John Pilger
NATO likes to present itself as a force for peace and stability in the world. What is your assessment of the strategic role of NATO during the Cold War?
John Pilger:
NATO was, is, an American invention designed to impose American power on Europe. The Alliance achieved this during the Cold War and successfully spread the illusion – long debunked in declassified files – that Russia was a threat to all we hold dear. Today, Nato exists as a provocateur to post-Soviet Russia, with its undeclared American goal of breaking up the Russian Federation. Some of the Europeans running NATO’s war bureaucracy are as zealous as the Americans, such as the secretary-general, Jens Stoltenberg, a rabid propagandist.