In a recent video clip, Ugandan President, Yoweri Museveni, narrated a worrisome and instructive episode thus: During the crisis in Libya, African Union (AU) gave a committee of six African presidents a mandate to look for a solution for the Libyan problems. On one occasion, five African presidents and a representative of the sixth took a flight from Nouakchott, Mauritania and headed to Tripoli, Libya to further the negotiations. Midway in the flight, NATO operatives intercepted the flight on radio and ordered the committee to go back. Given the power of NATO vis-a-vis its antecedents, that was an order with a potent threat of dire consequences including a possible midair “accident”. Cowed, the flight returned to Nouakchott and no further visible efforts were made in that regard, I would say that was obviously an act of terrorism. Subsequently, Libyan president, Muammar Gaddafi, was humiliated and assassinated thereby bringing an end to his patriotic and Pan-Africanist dream of a united and economically strong African continent
Today, Libya is devastated and Gaddafi’s dream of an African continental monetary system is dead to the relief of IMF. Meanwhile, Gaddafi was a God-fearing and highly patriotic  pan-African leader whose government had one of the most people-friendly public policies and who dreamed of emancipating the African continent from domination by the West. Gaddafi will go down in history as a Libyan revolutionary, politician and political theorist who ruled Libya with love from 1969 until 2011, when he was assassinated by US sponsored rebel forces.  With one US President after another reneging on the US promise not to extend the frontiers of NATO eastwards and NATO having systematically inched to the backyard of Russia and waging what is obviously a US proxy war with Russia, it has become crystal clear to objective observers of global affairs that NATO is nothing other than an instrument of US expansionism. A cursory view of the origins of the war in Ukraine shows that the US and its NATO allies played a crucial role in the events that precipitated the war.
With NATO allies struggling to outdo each other in providing the Ukraine forces with military materiel, it has become obvious to the world that Russia is, in actuality, waging war with NATO, not Ukraine.  In 2022, Fareed Zakaria averred on CNN that the West is collectively waging economic war on Russia on a scale that is hitherto unimaginable. While it would be hyperbolic to say that there is Third World War, the point remains that, by arming Ukraine to the teeth, the West, aligned under the umbrella of NATO, is collectively fighting Russia albeit by proxy. These accounts and the current evil convergence on West Africa informed the new interpretation of the acronym NATO as Nations Aligned to Terrorise Others.    Under the shield of Ukraine, NATO has embarked on acts that pose existential threats to Russia; acts that are reminiscent of the Cuban crises of the early 60s, which President Kennedy of the US swiftly reacted to and, in response to which, President Nikita Khrushchev of the defunct USSR ordered immediate withdrawal; acts that Putin and his colleagues repeatedly protested about for many years and the US with its NATO allies in tow persisted.
The US has insisted on systematically expanding the territorial reach of NATO to the doorsteps of Russia and this has climaxed in definite moves to bring Ukraine into the fold of NATO, thereby making Ukraine a western bulwark smack in the skin of Russia.  Meanwhile, the US has overtly decried interventionism and territorial expansionism in the name of global peace.  In his seventh State of the Union Address to the US Congress on December 2,  1823, James Monroe (1758-1831),  the 5th President of the US, enunciated what became known as the Monroe Doctrine. It holds that any intervention in the political affairs of the Americas by foreign powers is a potential hostile act against the US. At the time, nearly all Spanish colonies in the Americas had either achieved or were close to independence. Monroe asserted that the New World and the Old World were to remain distinctly separate spheres of influence and thus further efforts by European powers to control or influence sovereign states in the Western Hemisphere would be viewed as a threat to US security.
The doctrine furthered that the US would in turn recognise and not interfere with existing European colonies nor meddle in the internal affairs of European countries. Ever since, the US has always taken a particular interest in its closest neighbours— the nations of the Western Hemisphere. What manner of interest a curious mind asks. Throughout US history, Washington DC has overthrown the government of many countries whose leadership did not find favour with the US. The reality is that while  US proclaims itself as the Global Defender of Democracy, the fact remains that the US has toppled many democratically elected presidents across the world over the years. A case in point is that of Chile. In 1973, a populist and highly patriotic candidate named Salvador Allende won the election by a clear margin but US President Nixon did not like Allende for the reason Allende fought for his poor and the working people of Chile. Allende believed that the people of Chile should benefit from the copper mines but Nixon preferred a situation where US corporations controlled the mines.
Nixon was fixated and vigorously fought for the domination of developing countries so corporate US will control the resources. Allende was overthrown and killed and, in his place, a dictator by name General Pinochet was installed and corporate America had a free hand in Chile.  The above philosophical stance and behaviour in the international arena were symptomatic of Britain, France and other colonial masters in the 19th Century. The tragedy is that the philosophy and behaviour have not changed till date. Today, that philosophy finds expression in the actions of NATO.  Today, the US, France, Britain and their allies in NATO on one hand and Russia and China on the other hand, are spoiling for confrontation in Africa for the simple reason of the control of the mineral resources of the continent. It would not come as a surprise if the Third World War is fought on the soil of the Third World. In view of these, can anyone rightly fault the reference to NATO as Nations Aligned to Terrorise Others?

By: Jason Osai
Osai is a Professor of Development Studies, Rivers State University, Port Harcourt.