the US has also been instrumental in setting global standards in war, diplomacy and human rights after the Second World War. Assisting in the setting up of Nato, with enthusiastic support from Clement Attlee’s first Labour government, is just one example.
That achievement was one of the most significant achievements of the 1945 socialist government, and one which reflects the Labour party’s values: collectivism, internationalism, solidarity and the strong defending the weak. Every Labour government since Attlee’s has met Nato’s spending target of at least 2 per cent of GDP, every single year. This includes the 2017 Labour manifesto which committed the Labour party to continued membership of Nato. It is this collective security and international solidarity, and not the isolationist politics of the far right and far left, that makes the world a safer place and prevents aggression from totalitarian states.
Nato was established to extend that value of collective security across Europe so it could defend itself against the totalitarian forces of Stalinist USSR. Now the USSR may no longer exist on a map, but that does not mean Europe does not have an aggressor on its doorstep. Following Russia’s seizure and subsequent illegal annexation of the Crimea, and its continuing support for rebel groups in eastern Ukraine, Nato dispatched four battalion-sized battle groups. This reassured allies in Poland, and the Baltic republics of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. However, the Kremlin did not stop with Crimea, Russian military and service personnel have been engaged in the Donbas region of Ukraine since April 2014 claiming thousands of lives and are showing no signs of settlement. Russia’s continued aggression and willingness to use military force against its neighbours is rightly sending alarm bells ringing for Nato, and demonstrates the importance of strengthening Nato’s deterrence and defence stance.
It is not just Russia’s military power that should exercise concern. Just this week, Hillary Clinton has been talking about the new ‘cyber cold war’ that Vladimir Putin’s Russia is waging on the West. To some this may sound like the excuses of a second place presidential candidate looking for reasons why she lost, but there is plenty of evidence to back up these accusations. An internal investigation by Google has found that Russian agents spread disinformation across their platforms in the 2016 election. Facebook recently shared around 3000 adverts with investigators that had been bought by the Internet Research Agency, a Kremlin-sponsored online influencing company mostly known for setting up fake accounts to spread disinformation and “troll”.
The US elections are the most high profile use of this tactic, but there are other examples. Russian hackers have been accused of causing several power outages in Ukraine and the hacking of government agencies to collect information. As far back as 2008, Russian hackers targeted Georgia’s internet servers during the Russian invasion. The BBC carried a report this year about Estonia’s ten years of dealing with these cyber attacks and while they have been unable to provide absolute proof of Kremlin involvement, the evidence to suggest that this is the case is weighty.
This is a battle that has already been joined, and one in which the West is ill-prepared for, unless Nato can develop and be supported to adapt to 21st century threats. With liberal democracies facing their greatest test since the height of the Cold War, solidarity and resilience could not be more important. So rather than attacking Nato for ‘still fighting the cold war’ or for ‘fighting a war that ended in 1989’, we as committed internationalist socialists should be urging Nato to adapt and upgrade to new threats that are attempting to disable our democracy.
To some who have never been active in Young Labour it may seem silly to be bothering to call out a policy position, what does Young Labour policy mean anyway? Why would the party leadership pay attention to it? That is to misunderstand how the Labour party works. The people who go to Young Labour events are active party members, many of whom officially represent us in party structures – be that as constituency Labour party officers or representatives on the National Policy Forum. Perhaps more importantly for the long term, many members of the Labour party are shaped politically by their experiences and education in the youth movement of our party.
If blatant myths and mistruths about institutions as vital to our country and the stability of Europe as Nato are allowed to go unchallenged, then we do the Labour party a serious disservice.
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Kate Dearden is the Campaigns and Research officer at Community and former National Chair of Labour Students. She tweets at @kate_dearden
Grace Skelton works for a Labour MP and is the former National Secretary of Labour Students. She tweets at @graceskelton
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