The president of Bolivia, Luis Arce, stated that it “puts peace at risk” in South America. The alliance granted the same status to which Argentina now aspires to countries such as Australia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Japan, South Korea, Mongolia, New Zealand and Pakistan.
Days ago, the Minister of Defense of the Nation, Luis Petri, announced that he delivered a letter expressing Argentina’s request to become a global partner of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
“I met with Mircea Geoana, deputy secretary general of NATO. I presented the letter of intent that expresses Argentina’s request to become a global partner of this organization. “We will continue working to recover links that allow us to modernize and train our forces to NATO standards,” he said.
The presidential spokesperson himself, Manuel Adorni, referred to Petri’s announcement and said that NATO’s global partner status “will allow the country to increase military and defensive capabilities through multinational exercises and advanced technology, as well as participate in debates and strategic decisions. In this way, the country could join a group of countries that are already accessing the benefits of participating in this global alliance, such as Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Japan, etc.”
It should be noted that in January 1998 Argentina was designated by the United States as an “important extra-NATO ally,” a status that establishes privileges of military and economic cooperation between both countries. This designation remains in effect. The announcement was made two days after Buenos Aires completed the purchase of 24 American F-16 fighter jets from Denmark. The operation had the approval of Washington.
NATO’s current global partners are Australia, Colombia, Iraq, Japan, South Korea, Mongolia, New Zealand and Pakistan.
At the global level, the military coalition’s attempt to increase its ranks and isolate Russia are part of the US’s intentions to gain prominence in Eurasia.
That region, as well as the Middle East, is constituted as a decisive space of the world system in the midst of multipolar transition and with the growing resistance of Washington, which is fighting to maintain its hegemony.
Argentina and NATO: why join?
Argentina’s approach to NATO is linked to the new foreign policy developed by the Government of President Javier Milei, aligned with the United States and Israel.
In addition to Colombia, which was admitted as a partner in 2017, NATO granted the same status to which Argentina now aspires to countries such as Australia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Japan, South Korea, Mongolia, New Zealand and Pakistan.
An important aspect that could generate some internal conflict is the diplomatic dispute over the sovereignty of the Malvinas Islands between the United Kingdom – one of the founding members of the alliance – and Argentina, which caused a war in 1982.
Concern in neighboring countries
The president of Bolivia, Luis Arce, stated that Argentina puts the peace of the region at risk with its intention to be part of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). “It is putting the peace of the region at risk because we know what NATO is up to in different countries. Look at what is happening in the war between Ukraine and Russia. “NATO plays a fundamental role in explaining what is happening in that part of the planet,” said the president in an interview with the Russian news portal Sputnik.
Arce, on the other hand, rejected recent statements by Argentina’s Security Minister, Patricia Bullrich, who accused Bolivia of harboring pro-Iranian fighters in its territory and granting them Bolivian passports. “We totally reject the statements of the Argentine minister because they are unfounded, they do not have any evidence and (she) has only tried to distract attention from the crisis that Argentina is experiencing. They have 53% inflation in three months. “They don’t know how to hide such inflation,” said the head of state.
“It is evident that there are no results from the policies applied by the Argentine Government in its country. The truth is that for the Bolivian case we have absolutely nothing, it is an absolutely false accusation. And that type of accusation has received a response from our Foreign Ministry, no, like a statement, because it is the level that must be responded to in the face of such baseness and irresponsibility in making statements about our country,” he added.
What is NATO and what does it mean to be a global partner?
Created in 1949, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is a collective security alliance in which its member states undertake to defend each other from any external attack.
The alliance was born within the framework of the Cold War, between the United States and the Soviet Union, and its objective was to stop the advance of communism towards Western Europe.
For this reason, one of its key articles was number 5, which states that “the parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them, taking place in Europe or North America, will be considered an attack directed against all of them, and consequently, agree that if such an attack occurs, each of them (…) will help the attacked party or parties.”
Luckily for humanity, Article 5 was never invoked during the Cold War and was applied only once, after the attack on the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001.
A revitalized NATO
After the fall of the USSR, the military alliance was left without an existential mission. However, the United States, the undisputed leader of NATO (it provides 70% of its military budget), ensured that it remained active with the aim of continuing to strengthen both its hegemonic position in Europe and its ties with the rest of the West. .
Thus, on the one hand, it set out to combat terrorism and, on the other, it used it as a means to spread democracy, since any country that wants to join it must meet certain standards.
However, little by little, the alliance was losing significance and even at the end of 2019, before the coronavirus pandemic began, the president of France, Emmanuel Macron, declared that NATO was “brain dead.”
Now, after two years of war in Ukraine, the Russian invasion has served to revitalize the alliance, which has added two new members, Finland and Sweden (the latter is about to become one).
