The recent NATO summit in Wales provides an opportunity to understand this military alliance more clearly. The summit was significant in a number of ways.
Firstly, there was the establishment of a "spearhead" or permanent standing army of 4,000 troops for use in Europe. This is not simply some national troops on loan; these are troops specifically for NATO goals. Secondly, the secret Russophobic or anti-Russian purpose of NATO is now spelled out. We are in Cold War 2.0 and Russia is "the aggressor" - the enemy. This is important, for NATO to have an enemy ... even if the rhetoric is sometimes couched in the most idiotic manner, e.g., ISIS and Russia are somehow "similar" threats to NATO. Thirdly, we have the construction of additional military bases in defiance of treaty obligations. This last item, mind you, begs the question of who will pay for all this. The USA wants to make others pay "their share" of this recent aggressive policy.
It should also be noted that despite the repetitive reference to Article 5 of the NATO alliance (mutual defense by members of member states) the US President made it abundantly clear that there will be no such general role of NATO in Ukraine today. So they have drawn back, for the time being, from direct war with Russia. World War 3 has been postponed. However, that won't stop NATO from conducting war games (with 1400 troops) on the territory of Ukraine. Just to remember we are talking about war games on the territory of a state that has just established a tenuous ceasefire after an horrific civil war in which upwards of 1,000,000 refugees have been created, thousands killed, and civilian infrastructure brutally bombed and destroyed. This is NATO's idea of peaceful activity.
Incidently, nothing proves the aggressive nature of the Ukrainian puppet regime better than the fact that around 900,000 of the million or so refugees fled to ... Russia. Why would refugees flee towards an aggressor? On this, western media is mostly silent and simply regurgitates the views of the US State Deparment and their own vassal-like governments.
All of this will undoubtedly increase tensions in Europe. The most important clients of the USA in NATO (UK, Poland, the Baltics) in regard to current bellicose Ukraine policy will be effected by this "new" NATO orientation. But is it really "new" at all?
When the Cold War "ended", following the breakup of the Soviet Union, NATO no longer had a reason for existence. And yet ... NATO expanded eastward until it has now gobbled up the majority of states that are near to or border Russia. If Russia was an ally now, why wasn't it invited to join "our common home" etc.?
The fact is, NATO has always been expansionist, as a consequence of US foreign policy. There were all these "out of area operations" by NATO in Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq, and so on. The official doctrine, of a collective security organization, is a fig-leaf, a lie. Russia was not invited to join NATO way back when ... because
1. the aim of NATO is to ensure US hegemony; 2. Such hegemony "needs" a permanaent enemy; 3. A permanaent enemy allows the hegemon to discipline those members of the alliance that are somewhat disobedient; 4. Since Russia has, after the stooge called Yeltsin passed from the political stage in Russia, political leadership (current President Putin) which asserts Russia's geo-strategic and national interests much more vigorously, Russia is perfectly placed to be the enemy ... again. A Russia that is not subservient to the hegemon is the enemy. Period.
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Clearly, Canadian membership in this aggressive military alliance, while it may benefit military production in our country, does and continues to do harm to the independence of our foreign (and domestic) policy. It is a critical plank of any genuinely alternative approach to foreign policy in this country that Canada get out of NATO.
And there is no party in Parliament, including the NDP, that takes such a view. They're all bought and paid for.