EuropeBoard

Well, by coincedence I slip to little of center left. Not a choice, but an engineer minded person's ideals, I feel like. Center and little bit left -like the Alcrosnia said- but that isn't socialism anymore, most socialists claim social democracy merely socialism, one corrupted due to too many exceptions it gave. I don't see any problem someone being rich. But I see problem someone being rich at the expense of others and enviroment. Also, answering an injustice like socialists, bogging down whole country isn't a thing justified. Just be sure, everyone gets minimal oppurtunities, education, money, food or whatever they need to enough degree, remaining disputes would be about human's primitive, instinctive fights: Things actually context of soap operas, but treated as real problems. So...

Socialists have been since Marx's days divided on just about everything, so we must remember that Socialists can't be treated as as a monolith with a "true Socialism" existing in a universal form that most accept. You have statist branches, anti-statist branches, reformist/parliamentarian branches, revolutionary branches etc etc etc etc. The first International during Marx's life fell apart particularly because the statist and anti-statist branches couldn't get along. So the criticism against the USSR technically existed before the USSR's founding and Leftist unity was since day 1 a challenge for Lenin and later Soviet leaders. Lenin disagreed with Marx on a few things such as Marx's belief that the proletariat would eventually, through technological development and industrial advancement, gain the class consciousness and the revolutionary spirit necessary to overthrow Capitalism. Lenin also famously advocated for the "vanguard party" that would safeguard and lead the way to Communism and then the state would wither away as class conflict was abolished. As Marx described, the proletariat would abolish itself as a class after the bourgeoisie was abolished as a class as a step toward Communism. So according to Lenin's writing, the USSR never reached its end goal which was Communism as Marx and Engels described it. Socialists who don't subscribe to or just disagree with the Marxist-Leninist way of the USSR also do not see the USSR as a proper way to go about Socialism/Communism, often citing a lot of valid points but a well-known one is that the working class going from Capitalist/Feudal authoritarianism to Marxist-Leninist authoritarianism fundamentally goes against some basic principles Marx and Engels stood for. Marx argued that freeing the working class from the chains of the labour market would result in a true democracy where things such as universal suffrage could occur. Marx's criticism of ideologies like Liberalism can mainly boil down to them not being democratic enough, which is also very much the criticism modern Socialists have of modern Liberalism. His critiques included things like how we determined who got voting rights and the repressive nature of early industrial Capitalism, as he did after all live in the 1800s.

One of the main things that stand in favour of the "all-enlightened vanguard party" that Lenin wanted, is that Reactionary and Capitalist forces will not just watch idly by as the bourgeoise's class interests are threatened on a global scale. It is no secret in their anti-Socialist and Lebensraum desires, the Nazis ended up turning their war machine against the USSR, resulting in ww2's probably most atrocious front full of mass deaths and Nazis genociding through villages to clear the way for future Aryan settlement. There's also the United States as well as its allies that would adopt authoritarian tendencies themselves to ensure the USSR could not get any favourable positions and were cracking down on Leftist movements both internally and in other countries to ensure no Leftist felt empowered enough to challenge the global status quo that was forged by European Empires. Cuba is probably the best case for the vanguard party, as, without it, the US would probably have succeeded in turning it into a disenfranchised Caribbean island under US control like Puerto Rico, it's a miracle that US sanctions haven't cracked Cuba tbh. Now, NATO is, according to Socialists, an extension of the Western Empire and its core states whether they liked the USSR or not, however, it's not clear-cut what should happen to NATO. Some Leftists want the total abolishment of NATO while others want to reform Western foreign policy so that NATO goes from an Imperial military force to one that fights for [insert billion different definitions of justice, freedom and equality] globally.

One can't change nor abolish NATO without first addressing "the logic of empire", thank you, Kehinde Andrews, for that term, that the West still operates under. Our goal to endlessly consume and chase endless profits can only be sustained through Western companies owning the resources and land of the exploited/"third" world. Pro-Western and likely authoritarian leadership that is willing to fight for these interests in their countries etc etc etc.. One can't overlook NATO's role in securing this for the Western Empire throughout the later half of the 20th century and the entire current passed time of the 21st century. And where NATO could not secure this position, we had institutions like the IMF and it's sussy loan requirements to draw from.
A modern Socialist analysis would agree that the proletariat of the Imperial core states of North America and Europe are in a much better position materially than before, but that does not apply to much of the world, unfortunately. While the poorest of the Imperial core states of North America and Europe see some negative tendencies regarding lifespan, democratic participation, education and so on, they still fall among some of the highest income earners globally and still have access to things like phones that were produced by a child in Congo mining minerals that some Chinese worker assembled, all while working under conditions no Westerner would find acceptable to make the products affordable. As long as there are many black and brown bodies in poverty that nations willingly offer the West, Capitalism can keep parading its successes around, this is also what Socialists generally mean when they say Western Capitalism is dependent on White Supremacy. Another thing to note is that Liberalism's promise of equality and freedom has historically mostly applied to white cis people. As refugees and economic migrants are escaping the horrible conditions they were born into, they mostly occupy precarious "replacement" roles that allow the white middle class to expand and reap the benefits of "equality". Hence one should laugh when people defend refugees and immigrants by using arguments such as "they work jobs we don't want to work".

Where do Russia and China fall under all this? Tbh the post is already enormous but there's plenty of literature on the topic so plox read. But spoilers, empire is bad even with non-western characteristics.

Anyway, to me, the question is less about NATO itself and more about dismantling what makes NATO act the way it does and hopefully leading to material conditions that render it useless.