Provocations, interventions launched without UN approval

The United States brought together 12 countries to form the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1949 in the name of "collective defense" against the "threat posed by the Soviet Union".

More than 30 years after the end of the Cold War, and the disintegration of the Soviet Union, NATO still remains and continues to expand.

On paper, the treaty's first article says the member states would settle international disputes through "peaceful means" and refrain from the "use of force in any manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations".

In reality, the organization has launched armed provocations and military interventions without UN approval around the world, causing huge casualties and humanitarian disasters, particularly in Afghanistan and Iraq.

In the seven decades of its existence, NATO has been broadening the concept of defense, just as its first Supreme Allied Commander Europe Dwight D.Eisenhower once said: "We do not keep security establishments merely to defend property or territory or rights abroad or at sea. We keep security forces to defend a way of life."

What Eisenhower left unsaid is at what cost, and at whose cost NATO is willing to sacrifice to defend their way of life.

The following is a list of casualties inflicted by NATO and its members in the past three decades.

・ Federal Republic of Yugoslavia:

In 1999, NATO dropped nearly 420,000 bombs, including 15 tons of depleted uranium bombs, killing more than 2,500 people and displacing more than 1 million.

・ Afghanistan:

From 2001 to 2021, 176,206 people, including 47,245 Afghan civilians, were killed in the US-led war, and more than 10 million were displaced.

・ Iraq:

Nearly 300,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed in the US-led invasion in 2003.

・ Libya:

NATO airstrikes in 2011 resulted in 223 to 403 likely civilian deaths. As a result of continued fighting, more than 135,000 people have been internally displaced by the end of 2022.

Sources: Costs of War Project, Council on Foreign Relations, etc.