Upstream - NATO Pt. 1: An Anti-Imperialist Introduction w/ Elina Xenophontos

Episode Date: July 1, 2025

NATO—The North Atlantic Treaty Organization—far from being just a defensive alliance between the United States and Europe, is actually the spear tip of imperialism’s military arm. It’s the force used to discipline any global actor who dares to defy US hegemony and dominance on the world stage. From Greece to Libya to Ukraine—NATO is where we must look to understand how destabilization occurs and how defiant states across the globe are subjugated and opened up to Western markets and capital. And we’re lucky enough to have a terrific guest on today to tell us all about how it all takes place.  Elina Xenophontos is an international law and economic globalisation specialist. She produces much of her own material on her Substack and is also featured regularly on the Colonial Outcasts podcast.  In this episode, Part 1 of what will be an ongoing series on NATO, Elina presents a history of NATO, exploring its role as a force against communism and for capitalist discipline in Europe and the Global South and laying the foundations for what will be deeper dives in coming episodes. We explore its expansion during the Cold War and post-Cold War periods as a military arm of imperialism, its role in Yugoslavia, Libya, Ukraine, Iran, and other wars or conflicts, its drive to destabilize any state that refuses to be subjugated under the boot of US imperialism, and why it’s crucial for the Western left to correctly identify NATO’s role in global capitalism and imperialism in order to effectively combat it.  Further resources: Support Elina's work on Patreon Elina Xenophontos (Substack) Elina Xenophontos (Youtube) Colonial Outcasts Related episodes: Our ongoing series on Iran Our ongoing series on Palestine Our ongoing series on China Our ongoing series on the Alliance of Sahel States Imperialism, The Highest Stage of Capitalism w/ Breht O'Shea and Alyson Escalante Intermission music: "Love Life" by Daily Ghost Covert art: Soviet anti-NATO propaganda poster Upstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Subscribe to our Patreon at patreon.com/upstreampodcast or please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at  upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Instagram and Bluesky. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

Ah Ah We can see here the way in which NATO has operated over the years. It functions as the muscle, the military arm essentially of imperialism. Because what it does is that it tends to align itself with the bourgeois class, you know, it will be in the form of monarchs, dictators, far-right fascist regimes, so long as they prevent the spread of communism and suppress actual political organic revolutionary movements in countries and then they establish within those countries

alliances with the ruling class of those countries in order to essentially have that sort of US hegemonic control this imperialist control over these states and allowing them to essentially be at a persistent state of exploitation at any particular time. You are listening to Upstream. Upstream. Upstream. Upstream. A show about political economy and society that invites you to unlearn everything you've

thought you knew about the world around you. I'm Robert Raymond. And I'm Della Duncan. NATO, or the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, far from being just a defensive alliance between the United States and Europe, is actually the spear tip of imperialism's military wing. It's the force used to discipline any global actor

who dares to defy US hegemony and dominance on the world stage. From Greece to Libya to Ukraine, NATO is where we must look to understand how destabilization occurs and how defiant states across the globe are subjugated and opened up to Western markets and Western capital. And we're lucky enough to have a terrific guest on today to tell us about how this all works. Alina Xenofontos is an international law and economic globalization specialist. She produces much of her own material on her substack and is also featured regularly on the Colonial Outcasts podcast among many other outlets.

In this episode, Alina presents a history of NATO, exploring its role as a force against communism and for capitalist discipline in Europe and the Global South. We explore its expansion during the Cold War and post-Cold War periods as a military wing of imperialism, its role in Yugoslavia, Libya, Ukraine, Iran, and other wars and conflicts, its drive to destabilize any state that refuses to be subjugated

under the boot of U.S. imperialism, and why it's crucial for the Western Left to correctly identify NATO's role in global capitalism and imperialism in order to effectively combat it. And before we get started, Upstream is almost entirely listener-funded. We couldn't keep this project going without your support. There are a number of ways in which you can support us financially. You can sign up to be a Patreon subscriber, which will give you access to bi-weekly episodes ranging from conversations to readings and more.

Signing up for Patreon is a great way to make Upstream a weekly show, and it will also give you access to our entire back catal catalog of Patreon episodes, along with stickers and bumper stickers at certain subscription tiers. Sign up and find out more at patreon.com forward slash upstream podcast. And if Patreon's not really your thing, you can also make a tax deductible recurring or one time donation on our website upstreampodcast.org forward slash support. Through your support, you'll be helping us keep Upstream sustainable and helping to keep this whole project going. Socialist political education podcasts are not easy to fund, so thank you in advance for the crucial support.

So thank you in advance for the crucial support. And now here's my conversation with Alina Xenophonous. All right, Alina, it's wonderful to have you on the show. Yeah, it's great. Thank you for having me. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I'm really glad that we were able to connect and to have you come on for hopefully the first of many interviews in the future. 100%.

So just to start, we like to ask our guests to introduce themselves however you'd like so Yeah, I'd love it just to start if you could introduce yourself for our listeners Tell us a little bit about the work that you do Yeah, so basically my background is in international law and economic globalization Just a little brief explanation if people don't fully understand what that means is that I have learned to assess using macro economic analysis to assess Legislation via the lens of international law and its impacts on states So that's sort of what my background is and you know in that field. I've worked as a researcher I've worked in multiple think tanks predominantly Europe the Netherlands UK. And at the moment, I've sort of

gone into producing some of my own material. I write a lot of sort of, I've become sort of a geopolitical analyst at this stage where I write my own material, assessing global phenomena, using my expertise. And I'm also a frequent contributor on the Colonial Outcasts podcasts, as well as having appeared on certain other sort of platforms, whether it be on Mintpress, whether it be on Danny Haifong as well. And yeah, that's predominantly what I do. I just use my expertise, let's just say, to help people figure out and sort of put the puzzles together as to what is going on

within the world at the moment because it's quite a lot for a lot of people. That's sort of my background. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for that. And yeah, I've really appreciated actually a lot of your analysis lately. I've been following your thoughts and analysis on Iran actually quite closely, which we'll get into a little bit later

in our conversation today. But yeah, thanks for all the great work that you're doing. And we'll throw all of your links and places that people can find out more about your work into the show notes. I think the best place to start the conversation today would really be just like a basic introduction to NATO and its history.

You know, this is of course the first episode of what we're hoping will be an ongoing series on NATO and we're going to take much deeper dives moving forward. But today we're really just going to like lay the foundations and then, you know, maybe later in the conversation get into some current events analysis. But yeah, let's just go ahead and start with those foundations. So tell us about the origins of NATO. Right. So, I mean, NATO was founded in 1949. However, there were certain, let's just say doctrines and alliances

that sort of predated by a couple of years that help us understand the pillars and the foundations of what NATO was to become and its sort of role globally. And so the first point of reference I would have here is probably the Truman Doctrine that was established in 1947, whereby the United States sort of officially let's just say ended to a certain degree what is understood as its isolationism and pledge support for nations that were resisting socialism and communism because you know throughout Europe after World War II there was a lot of left-wing movements occurring throughout Europe. It was like a hotbed of revolutionary sort of sentiment as a result of the impacts of World War II had. So the Truman Doctrine was in part

you know meant to counter this and it was in conjunction with the Marshall Plan that was established in 1948 which essentially as we all know the Marshall Plan is where the United States had used loans in a form of I guess financial colonization is what I call it in a way, to rebuild Europe, lending Europe around 13 billion in order to establish its infrastructure that have been completely destroyed and use this economic leverage to subjugate Europe politically as well as obviously economically. And in doing so, again, it directly and indirectly was meant to sort of push back on the leftist movements that were occurring Europe, which I'll get into in a second. And actually another, I guess, treaty that was established prior to NATO,

which again sort of shows us where NATO was going, was the Brussels Treaty of 1948, which established the Western Union. And that was a collective defense alliance between Belgium, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. And again, the entire purpose of that alliance was to stop communist movements from taking place, especially in France and Italy. Now these particular sort of doctrines and plan, the Marshall Plan and the Brussels Treaty then sort of came together and sort of epitomized with the formation of NATO in 1949.

And you know, the official sort of narrative was that NATO was meant, it was established in order to contain Soviet expansion and to push back on the Soviet Union. However, its primary function, like I said, was sort of to subjugate Europe, to suppress socialist and communist movements that threatened the capitalist interests. So I mean, for instance, I mean, in the 40s, France and Italy, France, Italy and Greece, actually, there was rapid movements that were taking place. I mean, the Communist Party of France was probably had established itself as one of

the most popular parties. The same thing was happening in Italy and Greece, which I will discuss a little later on. Greece itself was the civil war that broke out between 1946 and 1949 was a hot pot and a turning point in terms of the Cold War or rather the beginning of what would be the Cold War due to the communist movements that were taking place rather the sort of push that was occurring. And now again, the entire premise of therefore NATO wasn't just necessarily to sort of contain the Soviet Union,

but its objectives were fundamentally to suppress all the socialist movements that were inaugurating in Europe because of the impacts of World War II, because of the poverty that was established. And also, we have to bear in mind that in the 40s, we also had the decolonization process that was taking place. So a lot of these Western countries that were colonial empires themselves were now hit heavily as a result of World War II.

Their economies and infrastructure had been essentially destroyed. They were reliant, becoming reliant on the US and simultaneously they were losing their colonies throughout Africa, throughout West Asia. And so the bourgeois, let's say the ruling classes of these particular states were latching on to the US who was in a sort of trying to take advantage of this particular material conditions that have evolved after World War Two in order to suppress the radicalization as it would be sort of some would call it of Europeans of as in the working class in Europe as a result of World War Two and because of the diminishing power now of the ruling classes and sort of that is I guess if one could say some of the ruling classes. And so if that is, I guess, if one could say

some of the origins of NATO, these are the kind of organizations, the treaties behind the establishment of NATO, and that is to maintain global capitalist dominance and the establishment of transatlantic imperialist alliance with the remaining ruling classes in Europe that were trying to hold onto power and the United States. One thing that you mentioned is like how socialism, like socialist movements,

socialist like political movements or smaller movements, just socialist adjacent movements, national liberation struggles, like these all were quite popular post-World War II, like these all were quite popular post World War II, which like I didn't actually until, you know, alarmingly recently, and that's because I was educated in the United States, know about like just how many socialist and socialist adjacent movements and like state political projects there were in the 50s,

the 60s, all over the world. And just what a completely thorough and focused job the United States did for, like you could even just think about it, almost like the second half of the 20th century, the United States just devoted almost its entire focus and all of its resources to just crushing these movements and these, you know, everything from like workers' parties to national liberation struggles.

Like it's just really wild when you look into the history to just see the immense amount of like both popularity and then also the reaction by the United States. So yeah, I just wanted to bring that up and underscore that because I always think about the future that could have been if it wasn't for the world's leading anti-communist and anti-liberation struggle state, which is the United States, if it hadn't meddled so much in all of those different countries and with those different movements. And that kind of brings us a little bit more into sort of the second sort of question and the second sort of like, I guess, like era of NATO, which is in the post-World War II

Cold War period. And you've described this period and the role that NATO played as enforcing capitalist discipline. And so I'd love to hear a little bit more about that. Yeah. So I actually wanted to make a small little comment on what you just said because I completely agree with what you said and I'll also answer the question. This is why I also, you know, find it quite humorous sometimes when a lot of politicians in the

West will claim that communism is a socialist ideals or failing ideology that lost popularity. But the reality of the situation is, like you said, the whole concept of NATO and all these financial institutions that we will discuss later and the way the entire system has been developed has been specifically to violently oppress, which I'm going to get into now, so much of these movements that were so vibrant in Europe. And it's because these ideas do, of course, align, but also they speak to the people who have suffered at the hands of obviously sort of capitalism and its impacts that it's had on them, which is why I

find it always rather ironic when a lot of Western commentators will just say, oh yes, you know, communism died back in the early 1900s and it wasn't, or you know, it's not really something that is popular with people anymore. That's obviously not the case. But yeah, to answer your question, I guess I would like to go back to, I guess, a little bit. I'm going to use Greece an example. And the reason why I'm using Greece as an example is because it was a strategic battleground against communism. It was pretty much the first conflict of the Cold War and it represents the first, I guess, major involvement on the part of the allies in the internal affairs of a foreign country,

particularly of, I guess, the United States, the United Kingdom, and all these countries that would later go on to become NATO. Because again, the Greek Civil War, though it was initiated in 1946 and ended in 1949, it did provide the groundwork and the impacts that it had on that as to what was going to happen later on throughout Europe and what was to be sort of the Cold War. So the communists had uprising against the established government of the Kingdom of Greece, which by the way, the monarchy of Greece was actually established by the West. It was put in place by Britain and France after 1821, after the 1821 revolution, the

Greek Revolution. And the idea then by establishing that sort of monarchy was to ensure that Greece was going to become a dependent colony of the West itself and obviously also played into the destruction of the Ottoman Empire and the objectives that they had effectively to, I guess, completely break down the Ottoman Empire and take it piece by piece, which is essentially what happened under Western influence. But I mean, like I said, even the first king of Greece was the king of Otto of Bavaria. I mean, these were German monarchs and Danish monarchs, just to show the degree of European rule, European bourgeois rule over Greece at the time. So the communists were after World War II, who were like one of the driving forces

against obviously the Nazi occupation of Greece at the time, they were in a particular position of advantage because they were the major fighting forces who expelled the Germans. And they, after therefore the end of World War II, they wanted to essentially overthrow this European monarchy that was in itself a rather brutal monarchy that was established, like I said, by the West, by the Western colonial powers. And at that particular time, the US had began to support the monarchy via the concept of the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan.

And the idea was, of course, to completely suppress these communist movements in order to prevent it from spreading into obviously other territories, whether it be throughout the rest of Europe, the Balkans and even Turkey. So you saw all these countries that were then to go on to become NATO and they were essentially funding this brutal crackdown on the communists and that eventually, unfortunately, and among other things that had happened at that time with regards to the sort of Stalin-Dido split that was occurring in Europe led to, I guess, the defeat of the communist forces in that particular point in time. And not just that, so in 1952, after the sort of defeat of the communists in Greece, and

in 1952, NATO had already been established, they had also admitted Greece into NATO under this sort of this monarchy that itself, like I said, was a rather brutal monarchy that had, you know, at this point for years, been executing leftist thinkers, revolutionaries. There was a very tight sort of suppression that was in many ways funded and aided militarily by NATO states and then eventually the fact that this this state this country this monarchy that was incredibly brutal to its own people wasn't admitted into NATO NATO then actively was even providing sort of intelligence to support the monarchies or suppressing Greece's sort of movement and interestingly however

there was I I mean, although Greece was a monarchy, and the reason again, I can focus on Greece, because it was so important going forward in terms of what NATO was to become. Although Greece was a monarchy, it did have supposedly elections. There was going to be, there were elections. However, those elections were more so thatchic, they were performative in order to sort of appeal to the democratic aesthetic that the West wanted to sort of present itself as being sort of the notion of bourgeois democracy and the fact that you know the West is trying to promote well democratic values anyway. But actually

what happened in 1964 when we actually again saw the fact that even beyond the suppression of the leftists in Greece there was the rise of George Papandreou, although he wasn't a communist or socialist he was a social Democrat more than anything else, even that threatened the imperialist objectives that they had and at that point in 1967 NATO had actually backed a fascist junta regime coup in Greece and put in power a list of commanders, most of them who graduated NATO military academies and had close ties to US intelligence and these individuals spent the next almost decade violently cracking down again on communists and

going on essentially killing sprees, oppressing speech and imprisoning leftist thinkers throughout the country and this was very much not just supported by NATO now as a military alliance but it was pretty much in collaboration with NATO even based on the classified documents that we actually have and we saw the same So that mean we see again these sort of same alliances between NATO and fascist dictators even with you know the Franco fascist regime with the Madrid pact that essentially NATO states essentially provided Franco with huge amounts of military assistance

especially after the Spanish Civil War in order to keep him into power but also to establish a sort of Greater control over the leftist movements that were, you know, still the remnants of the leftist movements that were present in Spain. So again, we can see here the way in which NATO has operated over the years. We saw exactly the same thing as well happening in France. And that is it functions as the muscle, the military arm, essentially, of imperialism. Because what it does, and this is what we continue, we're going to get into like the more present aspect of it,

is that it tends to align itself with the bourgeois class where they're, you know, it'll be in the form of monarchs, dictators, far-right fascist regimes, so long as they prevent the spread of communism and suppress actual political, organic, revolutionary movements in countries, and then they establish within those countries alliances with the ruling class of those countries in order to essentially have that sort of US hegemonic control, this imperialist control over these states and allowing them to essentially be at a persistent state of exploitation at any particular time. So, like I said, NATO secured markets for Western capital in doing so and essentially

made sure that post-war Europe remained within the US led capitalist world system. All right, so we talked a little bit about NATO's role during the Cold War and sort of like as an enforcer of capitalist discipline. And I'd like to sort of move forward in history a little bit closer to like the 90s, right? Like the period of time when the Soviet Union collapsed and that period of NATO, which was still an instrument of global imperialism. And there's some really interesting examples of how that played out. So yeah, maybe you could just tell us a little bit about that period and bring in any examples

that you think might help illustrate the role that NATO played during that period. Mm-hmm. So I guess what's important to understand in this particular situation, in this context anyway, is that NATO is the military arm of imperialism. And it doesn't function in isolation. It functions in conjunction to sort of a hybrid web of institutions that are tailored towards or serving the, I guess, the ruling class or the imperialist structures. And sort of this works in combination with, you know, even the United Nations, the IMF

and the World Bank. I mean, something that people often forget, for example, is that the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank are actually institutions of the United Nations or part of the United Nations, just to understand the way in which the financial sort of capitalist institutions are so deeply intertwined with these political global institutions that are sort of generally portrayed by the West as being effectively these pillars of international peace and cooperation. But what they are truthfully is actually mediums by which to centralize economic and political control into a sort of system that serves a particular

group of people. And NATO comes hand in hand with that, is the military arm that sort of imposes that. And the reason that I say that, it's because of obviously NATO's intervention in Yugoslavia, because that was a very big turning point that then has had its own impact going forward, even with the Ukraine, Russia, war, etc. which we'll get into afterwards. And the reason I say this is because it's often, I mean, if you look at Western media, the way that the Yugoslavia war was often portrayed was that it was one of a failing state, a failing socialist state that collapsed on its own ideology but also simultaneously as a result of its own ethnic tensions. But what is often

sort of left out is the fact that the IMF and the World Bank, which had managed to sort of infiltrate into Yugoslavia following the sort of demise or rather death of Dito, which after the death of Dito, there was a, there were economic issues within Yugoslavia and therefore they reached out to these Western institutions for loans which is always a negative as we'll come and find over and over again throughout a lot of these conversations but they reached out and obviously the IMF used these loans that it had given over to Yugoslavia in order to impose austerity and this austerity was used as a mechanism to fuel ethnic tensions in Yugoslavia, which

then obviously led to these internalized dichotomies within the communities. And I mean, this has been, we have this documented throughout multiple reports. I mean, in 1990, there was a CIA report called Yugoslavia, the approaching storm. And in that report states very clearly that the IMF would be used to cause Yugoslavia to collapse and he admits that the Western economic policies used through his financial institutions would exacerbate the internal divisions within Yugoslavia and similarly there was another US State Department cable back in 91 where you know even see Germany, at this point was obviously part of NATO at this stage, pushing for the recognition of Slovenia and Croatia,

which this is at a time where Yugoslavia is still one state. So we're looking at how we look at the Balkanization, this is where the term comes from, of Yugoslavia, how the divide and conquer, the slogan of imperialism, divide and conquer, the slogan of colonialism. And this was something that was pushed by Germany and then also by the United States. And in fact, as well, we even saw the United States and NATO, there was actually articles that were published at that time by, I think it was the Washington Post in

1995, stating how NATO countries were actually even arming the Bosnians. They were using even jihadist extremist groups that they had created themselves in Afghanistan, etc. to counter the USSR in that part of the world to sort of, I guess, funnel internalize divisions within Yugoslavia. So I mean, again, the same sort of pattern that we have seen and we're still seeing, you know, even today in West Asia, for example.

So they created the perfect conditions for war, for violence between these, this community. And then the idea was to destroy Yugoslavia because Yugoslavia was a non-aligned socialist state. And even after Tito had passed away, to destroy Yugoslavia because Yugoslavia was a non-aligned socialist state. And even after Tito had passed away, although it had kind of lost a bit of its socialist character, but not completely, but to a certain degree, it still resisted full integration to Western capitalism.

And the West understood there and there that having a strong Yugoslavia that still had the vast majority of its industries nationalized who were able essentially to push back against Western imperialism and were a model in many ways for other countries in the periphery to push back against imperialism, it needed to effectively be bought down. So that's when NATO then become the bombing of Yugoslavia. So after the IMF, the World Bank essentially had created the perfect conditions to create the violence within Yugoslavia through austerity that had begun the privatization of its industries and start to turn people against one another because of the severity of the material conditions. You saw NATO come in and eventually start bombing Yugoslavia.

It destroyed Yugoslavia's infrastructure. And essentially in the end, Yugoslavia became divided. NATO's destruction of Yugoslavia allowed it to essentially, it impoverished the new states completely which allowed it, you know, a lot of the West and its private institutions to come in and purchase a lot of their national industries for pennies, effectively. They began to financially colonize Yugoslavia by, again, you saw IMF and a lot of these Western creditor institutions provide more loans to these new states now to effectively rebuild their industry, to rebuild their country,

which essentially meant that they were now effectively completely controlled. They've become sort of like financial colonies to a certain degree of the West and something that we're currently seeing in Ukraine as well, which again, we'll discuss afterwards. But I mean, you know, this is one example. I mean, Yugoslavia is one major example of that happening. And then afterwards, we saw how the destruction of Yugoslavia also meant that many of the countries then became part of NATO themselves, as we'll see later on. And the worst, another aspect is that they set a precedent that we saw come into

play again in Libya in 2011. So this is yet another example. NATO's invade a sort of bombardment and destruction of Libya in order to target Gaddafi's government, which, you know, despite Gaddafi's own particular flaws, he still was able to establish an independent sovereign state that was the wealthiest in Africa, that had a standard of living that even matched several states in Europe that had nationalized a lot of the country's oil industry and therefore had pushed back against Western capital and the control of Western capital over significant geostrategic countries such as Libya.

And so the same sort of pretext that we saw in Yugoslavia, that same president that was set with NATO bombing Yugoslavia, that same president that was set with NATO bombing Yugoslavia, destroying the country that allowed it to essentially be absorbed into the realm of Western capital, then was executed, became normalized, and we saw the same thing taking place in Libya. And Libya now went from being a prosperous independent state to being divided. We still have a civil war that's taking place in many ways. It's become an open slave market where people are essentially being sold into slavery, open slavery in the 21st century. And, you know,

where once upon a time people had a right by law to a house. Now people are living incredible levels of poverty, but a lot of its institutions, a lot of its resources have been bought out by Western capital. So this is how we see how NATO functions as the military arm and the muscle for Western imperialism and capitalism, because where the financial institutions, like I said in the case of Yugoslavia, came in to use economic forms of warfare to cripple a country internally, creating that sort of the perfect material conditions to generate a sort of the right conditions by which then we can see the sort of military use of NATO

come into play and how they then use NATO as a means to destroy countries effectively. So this is NATO's role in imperialism. And now we're seeing the same thing play out with regards to Russia, the war in Ukraine and all of that, the whole of that which entails that. So I actually just had a conversation with a comrade in Burkina Faso who runs the Thomas Sankara Center and we're doing a multi-part series on the alliance of Sahel states as well. So this will be for that series will be coming out next week after this is released. But I bring it up because actually she told me really interestingly that in Mali, which is one of the three states that's part of that alliance, Gaddafi is like a national hero.

You know, like he's hugely, hugely popular still. And it just goes to show like what a popular leader he was and how much he did for Libya and how much was sadly taken away in the NATO overthrow of Libya. So I was hoping maybe before we move on to talk a little bit more about Russia and Ukraine, if you could just maybe lay out for us what like, what the Libyan state, you mentioned, like, free housing earlier, like, give us a sense of what it was like, and then what happened after the economic looting and the bombardment from NATO. Yeah. So, like I said, obviously, Libya had first and foremost, it had nationalized the vast majority of its wealth and resources, oil being one of them.

And, you know, this effectively meant that Libya was able to, the money made from its oil and its own natural resources and wealth were able to be funneled into its economy and to help its own population. to its economy and to help its own population. But one of the things as well that Gaddafi did that I think doesn't get a lot of attention is the way that he tried to actually diversify the economy of Libya. I mean, some of the things that he had actually done also included funding education for the youth of Libya to go study abroad, even making contracts with prestigious universities like the LSE in order to study in tech and other industries in order to diversify the economy so that it's no longer reliant on oil. Education was free, healthcare was free and there was also

the Libya sovereign wealth fund which was essentially organized in a way in order to provide the Libyan population with all its needs. Loans in Libya for example as well, its financial sector was again very heavily nationalized and so loans in Libya were given interest-free. So this meant that you know the Libyan population was able to borrow money from banks in order to be able to kind of build their homes or be able to afford growing business, for example, and they were able to do so without necessarily having to pay, you know, threefold on compound interest, which is the way most banks, particularly in these sort of finance

capitalist institutions make money off of. And then of course, is the other angle that, you know, a lot of people talk about that Gaddafi as well, beyond the fact that he was offering his people this sort of very socialized way of living. And like I said, another aspect as well, they had open fruit and agricultural markets. There was a quotas on the prices, like in terms of what could be sold at what price to the public, therefore making it affordable for people to be able to essentially afford groceries. So there was a huge sort of government state control over different industries and even the

finance sector and the banking sector, which allowed, you know, not only for Libya to be able to push back against Western capital and to take control over its resources, but at the same time, Libya was able to use the wealth that it generated to actually boost the livelihood of its people rather than having that taken away. And after the killing of Gaddafi and the so-called civil war, which as I've said, it's not a really civil war at this point, it's different imperialist powers or rather imperialist powers that interjected inside Libya, we saw the oil industry was privatized.

It was essentially, you know, kind of given over to BP, Total and ENI. Libya's sovereign wealth fund was looted. I think over 100 billion had essentially been stolen by, you know, corrupt officials within Libya, but also as well by other Western corporatists who had sort of infiltrated Libya. But most importantly, because of the destruction of Libya, much like we saw in the case of Yugoslavia, for example, because the country had been effectively destroyed by war, and it's kind of carnage that took place, not just by the NATO sort of bombing of Libya,

but also the internal civil conflict that arised afterwards. You know, the IMF came in obviously again to give reconstruction loans to Libya to help the economy and to also help it reconstruct its infrastructure and to build itself as a state, even though it's not really a state anymore. And the IMF now essentially as well as the rest of the Western creditor class essentially have come to control Libya, but also has imposed austerity on the country that destroyed the whole, you know, the public health care that existed under Gaddafi and all these public services that existed under Gaddafi and all the subsidies that he was providing to the public in order to help them, like I said, again, start their own businesses or be able to sort of establish new sort of new industries. That had all collapsed

because the IMF now was essentially the, not just the IMF, but you know, the World Bank and all his other private Western creditors that had now infiltrated Libya were essentially imposing the sort of austerity that is dictating the economic governance of Libya to the point that Libya no longer, not only has no self-governance, but it has destroyed all the institutions that Gaddafi had established that were benefiting its people and now what we're seeing is the complete appropriation of Libya's wealth. And I think even Libya's gold reserves, which around 7 billion were also stolen and they were stolen and they're taken and held in sort of the central banks in London and the Federal Reserve in New York City.

So you know, we can see, and this is how we see how NATO, in conjunction again, NATO played its role in the destruction of Libya that then allowed the financial capitalist class to come in and essentially Asphyxiate the country economically and bleed it dry taking away not only the sovereignty But also the social prosperity that Libya was able to enjoy and its people were able to enjoy That Gaddafi had provided them and the irony in all this the ridiculous is is that When discussing Gaddafi in this day and ridiculousness, is that when discussing Gaddafi in this day and age, the narrative that's pushed forward by the West is the 40 female soldiers that he had and all this other kind of propaganda to make him look more like a madman. And the last

point I would like to mention about Gaddafi as well is right before his death, it's also worth noting, rather his assassination, it's also worth noting that he had actually even thought of creating the golden dinar and by doing so he wanted the African states. This is I think another reason why he's so popular within Africa throughout the continent is that because Africa is so rich in terms of natural resources, the idea was he wanted to promote this pan-African currency where natural resources extracted from Africa will be sold not in dollars but via the golden dinner. And this would have completely reshaped the imperialist economic structure, which relies

so heavily on the control not only of trade, but the use of the dollar as the predominant, obviously, currency of economic exchange. And so if that was to happen, and given the wealth, the resources that West Asia and Africa have, if they were to begin adopting another currency to exchange resources and particularly that of oil, this would have completely altered the dynamics and weakened imperialism, which is another reason Gaddafi was at the end of the imperialist sort of gun and why Hillary Clinton was gloating as to his death.

We went, we saw, he's dead. We came, we saw, he's dead. We came, we saw, he died. Did it have anything to do with your visit? I'm sure it did. If you all remember that little famous statement of hers. So this is the impacts that NATO had and how NATO was used on Libya. Yeah, thanks so much.

That's really important, I think, context in understanding the role that NATO plays and the tragedies that it inflicts across the globe. Libya is a particularly stark example. I want to ask you more definitely about the war in Ukraine and NATO's role in that. Can you talk first a little bit just about this dynamic of, you know, NATO is really sold to us as being a sort of defensive alliance and yet there were all of these promises in its early years that it would not step closer to Russia years that it would not step closer to Russia and continue to expand towards Russia. I think the quote is like, I forget the context of this quote, but somebody affiliated with NATO said something along the lines of, yeah, not an inch close or something like that,

right? Maybe if you could talk, obviously, I don't know the history nearly even a fraction as well as you. So maybe if you could just talk about that a little bit too and like, and this might lead a little bit into the situation in Ukraine, but just how NATO encircled Russia and China, part of a broader strategy that it has to combat its rivals of Russia and China. Yeah, so obviously after the fall of the Soviet Union in 91, when Russia was established as the state it is today, we have a lot of diplomatic cables that were released

under the Freedom of Information Act, and I think it was published by George Washington University. We see through the exchange of leaked cables effectively where members of the, I guess, the US political establishment and intelligence community had promised it. I think it was Yeltsin, but I could be wrong, where it was promised that effectively if Russia,

or with the collapse of the USSR and the destruction of the Berlin Wall, if Germany, the whole of Germany now, was to be inducted into NATO, that this would suffice and that NATO would not seek to expand further eastward. This was pretty much the agreement. This is in written format.

This was the understanding. Although, yes, not a formal written treaty per se, it wasn't written in treaty form, but it was more so an agreement in good faith and it was it was the exchanges that were made at a political and very senior political level between the United States, which is obviously the founder of NATO. It is the number one contributor to NATO. I mean, NATO is the United States more so than it is every other country. Hence, why Trump is constantly claiming that, you know, the other European states must pull their weight financially. But yeah, so the idea was that NATO would

stop there. And also because of the Warsaw Pact, which is sort of a military, I guess, an alliance of the socialist communist states, was also obviously now, I guess, dismantled. The idea was, well, communism was no longer officially a threat anymore. In the 90s, it had been defeated. The USSR had officially collapsed. The war sore pact had officially pretty much come to an end. Gradually, as we saw with Yugoslavia as well, these countries had essentially been dissipated into eight other countries. So NATO as a defense alliance no longer could justify its own existence anymore. And so the idea was there that, you know, one would assume that the existence of NATO would not be necessary. But yet, even beyond the agreements that were established between Russia and the United States, at least behind the scenes,

NATO continued to expand eastward. And we saw this expansion happen in several different timelines throughout the 2000s. And effectively, you know, this became a problem for Russia that because essentially, yes, so the first wave was the NATO expansion of Poland, Czech Republic and Hungary in 1999. Then again, the Baltic states were included in NATO in 2004. And then in 2008, NATO promised the eventual membership of Ukraine and Georgia, which at this point now is directly threatening Russia and Russia's core security interests for a number of reasons. And in fact, there's actually a famous, well, not famous, but it's rather well known video of Joe Biden back, I think it was in 19. in 90, I think I want to say 97, where he was questioned as to NATO's expansion and Russia's concerns because Russia had been expressing its concern for NATO expansion into closer to its

borders. And, you know, he had essentially said that Russia had said that if this continues to be the case, Russia will be coerced to look for other allies in the region. And Russia at that point, it said China and even Iran, to which Biden thought that was amusing and apparently said, good luck with that. But we see where we are today because the reality of the situation was NATO expanding further and further eastward, but particularly taking in Ukraine and Georgia became a direct threat to Russia's security

for a number of reasons. One obviously being the fact that you have nuclear warheads surrounding a country that which initially NATO was created to deter even though it is no longer communist it was created to sort of allegedly curtail and put pressure on the Soviet Union which is today's Russia but at the same time Russia as a country is largely dependent as well, which we can get into as we go forward in this conversation, on the Black Sea militarily and economically. So as NATO continued to expand, it became very clear that it was expanding with the objective

of circling and circling Russia militarily and economically in a way that was a direct security threat. And then we're seeing the same thing also as well play out with China. You've been listening to an Upstream Conversation with Alina Xenophontos. We'll be right back. Music Did you have a plan? Were you pulling every string just to hear? Were you by my side? Through every darkened night? Were you pushing the clothes just to see? Just to see Oh, I still dream of those nights When I'd sit at your side

And you'd ask, do a smile How's your love life? I don't know, just alright So how you getting on? Do you still sing that song? Remember the one that made you laugh? Where are you now? Cause I'm still looking round The old familiar place last we came Oh, I still dream of those nights

When I'd sit at your side Injured eyes, never shine How's your love life? I don't know, just alright How's your love life? I don't know, just alright How's your love life? I don't know, just alright How's your love life? I don't know, just alright How's your love life? I don't know, just alright I'm gonna be a good boy All of our half days. That was Love Life by Daily Ghost.

Now back to our conversation with Alina Xenofontos. You told us a little bit about NATO's expansion inching closer and closer to Russia, provoking Russia. You know, it's really not looking much like a defensive alliance, right? I think we can throw that out the window at this point. This brings us, I think, to the ongoing war in Ukraine, which I think is a really important insight, again, into how NATO functions, the role that it plays. And so I would love it if we could, yeah, let's talk a little bit about the war in Ukraine. Tell us what's going on there and how NATO fits into all of it. So yeah, with regards to Ukraine, as we've already mentioned, obviously, for Russia,

a further expansion of NATO into its territory would or closer to its territory was something that was considered to be an existential threat. and we've obviously seen that take place gradually throughout the 90s all the way into like the late 2000s and so this is something that you was ubiquitous knowledge we saw a lot of Russian politicians including Putin himself particularly bring attention to this detail and the situation is this with regards to Ukraine Ukraine is a particularly volatile point for Russia as well. And this is something that was well documented even by US intelligence. And what do I mean by that?

WikiLeaks had actually published leaked documents. These were cables from 2008. And in these cables, we see the former US ambassador to Russia, which was William Burns, which we all now know as well. He was a former head of CIA during the Biden administration. And in these cables, we see William Burns providing sort of like an intelligence sort of analysis of the situation between Russia and Ukraine. Again, this was back in 2008. And what he highlights is the fact that, and I quote, Russia has an almost neurotic fear

with regards to Ukraine. And it was very well understood that if there was going to be any sort of destabilization within Ukraine itself, this would, quote, coerce Russia to do something it doesn't want to do and intervene in Ukraine. And I want to highlight that because in these intelligence sort of cables that were published by WikiLeaks, we get an understanding that if Russia had the choice, they would not want a war in Ukraine unless it was absolutely necessary for its survival. And this was something that was documented within these intelligence memos that were published.

So again, we can see how the United States, it was aware of this particular, as they call it, neurotic fear and how they continue to provoke and escalate tensions within the region. I mean, we know for a fact, thanks to Victoria Newland, who had basically gone on record stating that the United States had been funding, that the United States had been funding, has funded, provided what they call funds of, I think, five billion to Ukrainian political legal establishments and administrative establishments for the purpose of what they call is the democratization of Ukraine,

which I call just a form of legalized bribery that compromises the state of Ukraine for the course of, like I said, 15 years up until at least 2013 and again even throughout the 2000s We saw other sorts of colored revolutions that the West because of article published by Guardian has openly profess were pushed by the West in order to I guess destabilize Ukraine so this idea of destabilizing Ukraine and creating internalized conflicts was always part and parcel of the idea of transgressing over Russia's national security concerns. And they did this very purposefully. And in fact, it was even understood that the Euromaidan protests, which occurred in 2014, would generate a sort of internalized civil conflict that would bring Russia into a possible war with

Ukraine and this was the objective as per the documents that I've Formally mentioned and at this point I would also like to clarify that what happened in Ukraine in 2014 it wasn't a Revolution as often sort of portrayed by the West and there's And there is a significant difference between a coup and a revolution. And it is important that we understand those differences because these differences exist legalistically, politically, and there are definitions that distinguish them. And we cannot just use them interchangeably because it creates a problem in understanding contextualizing history.

So first and foremost, it's important to understand that a revolution is a movement that's supported by the vast majority of the population. It's a mass movement. And that's the first criteria. And the second criteria is that a revolution is meant to completely obliterate the old system and bring about a new entire system. That means getting rid of the former political establishment, the political class that existed in a country, and even the system that existed in that country. So for example,

the Cuban Revolution or even the Iranian Revolution, whatever one may think of them, they were revolutions because they completely got rid of the old order and established an entirely new system. This is not what happened in Ukraine. In Ukraine, the Uromaidan protests were only supported by, according to the Kiev Institute, around 38% of the population and another 38% of the population opposed them, with the remaining population remaining sort of undecided. And the people that had essentially taken positions of power following the unconstitutional removal of Yanukovych at the time, had taken that position of power via a coup because not only was it not supported by the public, but the second aspect behind this, it wasn't even

constitutional. And the West knew that this would cause internalized conflicts inside Ukraine and that's exactly what happened. And as this this happened they knew that this would provoke Russia into effectively intervening and The reason for this is because Ukraine itself is sort of Ethnolinguistically divided with the eastern part of Ukraine always sort of be more pro-russian for historical reasons Which I won't get into right now and then the western part of Ukraine being more pro-eu So this coup that put into position of power Arseniy Yansenuk, can't pronounce his name properly, so apologies for that,

which we know for a fact, you know, even Victoria Nuland and her leaked phone calls with the former US, I think, ambassador to Ukraine had kind of disclosed that this was the plan three weeks before Yanukovych was actually unconstitutionally overthrown by putting this Arsini in position of power, who was already a pre-existing political figure in Ukraine, they knew that this was going to create a sort of internalized civil conflict within Ukraine. And that is exactly what happened. And so from 2014 onwards, what we saw was a gradual militarization of Ukraine and

particularly through the use of NATO came into play here quite a lot. A lot of the NATO countries, whether it be through the UK and Operation Orbital or Canada that was training a lot of these militias inside Ukraine and the United States that in 2019, even under President Donald Trump, they had began even providing lethal aid towards Ukraine in order to prepare them for war. And we also have the former Chancellor Angela Merkel, who had essentially said that the Minsk agreements that were both Minsk 1 and Minsk 2, she had no delusions that they would

work and that if anything that they were meant to buy time in order to prepare Ukraine for war. So this is the former Chancellor of Germany who was essentially speaking about preparing Ukraine for war. We have all these NATO states, whether it be France, whether it be the UK, the United States and Canada that were arming, funding and training the Ukrainian military, as well as other militias such as the now well-known sort of Asov Battalion, for example, in order to prepare them for war with Russia. So what does this say? We're seeing how NATO,

in this instance, all these NATO countries are functioning as a form of, I mean, it's not just a military sort of structure, it's a political alliance. And they use this sort of military alliance as a means to encircle and trap, but also to provoke war with adversaries in order to sustain their own imperial control. And the other aspect as well, I mean, with regards to, you know, the war in Ukraine, is that it's not only meant to target Russia, which, you know, I always want to remind people Russia itself is a very rich country in terms of natural resources that has not submitted to the West and has pushed back against the West, even though itself it's not a socialist

state, but it refuses to capitulate to the West, the fall and demise of Russia as a state and the possible balkanization of it, which we have seen members of NATO states and even the former, I think, politician from Lithuania was even saying that balkanization of Russia would be a good thing, would allow the West to infiltrate Russia, take its natural resources, exploit its labor force, and essentially colonize and extract its wealth in order to profit the ruling classes of the West. So that's the one aspect, but then also the other aspect behind the war in Ukraine is that it secured Europe into the realm of Western influence through a destruction of Nord Stream, therefore securing imperialism for the West rather than allowing for diverse powers to kind of grow.

Because if Europe had collaborated with Russia through the Nord Stream too, and all the alliances and agreements that were being established rather between Germany and Russia, this would have significantly weakened the US's control over Europe and therefore its ability to sustain imperialism. So we can see how in this aspect, all these NATO states and the way that NATO has been used as the pretext to generate this war, knowing full well that Russia's security interests would be directly threatened by Ukraine entering into NATO, a promise that was made over 30 years ago that would not happen.

So NATO was used to provoke the war, create the war, and now these NATO states are actively arming, funding, and training Ukraine so as to deplete Russia economically and militarily, while simultaneously fueling the military industrial complex by funding all these weapons into Ukraine and seeing the demilitarization of Europe. And therefore, this allows now Europe is amplifying its need for defense spending. And in doing that, by using the fear of Russia as an existential

threat to Europe, NATO is pushing for the increase in spending for the EU, which means that the defense industries, which are the ones that have made an abundant amount of profits through all the wars that I have mentioned, whether it was Yugoslavia, whether it's Libya, whether it's now in Ukraine, is now making billions in profits off of this. And so yeah, this is how NATO operates in order to sustain the imperialist machine, but also dealing with capitalism's overproduction crisis. So some of our listeners might be aware that there was the recent NATO summit that took place in Europe. And, you know, it's funny that we're doing this episode this week because it was like totally not planned to be around the summit or anything like that.

Just a huge coincidence. I don't have that much foresight. You mentioned the increase in funding for NATO or the increase of the percentage of the budget that Trump is trying to impose upon European countries. So I'd love it if maybe you could just talk a little bit about the implications of that, like this increase in NATO funding that's going to be coming from every European country except for Spain. And yeah, and then maybe also just tie that into like, as global capitalism begins to sort of enter this chaotic, frantic phase of what is hopefully its decline, like how NATO is responding to that in terms of like increased militarism and increased suppression of anti-capitalist movements. So I know I threw a lot at you in that question, so just feel free to kind of tackle it however

you'd like. All right. So with regards to the NATO summit, I mean, it sort of adds on to what I just said. I mean, the main takeaway was that Trump came to the summit and effectively said that other NATO states are not pulling their weight effectively when it comes to contributing to NATO spending, which is something obviously has been part of his policies since prior to his current election. Initially he spoke that he wanted to increase NATO spending by up to 5% from 2%, but now he's actually increased it to 3.5 percent, which is absolutely redundant when you think about it because the vast majority of NATO states are unable to

even meet 1.5 percent. Italy for example and again a lot of these countries particularly within Europe are facing an economic crisis of their own. So what is this actually going to do? You know we're seeing the president of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen as well as obviously leaders within Western European states, Germany being one example, that are trying to also increase the sort of expenditure that European Union will spend on military and defense. And as I said earlier, they're using, you know, the war in Ukraine as a perfect pretext in order to do so. And in fact, we're now seeing in Europe already,

even outside the NATO expenditure, a lot of these Western European states have imposed on the totality of the EU to essentially, they're spending more now, they're increasing the spending on defense. It's the most that we've seen spent on European defense since pretty much the end of World War II. And this is coming as a huge cost for the European people because this means that effectively we're going to see a cut in welfare as significant levels of austerity are going to be imposed on the people of Europe in order to be able to sustain these sort of military expenditures that they're planning on. In order to now also meet a 3.5% expenditure on NATO as well. This is only further going to cut in to any sort of welfare that even remains within the

EU, which means that the working class in the EU that are already seeing themselves significantly material conditions already significant deteriorate as a result of the war in Ukraine and the sanctions passages that effectively boomeranged back onto the EU as we've seen essentially Germany completely de-industrialized as is the case for France as well as other European countries and the impact that this is going to have on them with some countries like Italy for example who has an enormous debt crisis that you know is could triple that that existed in 2008 in the US and again these are countries as well within the eurozone, which means that they have no effective control over their currency and being able to manage an economic

crisis. The impacts of this is going to be catastrophic for the working class. However, this sort of militarization that's basically taking place independently, but also as part of NATO is a key way for capitalist states to essentially absorb surplus capital and maintain profitability. And the way that they do that is that effectively by increasing the expenditure of these EU states to militarize their countries, they're not only, yes, fueling the defense industry, but the destruction that's going to essentially take place within Europe economically by, like I said, deteriorating the material conditions of the working class will allow a lot of the financial capitalists and the private sector to come in and

absorb and monopolize the economy of the EU. And another aspect behind this is that when you consider that Germany was essentially the economic powerhouse of the EU, it was an industrial powerhouse alongside Japan, for example, alongside China. You know, Germany was a very powerful economy. The deindustrialization of Germany that is currently taking place as a result of the sanctions war, the economic warfare that's being imposed on Russia that, as I said, is boomeranging essentially back onto the European Union, it's having such a detrimental effect on Germany that what essentially is happening is that a lot of German industries are either shutting down, which is why we're

seeing an increase in bankruptcy systematically every year since 2022 in Germany, but also the privatization of these industries and the extraction of these industries away from Germany to countries like the United States. So the United States is now absorbing the excess surplus capital in the European Union. And so NATO serves the same sort of agenda here. So NATO serves as a mechanism for permanent war and the economic benefits that come out of that through arms sales and reconstruction contracts as well that are going to come from the destruction, for example, of Ukraine. I mean, Ukraine as a country no longer exists.

It's essentially become a colony of the West that's essentially owned by BlackRock as well as other private corporations that are now dictating the way in which Ukraine and its investments going forward. But this is how NATO is serving the crisis of capitalism. Because by creating more economies, like I said, they're creating this urgency that will justify the complete destruction of welfare, the impoverishing of the working class, which means that the working class now, even the middle class, which there isn't really,

I mean, if we get into the dialectics of middle class, that's a whole other conversation, but that will also be eradicated. They're going to be now thrown into the working class. This means that we also increasing the army of labor reserve, which means the working force in Europe is now going to be increased and the supply of it will be increased, which means that this makes way for more exploitation

of the workers in Europe by these private companies that are going to absorb in the European markets. And so where capitalism is facing its crisis, and by crisis I mean its inability to sustain its profit margins as competition grows. They have now destroyed that competition that was coming out of Europe and they're destroying the economy of Europe to the degree that it will basically be absorbed into the financial capitalist class in the US. And in doing so, it will help them sustain their profit margins via cheap labor, absorbing all the industries of Europe, and through the financialization of Europe that is also gradually taking place.

Whilst, like I said, simultaneously, the militarization of Europe is creating the perfect conditions to destroy as well the overproduction that capitalism is in. I'd like to now move back to West Asia. We talked about Libya, but obviously right now the main country that's in the sights basically of NATO and the United States and has been for decades now is Iran. And so without getting into like, you know, the complete analysis of what is a fluid situation, so we're not going to be able to like, you know, discuss every finer point and make predictions and all of that kind of stuff.

But just more generally, it would be really helpful to hear your analysis on Iran and the joint Israeli-U.S. war that is looming, maybe perhaps hasn't fully exploded yet, even though the United States did literally drop bombs on Iran recently. Yeah, I would just love to hear your analysis on what's happening with that war and the role that NATO plays. In order to understand and in order to contextualize what's happening in Iran, I think it's important to understand what Iran's position is as a state in terms of the imperialist project. And as I've often said, Iran is one of the core pillars of the BRI, which is the Belt and Road Initiative. It's now part of BRICS.

And thus, by extension, it has now positioned itself within the general scope of the multipolar project. And the very concept of the multipolar project is to push back against US hegemony. And US hegemony or imperialist hegemony is fundamental in order to preserve imperialist power. You need the complete control of the world economy at all times in order to be able to continuously extract and exploit it in order to preserve the profit margins and interests of the ruling class.

So any sort of system and structure or trade alliance or organization that threatens that hegemony means that by default it threatens imperialism. And so Iran's position as a hub for the Belt and Road Initiative and its relationship with China puts it in a position where it directly opposes and threatens imperialism and without one to get into too much of what bricks is and what the bri does you know even the bri in terms of its economic aspirations. Iran is the centerpiece by which a lot of these trade routes are going to go into both west asia and africa and what will the bri do the objective is to industrialize a lot of West Asia and to industrialize the African continent in a way that it will no longer be dependent on the private sector of the Western private ruling class, which come into a lot of these territories and essentially kind of extract resources without really putting money back into these infrastructure and only

providing infrastructure for a temporary point in time. So the BRI is going to shape all of that and change that and create a sort of industrial productive force in these countries that will allow them to essentially become more self-sufficient. But if they become more self-sufficient, this means they're no longer easily exploited. And so Iran is a center pillar in that. longer easily exploited. And so Iran is a central pillar in that. And in addition to that, Iran obviously has very close trade relations with China. Iran is now the main supplier of China's oil, which is important for its own economic development

and its own industry that obviously is not to the liking of the West. And then the other angle, the third aspect behind Iran, before I get into my next point, is that Iran is also has been central to the anti-imperialist struggle in West Asia, because it's prevented the subjugation of the region to the Western interest just by virtue of the fact that it has supported the other resistance factions within the region, which it's always important to note the resistance, whether it's in Lebanon, whether it's in Yemen, they were organic sort of movements that were inaugurated as a result of Western oppression

and war in these particular countries. However, Iran has positioned itself in such a way that it has provided obviously military assistance and established a sort of an axis of resistance as it's called, that has pushed back against Western interest. I mean, we can see the same thing. That's what happened in Yemen. The so-called civil war in Yemen really wasn't a civil war at all. As we know, it was an imperialist war that was waged by NATO states, but also the Arab states,

particularly led by Saudi Arabia because of these geostrategic and significant importance of Yemen, given the Red Sea and its access to trade routes, as well as its own natural resources and mineral resources that the West needs. So Iran is therefore a central pillar against imperialism. And as a result, this is why Iran will not be allowed to exist in its current form and to continue to thrive because in doing so you're only emboldening Iran and therefore the resistance factions within West Asia that therefore threatens imperialism and its ability to control the world economy because like I've said multiple other occasions West Asia is very geostrategically important because it some of the most important trade

routes go through West Asia, whether it's through the Strait of Hormuz, whether it's the Red Sea, whether it's the Suez Canal. It's an economic trade hub in addition to the fact that it's a region that's rich in resources as well as the connecting point between Asia and obviously Africa, Europe, and the rest of the world. The fact that Iran is a central pillar to pushing back both through its alliance through BRICS and the BRI as well as the support of the resistance factions, the West can simply not allow Iran to exist in its current form.

And so this is why we are seeing this war that's been waged against Iran and the way that NATO kind of falls into this because as we've established, you know, NATO is not a defense alliance, but one that has been structured towards suppressing any sort of struggle that opposes the interests of the imperialist class, even if they're not necessarily be socialist because, you know, the Iranian revolution wasn't well initiated as a leftist movement, but then, you know, it took a different course due to other reactionary forces. But by virtue of the fact that it's anti-imperialist, it still threatens the West. NATO will not permit Iran to exist.

And so what we're seeing take place is that Israel is being used, much like Ukraine is being used, as a proxy to effectively target Iran. And the reason I say that Israel is being used is because at this particular point in time, it's Israel that's actually receiving or absorbing the grunt of the wrath of Iran as we've seen. And as we saw recently, I think it was an interview on German national television, the now German Chancellor Merz, he came out and openly stated that Israel is doing the dirty work of the West by targeting Iran.

Israel is on the receiving end of a lot of military support, both financially but also in terms of weapons supplies from the West through NATO states, whether it's the United States, whether it's Germany, whether it's the UK. When the operations began or rather when the war, or rather Israel attacked Iran, the UK had mobilized its forces on the island of Cyprus by the Raf Agrodiri, which it has the UK enclave, which are basically now become military bases. They had mobilized in Cyprus for the purpose of protecting Israel. So here we can see how the NATO states are not only just funding Israel but they are participating in the war against Iran. And in fact even an article that was

published by CNN just a few weeks prior to the aggression on Iran, it had been openly professed by members of the American intelligence that, you know, although they were anonymous, they had essentially disclosed that the United States is effectively one that has been collecting and they openly stated this, the information that was the requisite in order to attack Iran. And we now also know, based on reports that have come out since That the United States and Israel have been collaborating very closely and this was a planned operation on behalf of both the United States and

Israel so we can see how NATO here is aligning itself to Target Iran because targeting Iran, depleting Iran, destroying or trying to create a failed state in Iran will automatically impact the BRICS alliance, it will automatically impact the BRI and its aspirations in terms of pushing back against imperialism and the economic structures that have allowed a particular class to consistently exploit different parts of the world, but most importantly, then plans to target China, which is the end goal here for the United States, as I think the Trump administration has made very clear, but also the Biden administration prior, hence obviously

the trade wars, which is another piece of this puzzle. So although this is not an open war, you know, an open declared war by NATO, we can see how the NATO states instantly are not only aiding and abetting Israel, but the fact that even, for example, the United States has used its bases and satellites in even the Gulf states as well as more of its military infrastructure around West Asia in order to target Iran, this just goes to show the degree of involvement of NATO. And if tomorrow, and I think this was what Iran was saying, Iran was to target US bases, which is well within its right given the fact that the United States did target Iran using

its military bases. And this was an act of war of which Iran reserves the right to defend itself under the United Nations Charter. This would mean that Iran, and this is why they actually did carry out those performative strikes against the US bases in the Gulf region, if they were to actually target in a very serious way the US bases, this would automatically bring in the totality of NATO Which is part of the ambition here under article 5 of the NATO sort of Constitution and therefore we can see how this alliance therefore becomes very threatening because they're surrounding Iran and

They're all funding Israel whilst using their bases within the region to aid Israel's attacks on Iran. But then if Iran was to target any one of these operations and bases that belong to NATO in the region, this will automatically mobilize the entirety of NATO. And this is something that Russia itself has been treading on like a fine line with regards to what's happening in Ukraine as well. So again, NATO is not a defensive alliance, but it's one that instigates war, conflict, and it's an aggressor that serves the needs of capital and to preserve imperialism globally. Wow. Yeah. Thank you so much for that. There's like so much that we could get into. We've covered so much ground already.

I think that it's really becoming quite clear how pressing an ongoing series is on NATO because I just I want to dive into so many different parts of everything that you just shared. But I think for the purposes of time and Just to keep it as like a foundation that we can build on I'm just gonna ask you one more question, which is you know, actually quite a large one but I think a really important one and an important note to end on because We have to be able to identify what a problem is in order to address it,

right? So, like, I think one of the really important things for us on the Western Left right now is political education. Building organizations and strengthening the left is, of course, crucial, but the left in the United States is just so small that I think the step of political education and the undoing of Western propaganda here is really, really crucial, a crucial starting point to even like start building the foundations back up. sure that you remember some of the protests that took place in the US recently, like the hands-off protests, the no-kings protests. These are protests against the Trump administration specifically, and it's sort of like overtly fascistic overreaches.

But if you go out to these demonstrations, or even if you see photos from them, you'll see that there are a lot of people who are actually like, they're carrying pro-NATO signs or like hands-off NATO signs, and they don't really seem to understand, like liberals in the United States don't really seem to understand the role that NATO plays. Every liberal city in the United States, when you walk down the street, you'll see tons and tons of Ukrainian flags, and that's not like a problem because we don't want to support Ukrainian people. It's just an indication of like the choices that the United States citizenry makes in terms of like you know why isn't there a Palestinian flag why you know like why is Ukraine the country that the average person, the average liberal in the United States

chooses to support? It's because they were told that that's who you're supposed to support. You're not supposed to support Palestinians, but you're supposed to support Ukrainians because of the United States' interests in that region, right? So there just seems to be a huge disconnect and misunderstanding of imperialism and specifically the role that NATO plays in destabilizing the world. And so yeah, I guess just to end, I'm wondering if you like, if you have any thoughts on this more broadly, how crucial it is for the left to expose and understand NATO as like this military wing of imperialism? And like any thoughts that you have moving forward on how NATO can be countered and how hopefully eventually NATO can be fully delegitimized among the broader population and eventually

dismantled? This is a very broad question. I think first and foremost, education is key. With the events of October 7th and everything that's happened in Palestine and the genocide in Palestine and the overt fascism and the brutality that's been exposed, you know, through these operations, the support, the open support of what is the rules-based order and these sort of pillars, supposedly of democracy of the West, to support the barbarity that we've seen in Palestine has been, definitely has, I think, to a certain degree, opened the eyes of the public to a certain degree. However, unfortunately, outside the scope of Palestine, there are still many, and I think as you rightfully mentioned, that still do not seem to understand the general power

structures that are at play. With for example, many even sort of attributing the core fundamental problem as being Israel and AIPAC, etc., rather than understanding the core economic structures that are at play here and the bigger game. So what we need to do as well with platforms such as yours and with the work that I try to do with my writing is effectively to try to help people piece the puzzles together as to, you know,

what's happening in Palestine is connected to what's happening in Iran. But, you know, at the same time, how do we, by using them as examples to then sort of get into the broader conversation of NATO to get into the broader conversation of what actually is imperialism, because that's another problem as well. People don't actually know what imperialism even is. If you ask the vast majority of people on the left, even well-intentioned people, they'll just assume it's just one country being rather big and having some sort of, I guess, influence on another. It's not as simple as that. It's a very complex economic

structure that needs to be understood in its totality. But of course, the entire education system within the West, from the time know, basically entry level in primary school all the way to your higher education is tailored towards this mass indoctrination that prevents people from actually identifying and understanding the systemic issues that are at play and the kind of structure and the economic structures that we are living under. So one angle is yes, we in the left, no matter how small it is in the US, we have to try to use what is happening in West Asia specifically to try to broaden the analysis as to what imperialism is to get people to understand how imperialism operates. And then

through doing that, then we'll be able to make the connection with NATO for instance and why NATO is not something to be admired or this alliance to be supported. For example in the context of the protesters that you referred to in your question where you know they're protesting Trump but then they're going around and holding the NATO symbol as though it's some sort of you, not recognizing that what they're essentially holding is a symbol of imperialism. And it's that particular symbol that is bringing about the destruction that we're seeing in West Asia.

So if we're able to connect, you know, what's happening in the region to, you know, what NATO is, what it represents, and then sort of start kind of connecting the dots with what's happening to Ukraine, as well what it represents, and then sort of start connecting the dots with what's happening to Ukraine, as well as other global struggles and phenomena, whether it's what's happening in West Africa with the SACE alliance or Latin America, or even the situation in Taiwan with China, for example. I think that that's the way forward because unfortunately, as it currently stands, like you said, although there

has been a cultural political shift to a certain degree, there's still no real development of class consciousness for the vast majority of Americans. And unfortunately, even the protests that took place in the United States, it was more so a reactionary towards Trump as opposed to an ideological understanding of the power structures that are at play. Because even though the Biden administration has executed pretty much very similar policies and probably even more aggressive in terms of immigration, etc., or even the continuation of the economic trade wars that Trump had started in his first term, Biden sort of continued with regards to China in his second term. And now we're seeing sort of Trump escalate and accelerate that. Most people will not understand the reality of the situation that in the US is sort of

like a two party duopoly or dictatorship, as I personally call it. And that in reality, Trump, although yes, is a political spectacle that is somewhat accelerationist, is still serving the same interests of the same ruling class as Biden, but it's simply that his portrayal and his presentation is somewhat different. It's part of the political spectacle and people are still falling for that. And it just goes to show that perhaps if next term and the next elections, if for example, the Democrats were to win

again and they were to execute the same policies, to what extent will people be able to identify the issues and the imperialist agenda in those actions if it's not, for example, merely reacting to Trump's policies? So yeah, I mean, honestly, I think the best thing that we can do, and I think you're doing that great on your platform, and I'm sure as this series on NATO will continue to expand, is to really, I think, use what's happening, particularly in West Asia, because that's where people are, Palestine specifically, that's where people seem to have been somewhat awakened to a certain degree and try to educate them on imperialism, NATO, and the general structures.

I think that's the best way to approach that. You've been listening to an Upstream Conversation with Alina Xenophantos, an international law and economic globalization specialist. She produces much of her own material on her sub-stack, and is also featured regularly on the Colonial Outcasts podcast, among many other outlets. Please check the show notes for links to any of those resources and ways that you can support Alina on Patreon, and for any of the resources mentioned throughout this episode. Thank you to Daily Ghost for the intermission music, and the cover art for today's episode

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