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In Mexico, People Fear One Imperialist Aggressor. In Estonia, It’s a Different One, by Simon Pirani – 26 June 2026

From People and Nature

We can support resistance to Russian imperialism while opposing NATO

Intro: I put this argument at a Green Left Zoom discussion on 23 June about “the Green party and NATO”. I was on a panel along with Paul Ingram, research affiliate at the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk, University of Cambridge; the socialist writer Gilbert Achcar, Emeritus Professor at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London; and Linda Walker of the Green Party’s Peace, Security and Defence Policy Working Group.This is what I said, followed by some notes on issues that came up in discussion. — Simon Pirani.

Thank you for inviting me to speak. I will say some things about NATO, Russia and Ukraine, since I have researched and written about those countries. Before that, a couple of general points to frame what I say.

First, before working out political demands narrowly defined as demands on the state, we need first to talk about the interests of society as a whole, of humanity, as expressed by the labour movement (“labour” with a small “l”) and by social movements and civil society more broadly.

This is central to my understanding of socialism. It helps us to avoid falling in to the trap of defining our aims primarily in terms of policies that could in the short term be adopted by the UK parliament.

Second, when dealing with a specific foreign policy issue such as NATO membership, we need to consider the broader set of relationships between capital and society that form the context for NATO and other military alliances.

To explain what I mean by that. Let’s look at the 21st century’s great war crime, the Israeli genocide in Gaza, and Israel’s illegal expansionist wars in Lebanon and the West Bank.

It could be argued that NATO has little formal involvement. But that would be ridiculous. Israel is recognised, and defined in US law, as a major ally of NATO. Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states also have a wealth of connections with NATO powers.

The largest NATO powers, including the UK, have actively facilitated the genocide.

In the last few weeks, while the UK has been trashing the right of free speech by treating direct action protest against Israel as terrorism, another NATO country, Sweden, has hosted an arms exhibition by Elbit Systems to market its technologies to NATO powers.

All this is reason enough to look forward to NATO being dismantled, just as we look forward to the European rearmament programme being scrapped, to nuclear disarmament, and to the whole notion of “security” being re-defined as a human, not state, concern.

In this framework, what about Russia and Ukraine? Ukraine has since 2014 been subject to invasion and occupation, and since 2022 to all-out war, by Russia, which is not only a non-NATO power but, in geopolitical discourse, is one of NATO’s main enemies.

There have been two very distinct responses to this by “left” political forces in Europe, including the UK.

One response has been to recognise and support Ukrainian resistance, just as socialists have traditionally recognised the right of people, from the Irish Fenians onwards, to resist colonialism.

To convey this point, on the big demonstrations in London about Gaza, a group of us carried a banner that said “From Ukraine to Palestine, occupation is a crime”.

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