NATO Proclamation at Annual Summit Threatens the Peace - CovertAction
Magazine
Rethinking NATO Article 5: Challenges to Collective Security in the Cyber
Era
NATO headquarters in Brussels. [Source: americansecurityproject.org]
Space Attacks and Cyber Attacks Could Now Trigger Military Intervention
Under Article 5 of the NATO Treaty
The NATO proclamation-promoted at its annual summit this week-that a cyber
attack could trigger Article 5 of the NATO treaty heightens the risk of
military confrontation with Russia or China.
So does a new stipulation-announced at the summit-that space attacks could
trigger Article 5. Russia has already been accused of testing space-based
anti-satellite weapons, which could be adopted as a justification now for
war.
Russian rocket carrying satellites launched from eastern Amur region of
Russia in April 2016. Russia's testing of anti-satellite weapons could now
be a trigger for war under Article 5 of the NATO Treaty. [Source:
csmonitor.com]
Article 5 says that the NATO alliance regards an attack on one of its
members as an attack on all of them. That is supposed to come into play only
in case of an armed attack, since that is the only kind of attack under the
UN Charter that warrants responsive use of force.
If one expands the concept of armed attack in violation of the UN Charter,
one opens a broader path to the use of force. Thus, while the concept of
self-defense is obviously necessary, where an actual armed attack occurs,
the concept is dangerous if acts not amounting to armed attack can trigger
it.
NATO's history with invocation of Article 5 does not give much comfort. The
only time that occurred was after the September 11, 2001, criminal attacks
in the United States against the Pentagon and World Trade Towers. That
invocation provided justification for military action in Afghanistan that
was said to be aimed at Al-Qaeda but that morphed into a twenty-year fiasco
that is now reaching its ignoble end. It is dangerous to leave the decision
to start war to NATO.
United Nations silent as US/NATO forces destroy thousands of Afghan homes |
Frontlines of Revolutionary Struggle
Scene of destruction in Afghanistan following U.S. NATO bombing there. The
war resulted from NATO's invocation of Article 5 following the 9/11 attacks.
[Source: revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com]
The UN Charter is set up, in fact, to keep regional defense organizations
from undertaking war without authorization from the UN Security Council.
NATO decisions to start wars skirt that obligation.
UN Charter | United Nations
[Source: un.org]
The United States decreed a dangerous expansion of self-defense in 2002 when
it said in the Defense Department's annual strategic policy document that
self-defense is warranted in response not only to an actual armed attack,
but as well in response to an anticipated attack. That interpretation opened
the path to the distortion of facts relating to Iraq that provided a
rationale for the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
NATO, moreover, was set up to stop what was said to be a risk of a Soviet
invasion of Western Europe. NATO has transformed itself into an organization
with worldwide scope. So when President Biden says, as he just did, that
Article 5 is a "sacrosanct" obligation, he is diverting attention from what
Article 5 was created to prevent.
Cyber attacks of one kind or another occur frequently these days. While it
is true-and this is the rationale for the NATO statement-that cyber attacks
can be extremely damaging, their very frequency heightens the risk of
calling cyber attacks the equivalent of an armed attack.
The nightmare scenario is that a cyber attack occurs, the origin is not
obvious, but NATO says it was the work of Russia or China and proceeds with
military action. There would be no oversight for that assessment.
Another nightmare is that Russia or China is accused of a space-based attack
of unknown origin, or which derives from weapons testing.
The prohibition of use of force contained in the UN Charter in 1945 was an
important achievement for the world community. The Charter allowed for
self-defense but kept it within narrow bounds. The expansion of the
parameters of Article 5 in the 21st century that is claimed to allow for
defense force-in violation of the UN Charter-is a danger to world peace.