As the #NATO summit begins today, never forget it was that military alliance which illegally attacked a sovereign state in 1999 (Yugoslavia) and set the precedent for aggression vs Iraq, Afghanistan, and the violence now in Gaza and Ukraine. 🧵 
After the cold war, NATO had to make itself relevant and it did so by illegally bombing Yugoslavia. At its summit in 1999, NATO approved a new strategic concept for the alliance with a remit to intervene militarily across Europe and Asia WITHOUT UN approval.
Alarmingly, for supporters on international law, Walter Slocombe, US under-secretary of defence said that "NATO doesn't need a UN mandate. Its always desirable to have one but we believe that Article 51 of the UN Charter provides for individual and collective self-defence...
...that provides very broad authority for countries to act even where there's not a specific Security Council resolution authorising that action." In other words, NATO's authority is greater than that of the international community!
The implications have been enormous - the entire postwar international security system has been undermined since NATO's illegal aggression against Yugoslavia.
In the UK, on 1 Feb 1999, the minister of state at the Ministry of Defence, Lord Gilbert was asked in parliament about NATO's new strategic concept but replied, "There are no plans at present to consult the House before the negotiations are completed."
Neither was there a consultation paper or any kind of public discussion in the UK. So much for open government!
Throughout the Cold War, NATO stood for the collective defence of the western "democracies" - though at times Greece, Portugal and especially Turkey failed to qualify for that tag.
NATO's illegal aggression against Yugoslavia was never going to be the last of NATO's military interventions. It was just the curtain raiser on the alliance's new role and the beginning of the end of the UN's role. END
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