Appeal: Support the Protests at the NATO Summit in Den Haag, June 2025 – Please Join Us!

By No to War – No to NATO, March 15, 2025

The next NATO Summit will take place in the context of NATO’s greatest crisis since its foundation in 1949. When leaders meet in The Hague from 24^th to 25^th June, 2025, they will confront the fact that NATO’s major player, the United States of America, is upending the established “world order,” and redefining the identities of “enemies” and “allies,” in order to pursue its own global strategic agenda.

Trump’s foreign policy agenda – the isolation and defeat of China – is nothing new, but his determination to end NATO’s proxy war with Ukraine, to detach Russia from alliance with China, has thrown most European leaders into turmoil. The past few years have seen vast western spending funnelled into Ukraine’s war effort, with the goal of inflicting military defeat on Russia and welcoming Ukraine into NATO membership. Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians and Russians have died as a result, the slaughter funded by resources stripped from the welfare of citizens of NATO countries, plunging millions into poverty and ever greater austerity. The risk of nuclear war has accelerated, with the chief beneficiaries being arms traders, the merchants of death.

The crisis in NATO’s European heartlands has not prevented NATO’s continuing and expanding global role, its military operations, its increasing presence on every continent, its deadly carbon boot print, and its growing list of partners and alliances – shaped to support NATO complicity in the US’s anti-China agenda, in its quest to maintain global domination.

The conflict within NATO is accelerating European militarisation, which has dramatically expanded with the Ukraine war. Fearing US withdrawal from Europe, some European leaders plan massively increased military budgets, not just to comply with Trump’s demands but to build a European military alternative to dependence on the US. A massive arms race is now underway, that escalates the crisis and likelihood of war, and impoverishes the people. Militarisation of Europe is not new but the scale of the militarization and military spending is, apart from the two world wars, historically unique. It is the preparation of a war against Russia and other “strategic rivals.”

1. The No to War – No to NATO Network rejects the agenda for of western military dominance and coercion, which is driving the world to catastrophe. The spiral of war and military spending has to stop. We call for disarmament and a ban on nuclear weapons.
2. It’s time for a new global order based on international law, peace, justice and equality, and founded on common security, not ‘might makes right’.
3. We need international cooperation and determination to urgently address the real security problems that this world faces – climate catastrophe, poverty, health crises, the urgent need for sustainable food, water and energy supplies.

In the context of the NATO summit, we want to emphasize the need for an inclusive security architecture that puts the importance of diplomacy, disarmament, social justice and environmental sustainability at the forefront to achieve peace and security.

We give our full support and solidarity to the movement in The Netherlands, as it organises a counter-summit, planned for Saturday 21^st June, and a demonstration on Sunday 22^nd June. The No to war – No to NATO Network will be an active part of the international events against the NATO summit. We will mobilise to support these events and urge all peace-loving peoples to join us, to rise to the challenge of building a better world, without the NATO war-machine and its structures of oppression.