The United States became a founding member of the United Nations in 1945 when the Senate overwhelmingly approved the UN Charter. Most members of Congress who approved the UN’s creation, like most of the American people, were sick of war and were fraudulently led to believe that the newly proposed world body would ensure peace.
By 1949, when the North American Treaty Organization (NATO) was being considered, a similar propaganda campaign led Americans to believe that NATO was needed to halt the Soviet Union’s takeover of more European nations. This time, fear of further communist advance westward generated support for a new multi-nation group. Hardly any Americans knew that NATO would owe its existence to the United Nations, which could drag the U.S. and other nations into conflicts where their efforts would be ultimately dictated by the UN itself.
Begun with 12 member nations in 1949 (the United States and Canada plus 10 western European countries), NATO now numbers 30 nations. Almost all of the newer members do not have any connection to the “North Atlantic,” and some are neighbors of Ukraine.
One noteworthy American who had studied NATO’s founding document (the North Atlantic Treaty) was Senator Robert Taft (R-Ohio). In 1945, he had supported U.S. membership in the UN. But by 1947, he apologized for his early positive opinion of the world body and was now claiming that it was a “trap” from which the United States should exit and “go it alone.” Two years later, in 1949, a more careful Taft waged an unsuccessful campaign to keep the United States out of the newly proposed North Atlantic pact.
The NATO Treaty had numerous obvious flaws, especially its openly stated relationship to control by the United Nations. Taft tried to keep our country out of this additional entangling alliance, especially when he read in the NATO founding document that an attack on any NATO member nation would be considered an attack on all members. He correctly saw this provision as a way to draw America into new wars. The Ohio senator also saw membership in NATO providing a path to bypass the U.S. Constitution’s requirement that only approval by Congress can send American forces into war. (The last time the U.S. Congress declared war occurred in 1941 right after the attack at Pearl Harbor. Though World War II, the United States never lost a war; after World War II, the United States has endured one “no-win” war after another.)
Once the new NATO alliance was proposed, its partisans went to work to guarantee U.S. participation. Truman’s Secretary of State Dean Acheson, a rabid internationist, urged the Senate to approve NATO in his March 19, 1949 Senate speech where he bluntly openly that NATO “is designed to fit precisely into the framework of the United Nations” and that all of the pact’s provisions constitute “an essential measure for strengthening the United Nations.” Which is precisely what it was formed to accomplish.
For a revealing aspect of how NATO membership strengthened the UN, turn to the UN Charter’s Articles 52-54. The pertinent articles authorize UN member nations to form “Regional Arrangements” that remain subservient to the Security Council, the UN’s ultimate seat of power. Here is where the long arm of the UN exercises its control over the militray of nations that have joined together in a UN subsidiary. The text of the UN Charter’s Article 54 requires adherence to Security Council control of any action taken by any “Regional Arrangement” such as NATO. The article states: “The Security Council shall at all times be be kept fully informed of activities undertaken or in contemplation under regional arrangements.” (Emphasis added.)
Not only are Regional Arrangements allowed to exist and be controlled by the UN, but any action taken by an organization such as NATO — formed under permission contained in the UN Charter — must tell the UN in advance how it intends to employ its military forces. History confirms that supplying the UN Security Council with what is planned before taking action is essentially suicidal.
In June 1950, armed forces of communist-led North Korea swarmed into anti-Communist South Korea. President Harry Truman immediately sent U.S. troops to support the South Koreans. Asked where he derived power to send American military personnel into battle without a formal declaration of war required by the Constitution, he replied, “We are not at war; this is a police action.” He further insisted that if he could send troops to Europe, which he had done as part of America’s year-old NATO commitment, he could send troops to Korea. The so-callled “police action” in Korea cost the lives of 54,000 Americans and wounded twice that number over the next three years. And the Korean War has never been settled. The 1953 cessation of armed conflict amounted to a truce that can readily be broken should either side decide to restart the shooting.
But there’s more regarding this conflict that has never received the attention it deserves. In 1954, the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee held hearings about how the war in Korea had been conducted. A veritable parade of generals told of treachery from on high that prevented victory. General Mark Clark told of not being “allowed to bomb the numerous bridges across the Yalu over which the enemy poured his killers.” General James Van Fleet told the senators of his conviction “that there must have been information to the enemy from high diplomatic authorities that we would not attack his home bases across the Yalu.”
Other generals expressed similar frustration in knowing that their efforts were being compromised by a sharing of their plans with enemy forces. Years later, in his 1964 book Reminiscences, General Douglas MacArthur told of Communist Chinese General Lin Paio publicly stating his awareness that he had little to fear from the American forces because he knew in advance that they would not be permitted to succeed. Under MacArthur’s early leadership, the North Korean had been defeated and communist control of that portion of Korea had been overcome. But MacArthur was soon relieved of his command by President Truman, a huge number of Chinese communist forces entered the fray from across the Yalu River, the war that has never been ended dragged on to a stalemate over the next two years, and a dangerous truce — not a termination — continues.
Summing up what really happened, the UN employed its NATO creation to assure that communist continued their control of the northern half of the Korean peninsula, tens of thousands of U.S troops continue deployment under NATO-UN ultimate command in the South over the past 70 years, and U.S. leaders favoring a UN-led new world order used their NATO experience to form a duplicate UN-controlled “regional agency” organization known as SEATO (Southeast Asia Treaty Organization) to accomplish communist takeovers and control of several additional Asian nations.
Should the United States withdraw from NATO? Of course! But termination of our nation’s involvement in the United Nations would be an even more important step in restoring U.S. independence. Failure to do so will have the United States involved in additional no-win battles under UN control, maybe even in Ukraine.
