CND condemns the outcomes of the NATO summit in Vilnius: the nuclear-armed alliance continues its global expansion while failing to take any initiative to bring the bloody war in Ukraine to a peaceful conclusion.
Finland is the latest state to join NATO with Sweden hard on its heels. The summit confirms that Ukraine’s future belongs in NATO – a recipe for continued conflict and instability. Elsewhere NATO is planning to further increase its influence in the Indo-Pacific, and is looking at how to expand its reach in the Middle East and Africa by the time of next year’s summit.
Pressure is mounting on member countries to boost spending in the military-industrial sector, which at a time of economic uncertainty and climate breakdown, will only lessen our overall security and cause serious hardship. CND’s Wages Not Weapons campaign calls instead for defence diversification into socially useful sectors.
The summit stresses that British and US nuclear weapons remain at the heart of NATO’s defence posture in Europe, that NATO will continue to modernise its arsenal and prepare for its use. This refers not only to the UK’s Trident system but also to the US’s upgraded B61-12 guided nuclear bombs stationed across Europe. CND calls for all NATO nuclear weapons to be withdrawn from Europe and all Russian nuclear weapons to be withdrawn from Belarus.
CND General Secretary Kate Hudson said:
“This summit makes a very bad global situation even worse. Instead of pushing for peace, NATO is hellbent on continuing the war in Ukraine, and dragging its member states’ economies into massive military-industrial escalation at the expense of their citizens’ welfare and the future of the planet. As the risk of nuclear war continues to grow, CND calls on civil society to resist the militarisation of our societies and work for peace and disarmament – and a new concept of security based on equality, justice and meeting the needs of people and planet.”
Images credit: Marek Studzinski / Unsplash and NATO