(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
By John E. Andersson
ORIENTATION 50 years ago
The American researcher Michael T. Klare demonstrates in his book War Without End (1942) that 5532 Norwegians were trained under the US military aid program in the period 1950–1969.
- The book is now available in Norwegian with a foreword by you. What does this tell us about Norway's integration into NATO, Professor Johan Galtung?
- The number in itself does not say much. But when you see that it is roughly the same number that came from the whole of Africa, that Spain only had slightly more, that France and Italy, which are very much larger countries than Norway, only had two or three times more, then I assume pretty big dimensions.
Now you can say that these Norwegians were trained in things that have to do with East/West, high-intensity forms of warfare that we associate with Vietnam and oppression within countries.
What I'm afraid of is all the other influences they've been exposed to: the extent to which they now think American. It is not the specific training in military engineering so much as the connections and paths of thought they have entered that worries me. 5500 people is a large number.
- Is this a kind of ideological integration?
- Exactly. That they see the world in the same way that the Americans see it, but perhaps more indirectly than directly. We know from the military coup in Chile that the champagne bottles were opened in the training camps in the United States where there were Chilean officers when the news came. And if you connect that with what Reidar Larsen could tell in Kveldsforum: That there was applause among Norwegian officers in a Norwegian barracks when the same news came, then you see a pattern.
NATO
- Does NATO also aim its activities at the population of the member countries?
- Here one should distinguish between what is due to NATO and what is nationally military. This is by no means a sharp distinction. The Greek coup in April 1967 must be explained as fundamentally a national-military coup, but with NATO's approval. If NATO had not existed, it would not have taken place. It does not follow from this that it was on NATO's orders.
They are operating here with a scenario that will lead to 20 million Europeans being killed.
- As the conflict between the USA and the EC escalates, a kind of new version of NATO, the so-called Euro-NATO, seems to be emerging. What do we really know about Euro-NATO?
- Until now, we know very little. But there is a very well-documented article written by the German researcher Ulrich Albrecht (Levithan February 1944). It shows very clearly that the integration of the armaments industry is the part of the economic sector that is being coordinated the fastest in the EC area. It can also show the highest growth. Norway plays a relatively modest role here, even though both the weapons factories at Kongsberg and Raufoss are mentioned in Albrecht's lists.
7000 nuclear charges
- We must now demand that the Norwegian authorities give a proper account of what is actually going on within Euro-NATO. In the referendum on the EC, the people said no to economic and political integration in the Common Market. Now we should find out what is happening in the military area.
- What kind of constellation is this about? And in which direction does it go?
- Personally, I think it will move in the direction of a superpower, which I also express in my book about the European Union. But it depends on a number of factors. One of the factors is precisely the ever-increasing conflict between the USA and the EC countries. These days it moves quickly. This will lead to a reduction in American forces. There, a new picture has now come in: They are not only talking about the famous 320 American soldiers stationed in Europe, but also about the supposedly 000 nuclear charges. Former undersecretaries in the Pentagon have given testimony to Congress that they perceive the strategy that is being laid out there to be almost suicidal for Europe. They are operating here with a scenario that will lead to 7000 million Europeans killed, and another scenario that will lead to 20 million killed, in the event that the war also affects cities.
- We are in a situation where the demands for American withdrawal are getting stronger, but where this will at the same time strengthen the forces in Western Europe who want to set up their own European policy. In other words, you drive the devil out with Beelzebub.
- Some analysts of the American economic warfare have demonstrated that it was the United States that started it. And it happened quite deliberately. With economic warfare, I don't think so much of export bans in connection with certain strategic goods. I am primarily thinking of running a military race that is so capital-intensive that if you want to be part of it, you have to invest a certain amount. And this size will be a larger part of the economic product of the Soviet and the other Eastern European countries than it will be of the American, or the Western European. The countries in the East therefore lose more than us by being part of this race. This has played an important role.
- But what about the direct economic boycott of strategic and other goods?
- In my opinion, this has rather worked in the opposite direction. One concrete example: Just after the war, the Americans refused to give penicillin to Poland in a situation of disease. It was a decision dictated by political motives ('No help to communists'). As far as I have understood the Poles, there are few things that have seemed so cohesive and stimulated my own research. You were both exposed to what kind of country the USA really was with its so-called humane traditions, and you got out of some of the addiction by discovering that you could manage yourself to a greater extent.
- What about the relationship with the poor countries?
- There is one aspect of the relationship with the poor countries that these countries themselves attach relatively great importance to. The arms race has seized such a large part of the productive apparatus, and this military apparatus has to a large extent been raw material-intensive, after all we know quite a bit about how a jet engine is composed and how much it requires of raw materials that the US and the Western powers do not command themselves , then this in itself has contributed to freezing the economic structure we have. The form of military apparatus that has been in place has to a great extent fitted in with the classic trade theory: Raw materials from developing countries and some finished goods back.
The form of military apparatus that has been in place has, to the greatest extent, fitted in with the classical theory of trade.
If e.g. Had NATO, and then we also have to say the Soviet Union, built on people's armies of China's type, and on shelters, and to a lesser extent on things that require a lot of capital and research, this would not have been the case. But as the apparatus has been, it was set in motion by the United States according to American research experts, it has helped to force the Eastern Bloc to its knees economically and has frozen the trade structure with the poor countries.
In a certain sense, the colossal rearmaments have been what the capitalist-imperialist system most wanted: the developing countries have retained their structure while the Eastern Bloc has been pushed into a situation where they are willing to receive capitalist investments.
The only country that pulled out of this in time was China.
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