Competing visions of NATO's future highlighted at enlargement ceremony (03/28/99)

Competing visions of NATO's future highlighted at enlargement ceremony

by Paul Goble
RFE/RL Newsline

The March 12 celebration of the formal inclusion of the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland into NATO highlighted the existence of three very different views among alliance members about the nature of the challenges they face and about the proper role of the Western alliance in meeting them.

The first view, articulated most strongly by the leaders of the newest members of the alliance, might be called the traditional one. It identifies Russia as the most likely potential threat. It presents NATO as a guarantee of the independence and security of alliance members precisely because it, unlike any other European institution, involves the power of the U.S. in the defense of the continent.

The second view, reflected in the speeches of many European leaders, downplays the possibility of a Russian threat and insists that the alliance not expand its mission beyond its traditional one as a defense pact. Some of those who hold this view stress the role of the alliance in maintaining a link with the U.S., while others see it as a security system that will permit the gradual expansion of Europe itself.

The third view, presented primarily by U.S. officials, shares the assessment of most Europeans that Russia is no longer a threat, but argues that other threats to the security of the continent, such as the conflicts in Bosnia and Kosovo, mean NATO must assume a new and more active role. And that new role must be undertaken, they argue, even if the alliance has to redefine itself as something other than simply a defensive institution.

As they have in the past, spokesmen and commentators in alliance countries insisted that these views do not reflect any fundamental divisions in the alliance. Instead, they said, such variations in view are simply matters of differing emphasis on parts of a common agenda.

But in the absence of a common threat identified by all members, these differences are likely to grow. And to the extent that happens, they are likely to have a profound impact on those who have joined or want to join the alliance, on links between European members of the alliance and the U.S., and on relations between NATO, its individual members and the Russian Federation.

The most immediate impact of these divisions within the alliance may be on those countries that have recently become members and on those that want to join as soon as possible. All these countries want to join NATO because they see the Western alliance as the best means of protecting themselves from a potential new Russian threat. If they discover that the alliance now has a different agenda, they may find themselves in some difficulty.

The governments of these countries have justified the financial costs of NATO membership in terms of the popular perception that the alliance has not undergone any fundamental changes. If it becomes obvious to many people in these countries that the Western alliance has changed, at least some segments of the member-states' populations may be less willing to pay those costs.

And, these regimes have counted on the alliance precisely because of its U.S. dimension. If they decide that Europe and the U.S. are moving in different directions on security questions, that, too, may lead some to question the value of alliance membership.

The impact of these differences on ties between NATO's European members and the U.S., also is likely to grow. Not only are Europeans seeking to play a larger role in a grouping long dominated by Washington and are thus prepared to play up divisions that they once would have ignored, but the U.S. also appears to many of them divided over the future role of NATO and thus open to pressure.

Both Europe and the U.S. downplay any immediate Russian threat. Indeed, both appear to want to include Moscow in ever more alliance councils. But they openly disagree on what Europeans call "out of area" activities and what Americans stress are the major challenges facing the West now: the violence in the Yugoslav successor states.

But the greatest impact of these differences within the alliance is likely to be on relations between the alliance and its individual members, on the one hand, and Moscow, on the other.

The Russian leadership not only opposes the expansion of the Western alliance to the east, but also believes that NATO - which it describes as a "relic of the Cold War" - should cease to exist. Consequently, it is almost certain to seek to exploit these differences in approach in at least three ways.

First, it is likely to try to avoid any step so overtly threatening as to re-unite the alliance. Second, it is likely to continue to reach out to European countries, such as Germany, that appear most opposed to U.S. efforts to redefine the mission of the alliance.

And third, Moscow is likely to try to play up the notion of a special relationship with Washington, something that may anger Europeans and restrict U.S. efforts to overcome the divisions within the alliance itself.

Fifty years ago, one observer commented that NATO existed to "keep the Russians out, the Americans in and the Germans down." Today, both the divisions within the alliance and the policies of its members could create a situation in which the Russians are increasingly inside Europe, the U.S.'s role there reduced, and the roles of individual European states far larger and more unpredictable.

Paul Goble is the publisher of RFE/RL Newsline.

| Home Page |