Page Center for Defense Information
NATO Expansion
Today Europe is more secure and less tense. Nevertheless, despite Russia's markedly diminished military capability, countries in central Europe want to join NATO. Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic feel the need for membership in a security organization and want economic ties to the West. Their fears have little factual basis today. The geopolitical position of Poland, for example, is undisputed for the first time in centuries. Nor are the eight other candidates for NATO membership under any direct or indirect threat.
The U.S. is pushing for a decision in 1997 to include these first three aspirants by 1999. The justification given for such haste is to reward and encourage democracy. On another level, it is likely that the Administration's effort is intended to gain the gratitude and political support of millions of descendants of yesteryear's middle European immigrants. Germany, the strongest NATO member after the U.S., is in no such hurry and Chancellor Kohl has warned against taking Russia's opposition too lightly.
Russian Objections
The Administration's plan would admit Russia's neighbors to NATO but leave Russia on the outside.
Polish Prime Minister Cimoszewicz has aptly summarized the Russian position on NATO expansion (although he believes it unwarranted):
"The Russian government openly and steadfastly opposes expansion of NATO eastward and this view, it should be noted, is shared by the leaders of major opposition parties. According to their line of reasoning, the enlargement of the Alliance would be no more than another Cold War arrangement. The admission of new members in Central Eastern Europe would only mean that the dividing line would be drawn closer to Russia. Surrounding states would be inimically disposed toward Russia, and disagreements on vital issues could result not only in a `cold peace' but also in a revival of tensions and the arms race."
Both the German and French governments see NATO's "core function" as collective defense for the allies and the lesser powers such as the Netherlands agree. U.S. Secretary of Defense William Perry warned:"NATO is not a social club. It is not a fraternity. It is a military alliance."
The Russians know that this "defensive" alliance is oriented against them not just against potentially spreading internal eruptions like Bosnia. NATO was created to fight the USSR.
Russians are convinced that NATO is intended to serve as a new enlarged anti-Russian alliance. Indeed, the announcement of plans to enlarge NATO has accomplished the virtually impossible: it has unified what were fragmented and conflict-ridden Russian political factions in opposition to the western move.
Sad Consequences
If NATO is expanded without Russia as the U.S. urges, tensions will increase and the likelihood of peace in Europe will be reduced. Ukraine's Minister of Foreign Affairs predicts that "any rise in new security dividing lines on the Continent could pose the greatest danger to both European and international stability." In his view, "NATO enlargement is likely to trigger...thinking analogous to the mentality of the Cold War period" in the peoples of the states of the former Soviet Union.
Under Article 5 of the NATO Treaty, "an armed attack against [any member] in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all." If the territorial guarantee implicit in NATO membership were extended to states in central Europe, the states to the east of the new boundary ( including Ukraine, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and Finland) would be left in limbo. In this event, President Yeltsin has declared: "We will immediately establish constructive ties with all ex-Soviet republics and form a bloc. And as a result Europe will have two blocs."
Russia can no longer compete with NATO's huge conventional forces, but their nuclear weapons are relatively inexpensive to maintain. Russia's former Defense Minister Pavel Grachev warned that if NATO expands toward his country, Russia's short-range nuclear weapons would be made operational again and the implementation of arms control treaties would be suspended. Any chance of Russian ratification of the START II treaty would evaporate. The future dangers will be greater than those of the past. Aware that their conventional military forces are not dependable, the Russians will place more reliance on their nuclear weapons. To enhance the weapons' response time, they are likely to relax the safeguards against nuclear accidents and misjudgments. Recent reports in the press confirm Russia's dangerous reliance on "launch on warning" following degradation of its conventional forces. The deterioration of Russia's early warning network compounds the danger.
Nuclear weapons and the fissile materials to make them have been moved to Russia from Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan, thus advancing American non-proliferation objectives, but the Russian safeguards for the materials are
Russia's Reaction
—Self Defense
"Russia has removed its troops and weapons from the east [Europe], yet NATO's only response is enlargement of its military alliance to our border. If this happens, it would remove our buffer zone and create dangerous new conditions that would demand action on our part."
Igor Rodionov
Russian Defense Minister
December 18, 1996, at NATO Headquarters