The NATO-Imperialist-Zionist Nexus: Settler Colonialism and the Global War Economy

NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, has long been a crucial instrument of U.S. imperialism, serving as a military and ideological extension of Western dominance across the globe. From its establishment during the Cold War as a bulwark against the Soviet Union to its ongoing operations today, NATO has consistently played a central role in the projection of US imperialist power globally. An often-overlooked function of NATO was its role in buttressing European colonial power at a time it was being upended by national liberation struggles. Despite claims to ‘security’, NATO’s role has always been to uphold the imperialist-capitalist system based on unequal exchange, polarized accumulation and the suppression of anti-systemic resistance.This is done by supplementing memberstate violence during moments of colonial- capitalist-imperialist crisis. 

As Djibo Sobukwe explains, the African continent figured as an important NATO sphere of operations throughout the 1950s, during the peak of colonial counterinsurgency efforts.^[i] Portugal—one of NATO’s founding members—relied on NATO support to sustain its violent colonial rule in Angola, Mozambique, and Guinea-Bissau. Much of Northern Africa was transformed into a strategic zone aimed at the Soviet Union; hosting air and naval bases, rocket sites, and even an atomic testing range. Military conferences were held in African cities, with participation from settler-colonial regimes like Rhodesia and apartheid South Africa—further embedding Africa into the machinery of global capitalism and militarism, to its own detriment. On this, Guyanese revolutionary scholar Walter Rodney noted, “Time and time again, the evidence points to this cynical use of Africa to buttress capitalism economically and militarily, and therefore in effect forcing Africa to contribute to its own exploitation”. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, NATO expanded further under U.S. leadership, solidifying its role as a key arm of the imperialist military-industrial complex.

NATO’s historic role in defending European colonial domination over the Global South is reprised today through its support for the zionist settler-colonial project and ongoing genocide—ensuring the continuation of US-led dominance in the region. NATO’s backing of the zionist entity extends far beyond military aid or strategic cooperation; it is rooted in the same imperialist logics and asymmetric material relations forged during the colonial era and perpetuated through the neoliberal period and post–Cold War assault on Global South national liberation. Today, this support takes both overt and covert forms: direct military collaboration, the militarization of the Mediterranean, facilitating regional normalization and balkanization, joint security exercises, and border externalization—all mechanisms through which security dependency is reproduced and Global Majority states are maintained in a structurally subordinate position within the world system.^[ii] This support is not merely a product of the Israeli lobby or ideological alignment, but stems from Israel’s structural role within global imperialism. Israel has long served as a key enforcer of global counter-revolution and imperialist repression, acting as an extension of Western power in regions where direct US involvement was limited—arming and training fascist forces from Latin America to Africa and the Arab world to crush revolutionary movements and reinforce neocolonial rule. As Max Ajl writes, Israel is an ‘organic component of the worldwide capitalist offensive, neo-colonial counter-revolution, and colonial rearguard.’^[iii] Examining NATO’s role in this broader context reveals that the struggle against genocide and in solidarity with Palestinian liberation cannot be separated from the global fight against imperialism.

Genocide, Borders and Militarized Accumulation

An appendage of US imperialism, the zionist entity’s military strength is intricately linked to the US dominated NATO alliance. NATO’s backing of Israel is both direct and indirect, including military aid and technological collaboration. Israel’s designation as a Major Non-NATO Ally has long functioned as a gateway for the US to fortify the Israeli settler-colonial project as a regional enforcement arm of capitalist-imperialism. While not a NATO member, Israel receives immense benefits through this status, including priority arms transfers, security cooperation, and congressional waivers, all under the rubric of preserving its ‘Qualitative Military Edge (QME)’.^[iv] This legal-institutional arrangement allows for the bolstering of zionist military power through ‘constant force regeneration’, enabling the continuous replenishment of weaponry and operational readiness to sustain prolonged, high-intensity colonial warfare. In this context, the ongoing war on Gaza is not only a genocidal assault on the Palestinian people and their just national liberation struggle but also a lucrative opportunity for imperialist core accumulation. In 2023, global military spending soared to $2.4 trillion, the sharpest increase since 2009,^[v]with U.S. military contractors reporting record profits. 

This militarized flow of capital intensified with the Biden administration’s August 2024 announcement of $20.3 billion in new arms deals to Israel—including 50 F-15 fighter jets, 50,000 mortar rounds, tank ammunition, and tactical vehicles.^[vi] U.S. arms sales surged to $318.7 billion in 2024, marking a 29% increase from the previous year,^[vii] while the S&P 500 delivered a 26.29% return^[viii]—together illustrating what Charisse Burden-Stelly calls ‘Wall Street Imperialism.’^[ix] Massive arms packages—including over $15 billion in munitions—have flowed to Israel to sustain its military campaigns, feeding a transnational war economy built on Palestinian death and dispossession.

The U.S. is also building military infrastructure in Israel to accommodate KC-46A Pegasus refueling tankers, part of a $1 billion Boeing contract aimed at expanding Israel’s strike capabilities against Iran. US weapons giants—Lockheed Martin, RTX (Raytheon), Boeing, and Northrop Grumman—have seen soaring profits, with Lockheed Martin alone generating $66 billion in 2023 and securing a $3 billion deal to supply Israel with a third squadron of F-35 fighter jets.^[x] Israel is in fact, the first country in the world to use the F-35 in combat, demonstrating the settler colonial state’s important function as the ‘laboratory’ for the western-dominated military-industrial-complex, using Palestine as a testing ground for weaponry and surveillance technology that they then export globally (e.g. Pegasus software – developed by the zionists and tested on Palestinians – is being used by the reactionary monarchy in Morocco to suppress Western Sahara’s struggle for liberation).^[xi] 

NATO’s militarization of the Mediterranean plays a central role in reinforcing zionist power and undermining Palestinian resistance, operating both directly and indirectly to secure regional imperial interests. Through its naval dominance, NATO keeps the Mediterranean open for the uninterrupted flow of US-supplied weapons to the IOF, while simultaneously restricting the movement of material support to the Palestinian resistance. The Mediterranean has long been a critical theater for NATO operations, serving as a key corridor for global trade and energy transit. Within this framework, NATO’s Mediterranean Dialogue (MD)—a strategic initiative aimed at cultivating collaboration and deepening security dependency among non-member states—has become a crucial mechanism for deepening the integration of the settler-colonial state within the US-dominated imperial security order. The MD involves joint exercises, intelligence sharing, and technological exchanges between regional states and NATO. While publicly framed as a partnership for ‘regional stability,’ the MD is designed to foster institutional military cooperation between Israel and participating states, including Egypt, Jordan, and Morocco, as well as others like Tunisia and Algeria that have not formally normalized relations with the zionist entity.^[xii] 

In addition to its role as a stealth mechanism for normalization through military exercises and training programs, the NATO-US-EU triumvirate operates through Frontex - the European Border and Coast Guard Agency - to further zionist imbrication within the US dominated military/security-industrial-complex. Through its Horizon Europe program, Frontex aims to develop various technological instruments, including remotely piloted platforms, biometric data-gathering equipment, and three-dimensional face- and iris-scanning tools. Crucially, this program serves as another vector for normalising relations with the settler colonial state of Israel under the guise of technological innovation with multi-million euro contracts awarded to Israeli companies such as Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) and Elbit Systems Ltd for providing and operating unmanned drones to monitor and intercept refugees and migrants attempting to cross the Mediterranean.^[xiii] This technology is used to enable Frontex ‘to carry out reconnaissance in the “pre-frontier” area off Tunisia, Libya and Egypt’ with the agency helping to market Israeli drone technology.^[xiv]These technologies are deployed in Israel's ongoing genocide against the Palestinian people, and NATO countries are among Israel’s largest customers. In this way, NATO’s military and technological partnership with Israel plays a central role in sustaining Israel's settler-colonial rule and reinforces its role in the global arms trade.

The NATO-zionist relationship not only enhances the settler colonial regime’s capacity to wage war on Palestine and the broader region, but also strengthens NATO’s dominance in the Mediterranean, where it uses ‘security cooperation’ to suppress anti-imperialist solidarity and stifle popular movements. Through this symbiotic relationship, NATO states not only provide military aid to Israel but also benefit from Israel's technological innovations. This collaboration represents a mutually reinforcing cycle of zionist-imperialist technological development and militarized accumulation.

Abolish NATO: Imperialism, Genocide, and Anti-Imperialist Resistance

The zionist entity’s integration into NATO must be understood within the broader framework of the US–NATO imperialist strategy in West Asia. NATO has played a central role in enabling the ongoing genocide in Gaza, ensuring that the zionist entity’s military operations are sustained, legitimized, and shielded under the rhetoric of regional ‘stability’ and ‘security.’ In doing so, it reinforces Israel’s function as a key proxy force in the region—safeguarding core capitalist accumulation by facilitating US dominance over energy resources and the capital flows generated from their sale, securing control over global shipping routes, and suppressing wages and consumption through imperialist war, a process that Ali Kadri refers to as ‘accumulation by waste’.^[xv]

This alliance also works to undermine Palestinian and regional anti-imperialist resistance—particularly by targeting Iran and Yemen—and to block movements toward economic and military realignment in this moment of emerging multipolarity. The NATO-zionist alliance is not an aberration but rather a continuation of the long-standing legacy of colonial and imperial domination, extending the very structures that thinkers like Walter Rodney so incisively critiqued. In this context, calls to end the genocide in Gaza must also include a demand to dismantle the imperial infrastructures—like NATO—that enable and depend on such genocidal violence to stabilize accumulation at the capitalist core. ‘Abolish NATO!’ must therefore be a central rallying cry in any movement committed to the liberation of the Palestinian people and of all oppressed peoples.

Corinna Mullin is an anti-imperialist academic who teaches at the City University of New York (CUNY). She is an organizer with CUNY for Palestine and Labor for Palestine, and a member of the Anti-Imperialist Scholars Collective. Mullin also serves on the faculty of the People's Academy, is an Associate Editor for Middle East Critique, and sits on the Editorial Board of Science & Society.

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