#14
Nezavisimaya Gazeta
No. 266
December 2002
[translation from RIA Novosti for personal use only]
NATO: EXPANSION INSTEAD OF DEVELOPMENT
By Vladimir LUKIN, deputy of the State Duma

Eleven years separate two highly important events in European and world history: the disbandment of the Warsaw Treaty Organization and the NATO summit where seven Central and East European states received an official invitation to join the alliance. It would seem that the aims set a decade ago are close to being implemented. However, there is nothing euphoric about the tone of serious analysts' comments on this score.

It has long been known that forming alliances against third countries is always easier than forming alliances for the sake of a common cause. Special problems arise when common priorities for the sake of which part of one's own interests need to be sacrificed, cannot be found quickly enough. Already by the mid-1990s, it had become obvious to everyone that NATO (where the military component had traditionally prevailed over the political one), after losing the two main, pivotal elements of its existence - the enemy and mission - needed an overhaul.

After the disappearance of "the communist threat from the East," there were two realistic directions for NATO's future development - either to place its military potential at the disposal of an all-European organization designed to ensure security and stability in Europe more efficiently than the OSCE, or to turn itself into just such an organization in stages.

However, the disappearance of the common enemy not only called the expediency of the continued existence of NATO into question but also very quickly revealed differences between the members of the alliance. In the past, these differences were ironed out by objective requirements for strict discipline in the alliance. These differences led to a situation where throughout the past decade practical solutions and steps, which could have contributed to the alliance's adjustment to new threats and geopolitical realities, were stubbornly substituted with "the process of a search" to expand the alliance's borders.

Down-to-earth NATO politicians were becoming increasingly disappointed with its future potential: it became clear even during Operation Desert Storm that only two or three leading NATO members could, with considerable effort, implement the common political line of the alliance. "The collective defence" principle actually ceased to exist.

To raise "morale," a concept of "humanitarian intervention" was urgently formulated. Along with the declared expansion of NATO's zone of responsibility beyond its geographical borders, it was supposed to inject a new dynamism in to the alliance's military machine. However, by implementing "new ideas," NATO instead gave rise to a new wave of doubts about its own ability to solve military tasks without relying on "local forces." Apart from all other things, by demonstrating strong bias in "Balkan settlement," NATO has also undermined its own prospects for being the main link in a new European security system.

The bureaucrats are celebrating a victory, though. The Partnership for Peace programme has created ideal conditions for turning the "representation expenditures" article into one of the leading articles of the NATO budget. Confidence and mutual understanding should, of course, be strengthened. However, from the military point of view, Partnership for Peace has at best marked the limits within which the ambitious military and political leaders of the alliance would like to avoid the presence of anyone "else." In its content, Partnership for Peace hardly differs from the financial-economic projects of the IMF or the World Bank. Such "injections" to potential allies (only in this case - along the military line) probably seem promising from the political point of view. However, from the military point of view, such an approach engenders rather heightened expectations among partners, overestimation of their own potential and a very dangerous self-complacency in the field of security.

Until a certain event, all the problems brewing in the alliance were covered up more or less successfully. September 11, 2001 graphically demonstrated that NATO could not fulfil its main function - guaranteeing the security of its members. The sobering effect proved to be so strong that during the anti-terrorist campaign in Afghanistan the USA almost ostentatiously refused to use the greater part of NATO's potential. Moreover, it openly called into question the efficiency of this potential - and hence, also questioned the main theses of the alliance's strategic doctrine, revised by the late 1990s through the strenuous efforts of combined intellectual forces.

Debates are going on in the USA on NATO's role in the new US strategy and on whether it is worth considering the interests of the Europeans when they cannot or do not want to help the USA uphold its own interests. The European allies, for their part, are actively discussing the expediency of further attempts to adapt to the regular unilateral initiatives of the overseas partners. The West-Europeans are beginning to enjoy the ideas of a European defence identity, however, the implementation of European ambitions would be rather problematic unless part of NATO's potential was used. On the whole, against the background of the widening gap in the military expenditures and correspondingly, potentials of the USA and Western Europe, the political "weights" of the Americans and Europeans inside NATO are now much closer to parity than even a decade ago, which does not, however, facilitate the search for consensus on practically any issue.

Lastly, the new members and the candidates that have just been invited to join the alliance are primarily interested in integration into the rich and prospering western community. They are also claiming part of the American "pie," but will they be able, in the near future, to make a real contribution to its growth? Will "the old members of the club" be able to instill proper ideas about etiquette and discipline in the new members if the latter, for example, try to distract NATO resources, directing them towards the "compensation" of their old complexes and cultivation of national ambitions. This is by no means a rhetorical question.

In these conditions, "the process" is still prevailing over the content. The decision to invite seven Central and East European states to join the alliance looks impressive; however, this expensive imitation of development only covers up intellectual fermentation in the allies' camp, brought about mainly by the awareness of the ritual, if not artificial, nature of the greater part of the current NATO agenda. One has also a constant feeling that the topicality of the threats declared, in particular, during the recent Prague summit, as "common" for all NATO members (both present and future) is still not the same for different states that are already NATO members or just claiming NATO membership. A real threat to the existence of the alliance will arise if it remains needless (which is highly probable) even after seven Central and East European countries join it.

In this way, at this stage NATO in the military- organizational sense looks just a little less "dismantled" than the Warsaw Treaty Organization did in the last years of its existence. Will the current bloated alliance be able to become an adequate instrument for repelling real threats to European and international security - ramified global terrorism, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and ethnic conflicts? I should hope so. The threats are too serious and the potentialities of NATO in the field of cooperation between secret services, police operations, and combating the sources of financing terrorists are of great importance for the international community. In all probability, the NATO members themselves do not yet know when and how they will find an adequate form of entering the new world order and what their mission there will be. Hence, their strictly official attitude to Russia.

Regrettably, there is no tradition of summing up the results of the work done in Russia. The Russians especially do not like to analyze the results of their work if their efforts have not proved fruitful. Discussion on whether the alliance is still posing a threat to our country and in what way NATO eastward expansion may affect our national interests went on for over a decade. Meanwhile, NATO is expanding. While admitting that Russia has no leverage to prevent expansion, the Russian opponents of this process are still refusing to analyze the objective situation.

The course of events shows that those who warned against falling for the problems that our western partners created for themselves have proved to be right. They believed for a decade that they could set forth a coherent and efficient concept of European security. The events of September 11, 2001 destroyed this confidence. They began to see at last that rapprochement with Russia is an objective necessity, not a whim or a favour, and that artificial obstacles to cooperation are at odds with our common interests. By force of objective circumstances, the USA realizes this best of all. Bush has outstripped Robertson not only at the level of protocol.

Russia's position in European politics largely depends on the development of our relations with the European Union, with a view to joining it. The development of relations between NATO, which is becoming a thing of the past, and the EU, which is slowly but surely entering the 21st century, is not the most topical question for us. The deficiency of our economic and socio-political development is now the main threat to Russian interests in Europe and international affairs as a whole. If the destiny of the North-Atlantic alliance cannot but affect Russia, we should think how to make it harmless, if not useful for us, rather than squabble with this venerable pensioner. I think that this is quite possible now.

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