Saying No to NATO: Divergent Strategies

Abstract

‘N-A-T-O. What’s that stand for, then?’ This was the question a lot of Londoners asked us when we handed them our leaflets. We uncovered a surprising ignorance about the world’s most powerful military alliance, the massive war machinery within which British armed forces are shaped to fit and function. In the foregoing chapter we saw that Spain’s anti-militarists have been acutely conscious of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and organized energetic resistance to Spain’s membership of the alliance. In France too there has been a lively awareness of NATO’s significance, since President de Gaulle defied US dominance by pulling France out of its military command – a policy recently reversed by President Sarkozy.1 The same cannot be said of Britain, where protest has been mounted against particular NATO engagements, such as the bombing of Belgrade in 1999 and the current mission in Afghanistan, but little attention has been paid to the Alliance, its growing reach and ambition, and the implications of membership. NATO is not an issue for the average Brit. Leafletting around central London, we were a group of women who decided to draw attention to NATO on the occasion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s November 2010 summit meeting. Our T-shirts spelled out SAY-NO-TO-NATO, and our leaflet spelled out why.