Ex-Foreign Minister EXPOSES NATO's Dirty Tricks | Evarist Bartolo

## Introduction: power, monsters, and the politics of smallness The exchange recorded at the Kyoto Symposium reframes the present geopolitical malaise not as a novel eruption of danger but as the long-known logic of empire finally reappearing on the Western conscience. The main thread running through the conversation is clear: the architecture of transatlantic power — NATO backed by subordinated European institutions — has normalized a set of practices that impoverish the autonomy of smaller states and flatten the political imagination of the continent. Drawing on Malta’s late but decisive break with its colonial function, the discussion argues that sovereignty, neutrality and skilful diplomacy remain viable counterweights to militarized dependency, and that European leadership has, for decades, chosen the tools of coercion over the craft of negotiation. ## Malta’s road to sovereignty Malta’s trajectory from a colonial strategic outpost to an independent, neutral state offers a compact case study in the politics of emancipation. The conversation traces how, for two centuries, Maltese society was organized to serve foreign military needs — runways, docks and fortresses took precedent over factories, hotels and civic infrastructure. The point is not merely historical nostalgia; it is an argument about structural allocation of resources under empire. Malta’s post-1964 experience shows that shedding the role of imperial base, combined with an explicit policy of neutrality and the removal of foreign military installations, enabled a humanitarian and economic transformation: better health, education and income outcomes that are measurable in global development indices. Sovereignty, in this telling, was necessary but insufficient; only when sovereignty was paired with the closure of external military footprints did the island shift toward a people-centered polity. ## The politics of bargaining: leadership, solidarity and “weapons of the weak” If small states can regain meaningful autonomy, the conversation insists, it is less because of abstract principles and more because of political craftsmanship. The narrative of Dom Mintoff’s Malta is foregrounded as an archetype of strategic bargaining: building alliances with dockyard workers, crafting credible alternatives (including cultivating ties with other states), and leveraging the asymmetries of attention that great powers fear. Two practical lessons follow. First, domestic social coalitions matter: securing the buy-in of those whose livelihoods depend on military presence is a precondition for durable withdrawal. Second, visible alternatives — whether trade, tourism or technical cooperation with non-traditional partners — change the bargaining position of small states. Mintoff’s mix of populist mobilization and pragmatic outreach, including the use of diplomatic signaling to exploit intelligence scrutiny, is presented as a model of how “weapons of the weak” can be wielded without simply capitulating or mimicking great-power patterns. ## NATO bases and nuclear risk One striking thread in the discussion is the raw materiality of strategic basing: beyond sovereignty as a principle, bases are a vector of existential risk. Declassified memory and contemporary anecdotes converge to show how small states paid a discrete price — not only in economic dependency but in literal vulnerability to nuclear catastrophe. The recollection of secret reports and near-accidents reveals a chilling calculus: islands and small littoral states can be reduced to expendable nodes in a larger deterrence architecture. That calculus has ethical and political consequences. Ethically, it exposes the consent gap between local populations and the military imperatives imposed upon them. Politically, it demonstrates how basing rights and nuclear posture are enforced through a combination of stealth, bureaucratic fiat and the asymmetric distribution of consequences. The argument here is blunt: removing bases and asserting neutrality is not merely symbolic; it is a life-and-death public policy with measurable benefits for civic resilience. ## Europe’s leadership and lost alternatives A sustained critique emerges of European political elites for the abdication of diplomatic imagination. The conversation distinguishes between two competing postwar templates: a NATO-dominant security order with a subordinated European project, and an alternative centered on cooperative security institutions such as the OSCE. Declassified documents and hindsight are marshalled to suggest the deliberate privileging of the transatlantic alliance over regional mechanisms of trust-building. The consequence, the exchange suggests, is not only a militarization of foreign policy but a narrowing of possibilities: avenues that might have neutralized crises through sustained negotiation—arrangements of collective security or economic entanglement with non-Western partners—were not pursued. Individuals like Enrico Mattei and Aldo Moro are summoned as emblematic of a different European imagination: one that sought equitable resource deals and Mediterranean rapprochement. Their fates, and the political shrinkage that followed, are read as cautionary tales about the costs of failing to institutionalize diplomatic options that reduce the salience of hard force. ## Q&A: Europe, NATO and diplomacy The audience exchange amplifies tensions within contemporary policy circles: can diplomacy ever reassert itself in periods when “pit bulls” prefer kinetic measures? The conversation pushes back on the prevailing orthodoxy that treats negotiation as weakness. Drawing on the speaker’s personal practice as a foreign minister, the record highlights concrete acts of outreach — answering a counterpart’s letter, invoking cooperative-security charters — that were politically costly but intellectually coherent. Those gestures, the discussion implies, were not naïve concessions but deliberate attempts to operationalize conflict-avoidance frameworks that exist in formal texts yet are habitually ignored. The practical lesson is twofold: first, the mechanisms for cooperative security exist and have normative weight; second, their efficacy depends on political leaders willing to withstand domestic and allied pressure in order to cultivate them. The failure to do so is not a technical omission but a political choice, one that keeps the continent tethered to a security paradigm dominated by external actors. ## Europe, media and political influence Beyond institutions, the conversation turns to the softer institutions of influence: media narratives and public opinion. European deference to transatlantic scripts is not only a function of statecraft but also of how stories get told. The exchange points to a continental media and political culture that often reduces foreign policy to binaries — friends and enemies, liberty and danger — thereby narrowing the field of public debate. This narrowing facilitates quick alignment with allied military strategies while marginalizing alternatives that emphasize negotiation and regional autonomy. The result is a feedback loop: political elites take policy cues from media framings, media draw from elite consensus, and citizens are rarely exposed to the full spectrum of strategic choices. The proposed remedy is not censorship but pluralization of debate: reinserting historical perspective, revealing hidden costs of basing and blockade, and highlighting successful neutrality experiments as real-world policy alternatives. ## Capital, sovereignty and small states The final synthesis ties sovereignty to economic agency. The conversation emphasizes that political neutrality and the removal of foreign bases can unlock economic sovereignty: the ability to cultivate trade, financial services and local industrial capacity rather than depend on military rents. This is not a romanticization of insularity; rather, it is an argument about how control over public poli

Ex-Foreign Minister EXPOSES NATO's Dirty Tricks | Evarist Bartolo Former Maltese foreign minister Evarist Bartolo explains from experience how the US manages its extended empire and how even fellow EU members work as enforcers of the transatlantic (dis)order. Kyoto University Symposium 2026: "Geopolitics in the Time of Monsters" Keynote 1: Evarist Bartolo Evarist examines how small states can defend their sovereignty in an increasingly militarized world. Drawing on Malta’s experience of independence, neutrality and the removal of foreign bases, he argues that diplomacy offers alternatives to dependence on powerful allies. He also critiques Europe’ s leadership and foreign policy. The audience discussion explores NATO, nuclear risks, relations with Africa, economic power, corruption and the practical limits of independence. Recorded at the Kyoto Symposium 2026, with questions and answers. Evarist’s Links: Official website: https://evaristbartolo. mt/bio/political-career/ Kyoto Symposium programme: https://neutralitystudies.com/events/kyoto- symposium-2026 Neutrality Studies Links: Neutrality Studies Substack: https://pascallottaz.substack. com Support Neutrality Studies: https://neutralitystudies.com/donate Neutrality Studies shop: https://neutralitystudies.com/shop Time Stamps 00:00 Introduction: power and the “time of monsters” 02:13 Malta’s road to sovereignty 08:20 Support Neutrality Studies 10:22 NATO bases and nuclear risk 18:04 Europe’s leadership and lost alternatives 29:49 Q&A: Europe, NATO and diplomacy 40:05 Europe, media and political influence 56:46 Capital, sovereignty and small states #Pascal Thank you. #Evarist Bartolo It's nice to be here and meet in person people who I follow in my insomniac nights. I'm really glad to be here. Geopolitics in the time of monsters. Has there ever been any time without monsters? Is it now that the West is getting a taste—the power elite of the West are getting a taste of their own medicine—that they've discovered monsters? Because I think for many centuries the monsters have been there, but it depends who was feeling the pain. At Davos, Mark Carney discovered monsters and said, "It's more than a rupture." I quote, he said, "Oh, it's terrible now. There are double standards. The rule of law is finished. There are sanctions." I can't understand how he did not mention that, in the last—between 1971 and 2001—38 million people were killed because of the sanctions that were imposed on them by the US and the EU. If we were to take just from 1945 up to today, to see the amount of political assassinations, coups d'état that have been carried out against those countries and those leaders who tried to make a point of, "Let's kill the monsters that have been devouring us for so many years." And I think that the biggest -- 1 of 20 -- clash that we have now is that on one hand we have the power elite of the West that wants to continue living over others, and the rest who say, "We are ready to live with others. We are not going to accept anymore to live under others." And the clash is between those two. But it has been going on for centuries. It's not since the Second World War. And I happen to come from a country. It's very small. Yesterday, the passport official, with a smile on her face, told me, "Oh, Malta, Malta, it's very, very small. It's actually smaller than this, you know, in different parts of the Mediterranean. If you want to say that something does not exist, you say, 'Malta yok.'" But we exist. We exist. We have existed at least for 8,500 years, but have been sovereign and independent only in the last 64 years, which means that if you compress 8,500 years in 24 hours, we've been sovereign in the last 10 minutes. But the last 10 minutes have been the best for the Maltese population, not because we've had excellent governments running us, but finally, since 1964, decisions have started being taken in Malta for the Maltese and not to serve the strategic military bases of those who have conquered us for 2,000 years, successive ones. If I were to just focus on the last 200 years, when there was strong competition between the British Empire, the French Empire, and the Russian Empire, and ultimately the British Empire prevailed, right from the very beginning, even before this was formalized, Britain made it very clear to the Maltese, you know, now forget your national aspirations. Don't talk about democracy. Don't talk about liberty of the press. We need you as a base, and nothing else. And for practically 200 years, Malta served only as a base. And as it is so small, if you have fortresses, if you have runways for military airplanes, if you have bases, where do you put your hotels? Where do you put your factories? Where do you develop your trade, especially? And then the British made it very clear, "We're going to run you like a diarchy." So you have two rulers at the same time. The real serious stuff, the big stuff, is decided in London, and you take care of some roads. But even roads, you have to be careful. Before you pass a road, you have to make a military impact assessment on whether it hurts our strategic interests. So everything, everything was devoted towards that. And what does this mean? That for, actually, for the Maltese to have a decent life in their own country, they needed sovereignty. Before that, we had half of our population migrating to different places. #Evarist Bartolo But sovereignty was not enough. #Evarist Bartolo It had to be real sovereignty, and with it, neutrality and the closure of foreign military and naval bases. It was only after this happened that, in the last 23 years, if you take the United Nations Human Development Index, Malta is classified as one of the most advanced countries in the world in terms of income, in terms of education, in terms of health. But this has only been possible because we have become sovereign, neutral, and have no military and naval bases. It goes together, in our -- 2 of 20 -- case, definitely. Foreign policy is the continuation of domestic policy. Totally, totally, totally. But this has been done, not haphazardly. I do not subscribe to the great man theory of history, but leaders are important. Without leaders, without a vision, as long as it's a vision that expresses the needs of people, we wouldn't have come to this point. And that vision belongs to Dom Mintoff. There are about 10,000 islands in the Mediterranean. Only 230 of them are inhabited. Only one of them is neutral, sovereign, and without military bases, and that is Malta. And that is because Mintoff worked for that vision to happen. It doesn't mean that he always believed that. In fact, it's interesting because Malta is a very interesting test case in the study of colonialism. We're one of the few members of the European Union which have been colonized rather than colonizers, though we do have a Stockholm syndrome regarding colonialism, our colonizers, because we're still in love with the Knights of Malta and I think even to a certain extent with the British. But it was very clear when, in the fifties, Mintoff told the British, "We'll either be like you and equal to you, or go our own way without you." Obviously, the logic of imperialism and colonialism dictated that they would not want the colonized to be like them and equal to them. And then the national movement for independence took off, but together with it, the concept of neutrality. And Mintoff, in 1958, wrote a very famous article called "Malta, the Switzerland of the Mediterranean," where he said, "Listen, this is our way. We will not accept any more military and naval bases." #Pascal Hey, just a very quick note. The best way to support this channel is by signing up for my free Substack. You can also help with a paid subscription there, or you can get some of our new merch on neutralitystudies.com. Links below. #Evarist Bartolo The British used the Catholic Church to keep him out of power. In the '60s, it was a mortal sin to read Labour papers, to contest politics in Malta. You couldn't marry in church. But in '71, he came to power. And immediately he started negotiating a new agreement, a new defense agreement with Britain. The first principle was that since 1800, Britain hadn't paid one sterling for the resources, the facilities, the buildings occupied, the land occupied, used for military and naval and Royal Air Force purposes. They hadn't paid not even one cent. And he said, you know, you must now pay up so that we transform our economy, which was 60% based on the presence of the military forces, so that we can have trade, we can have industry, we can have tourism, we can have financial services. And he started working on that. In the meantime, it's important to note some things which I think are also very relevant today. So, for example, in 1953, at that time there was Dr. George Borg Olivier, who was a kind of a center- right party, but in the Christian Democrat tradition, not in the conservative British tradition. On the -- 3 of 20 -- eve of Christmas of 1953, he was visited by the British governor, and he told him, "Tomorrow I'm going to give Christmas greetings to the Maltese population, and I'm also going to tell them that the Southern Command Center of NATO is going to be based in Malta." And the prime minister then told him, "But how are you going to do that? You haven't even consulted us. And you're just—part of the greetings would be, you know, have a good Christmas, and also NATO is coming here without negotiating anything with the Maltese." And the British governor said, you know, that's not your business. These are reserved matters. NATO will come in. And NATO came in, and together with NATO came eventually the U.S. Sixth Fleet, and also using the runways for the Royal Air Force and for the U.S. Air Force, taking the little bits of land in Malta from the farmers also to build these. So that actually, that kind of stealth actually helped to fuel the independence movement, and that independence wasn't just sovereignty, but also getting rid of the military and naval bases. At the same time then, something interesting which we got to know only in 2023 was that in 1959, there was a secret report carried out by the British authorities of what would happen if a small atomic bomb was dropped on Malta to neutralize and destroy all the nerve centers of NATO in Malta. And they said it would wipe out two-thirds of the population, and the country would be completely not only unlivable, but just a piece of rock. This never came out. It came out only in 2023. But at the same time, very cynically—and I remember as a boy, I was born in 1952—very, very cynically, they were carrying out drills all over the country on how to survive a nuclear war. You know, that we don't have shelters for you, but if you put a wet blanket, you know, on the windows and the doors, and you put newspapers and you hide under a table, you will survive. But their report actually said two-thirds of the population would be completely wiped out. A similar thing happened on HMS Tiger in 1974, when two torpedoes fell on nuclear bombs that HMS Tiger was carrying. But this was never made public until the documents were declassified in 2001, I think. In the meantime, what was interesting is that, without knowing this, in 1988, the dockyard workers, which were the backbone of the Labour Party, actually stopped the HMS Ark Royal from coming into the Grand Harbour because the captain wouldn't say that they didn't have nuclear armaments. And they stopped it. So this has been good. And again, it shows leadership. I think I'm very interested in seeing how small states can survive in the world. I know very much, perhaps it's very cynical, but if you remember when Stanley Kubrick was shooting Dr. Strangelove, he said, "Great states behave like gangsters, and small states behave like prostitutes." I would like to think that we are not only prostitutes. We can do a bit more than that.