General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsIn an emergency, would NATO stage a False Flag operation to get involved?
Say if Russia uses massive chemical weapons or nukes or starts uncontrolled genocide.
Effete Snob
(8,387 posts)And 30 different governments will all keep that secret.
GP6971
(33,410 posts)Ocelot II
(121,502 posts)How would all members agree to such a thing anyhow?
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)Make7
(8,546 posts)Takket
(22,664 posts)David__77
(23,879 posts)I have no idea about what emergency might be associated with that.
Im glad that Biden has said no to military engagement.
The Magistrate
(96,043 posts)Celerity
(46,866 posts)Operation Gladio is the codename for clandestine "stay-behind" operations of armed resistance that were organized by the Western Union (WU), and subsequently by NATO and the CIA, in collaboration with several European intelligence agencies. The operation was designed for a potential Warsaw Pact invasion and conquest of Europe. Although Gladio specifically refers to the Italian branch of the NATO stay-behind organizations, "Operation Gladio" is used as an informal name for all of them. Stay-behind operations were prepared in many NATO member countries, and some neutral countries.
During the Cold War, some anti-communist armed groups engaged in the harassment of left-wing parties, torture, terrorist attacks, and massacres in countries such as Italy. The role of the CIA and other intelligence organisations in Gladiothe extent of its activities during the Cold War era and any responsibility for terrorist attacks perpetrated in Italy during the "Years of Lead" (late 1960searly 1980s)are the subject of debate. Researcher Francesco Cacciatore, in an article based on recently de-classified documents, writes that a "note from March 1972 specified that the possibility of using 'Gladio' in the event of internal subversions, not provided for by the organization's statute and not supported by NATO directives or plans, was outside the scope of the original stay-behind and, therefore, 'never to be considered among the purposes of the operation'. The pressure put forward by the Americans during the 1960s to use 'Gladio' for purposes other than those of a stay-behind network would appear to have failed in the long term."
In 1990, the European Parliament adopted a resolution alleging that military secret services in certain member states were involved in serious terrorism and crime, whether or not their superiors were aware. The resolution also urged investigations by the judiciaries of the countries in which those armies operated, so that their modus operandi and actual extension would be revealed. To date, only Italy, Switzerland and Belgium have had parliamentary inquiries into the matter.
The three inquiries reached differing conclusions as regarded different countries. Guido Salvini, a judge who worked in the Italian Massacres Commission, concluded that some right-wing terrorist organizations of the Years of Lead: La Fenice, National Vanguard and Ordine Nuovo were the trench troops of a secret army, remotely controlled by exponents of the Italian state apparatus and linked to the CIA. Salvini said that the CIA encouraged them to commit atrocities. The Swiss inquiry found that British intelligence secretly cooperated with their army in an operation named P-26 and provided training in combat, communications, and sabotage. It also discovered that P-26 not only would organize resistance in case of a Soviet invasion, but would also become active should the left succeed in achieving a parliamentary majority. The Belgian inquiry could find no conclusive information on their army. No links between them and terrorist attacks were found, and the inquiry noted that the Belgian secret services refused to provide the identity of agents, which could have eliminated all doubts. A 2000 Italian parliamentary report from the left wing coalition Gruppo Democratici di Sinistra l'Ulivo reported that terrorist massacres and bombings had been organised or promoted or supported by men inside Italian state institutions who were linked to American intelligence. The report also said the United States was guilty of promoting the strategy of tension. Operation Gladio is also suspected to have been activated to counter existing left-wing parliamentary majorities in Europe.
snip
videos
Insane Declassified CIA Operation "Gladio"
The Magistrate
(96,043 posts)It does not seem to have much relevance to the present situation in Ukraine. The O.P. is incoherent, asking if NATO would contrive a 'false flag' operation for pretext to respond with military force if Russia used chemical or nuclear weapons. Such action by Russia would provide sufficient cause itself, there would be no need of pretext. A 'false flag' would be a contrived pretext, and involve some actual attack by NATO forces on Ukrainian soldiery or civilians. That runs awfully close to run of the mill Russian propaganda lines, which we have already seen trotted out in the matter of massacres in liberated territory. It also implies some active desire on the part of NATO powers to take military action against Russia, which does not seem in evidence, though there is certainly some popular enthusiasm, present and growing, for such action in this country. You would be better positioned to speak to European attitudes on the question than I.
I have no particular quarrel with the origin of the Gladio business. Some advance organization of partisan bodies to be activated in event of successful invasion is pretty standard stuff. That it outlived any legitimacy is undisputed, and that it became an instrument of rightist terror is certain.
rpannier
(24,598 posts)Bulgaria and Hungary to say nothing
Esp with Hungary, that's not going to happen