Nato Into Eastern Europe example essay topic

A more assertive Foreign Minister and a more nationalist Duma are now in power in Moscow. Both face serious challenges in pursuit of two principal foreign policy goals articulated by the new Foreign Minister, Yevgeny Primakov: Defending Russia's national interests and developing ties with the United States. One of Russia's primary challenges comes from Washington's drive to expand NATO into Eastern Europe. With good reason, Moscow strongly opposes expansion of the Atlantic alliance. In principle, it would enable western troops to deploy, exercise and patrol on the borders of the former Soviet Union and permit Eastern Europe to become a potential staging area for NATO's tactical nuclear weapons. In practice, it would dramatically change the strategic calculus in Europe to Moscow's disadvantage.

Western proponents of expansion argue that NATO has always been a defensive alliance, that its enlargement will "stabilize" Eastern Europe, and that stabilization will enhance rather than degrade Russia's security. NATO's disingenuous dismissal of Russian national security concerns fails to address the key political problem: Moscow considers NATO expansion as an effort to isolate rather than integrate Russia into Europe's post-Cold war security architecture. Fear of isolation has been an underlying -- if not explicit -- concern of Russia since at least the time of German reunification. Thus, in Moscow's eyes, NATO expansion is part of an effort to deny Russia an appropriate role in the new Europe's security arrangements. While it is unclear what a truly "European" security architecture might actually look like, and how Russia might best be integrated into it, there are several obvious components of this structure. The first and most basic element is the continued successful implementation of a host of arms control arrangements, most importantly the conventional armed forces in Europe (CFE) treaty.

This arrangement, under which nearly 50,000 items of military equipment have been destroyed, places the overall limits on the armor, artillery and aircraft of 30 countries, including Russia. But to Moscow, the CFE treaty is already a double challenge to Russian national interests: it limits the size of Russian forces at a time when the West is seeking to expand NATO and it constrains Russia's freedom to deploy forces in its own country as NATO is seeking the right to station its forces in other countries. NATO expansion would make it difficult, if not impossible, for any government in Moscow to continue to abide by the CFE treaty. Moreover, NATO expansion would make it likely, if not certain, that the Russian military will seek to increase its reliance on tactical nuclear weapons to counter NATO's conventional superiority. This, in turn, could jeopardize the INF treaty and the Bush / Gorbachev/Yeltsin unilateral withdrawals of tactical nuclear weapons. In short, if Europe loses the CFE treaty, there will be no chance of creating a cooperative security structure from the Atlantic to the Urals.

A second element of the post-Soviet European security architecture is an enhanced Partnership for Peace (PFP) program. PFP is a military-to-military bridge between NATO, Central Europe and Russia that is already fostering habits of cooperation, and building confidence among its participants. PFP is capable of functioning, for all practical purposes, like an expanded NATO. Although managed through NATO, it is acceptable to -- and even welcomed by -- the Russian military as long as it is not simply turned into a spring training camp for countries on their way to a major league NATO contract. Furthermore, sensitive to the fact that resources are contracting, many alliance military officials would actually prefer to scuttle the idea of NATO enlargement and limit involvement with Eastern Europe to an extensive PFP program.

A third key component of the evolving European security architecture is the European Union (EU). Opening the economic and political doors of the EU to Eastern Europe would do more to ensure stability in Poland, Hungary, and the other potential NATO applicants than would joining the North Atlantic Alliance. In truth, the fledgling democracies and market economies of Eastern Europe are more likely to be threatened by the failure of their own internal economic and political reforms then they are by a resurgence of Russian imperialism. The antipode to a sense of insecurity in Eastern Europe will be economic success.

NATO membership -- if ever it eventuates -- should follow naturally from, and not precede, membership in the EU. The fourth, and perhaps most important element of post-Soviet European security architecture is the development of an extensive, cooperative, and "real" -- rather that rhetorical -- relationship between the United States and Russia. Fortunately, the United States and the Atlantic Alliance have to some degree already embarked on that course. The Nunn-Lugar cooperative threat reduction program, the international science and technology centers in Moscow and Kiev, and the international program to improve safety of operating Soviet-designed nuclear power plants are some of the better known arms control, scientific and technical cooperation efforts.

But more needs to be done to establish a "special' relationship with Russia in the political, economic and security arenas. Fostering this special relationship will take a good deal of patience, courage and creativity on the part of all participants. It will also require a clearer vision in the West of how to go about constructing a non-exclusive European security architecture. At the end of the day, there is probably only one nation that can bring about NATO expansion in the near future: that is Russia itself. If the political leadership and domestic debate in Moscow turn sour, it will be easy for Western governments and parliaments to make the decision to enlarge NATO. But if Russia continues to struggle toward a more democratic society, it would be the height of folly for the Atlantic Alliance to attempt to respond to the security challenges in Europe by pursuing a policy that would alienate Moscow and redivide the continent.

Jack Mendelsohn, a retired Senior Foreign Service Officer, served in Warsaw with the US mission to NATO, and on the US SALT II and START I delegations. He is currently Deputy Director of the Arms Control Association in Washington, D.C. NATO expansion is causing much concern in the former Soviet Union. Below, Focus includes some recent comments on expansion from foreign policy makers in Russia and Kazakhstan: According to ITAR-TASS, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Nikolai Afanasyevskiy told a gathering of European foreign policy experts "NATO expansion to the east by definition is not in line with the interests of the peoples of Eurasia". He urged the conference to "think together and work on a new architecture of security and cooperation that will be acceptable to everyone". Foreign Broadcast Information Services Daily Report (FBIS-SOV), Central Eurasia, 25, 1996, pg. 7. In China on February 14, 1996, Kasymzhomart Tokay ev, the Foreign Minister of Kazakhstan, noted that "the tendency to expand NATO eastward could cause a rapid deterioration of the situation on the European continent".

He outlined two aspects of this: NATO's desire to expand its sphere of influence eastward, and the concern and disquiet expressed by a number of states in the former Soviet Union. ITAR-TASS interview with Marat Abulkhatin, FBIS-SOV-96-032, February 15, 1996, pg. 65. Grigori i Berdennikov, the Russian Ambassador to the United Nations Conference on Disarmament, noted that NATO expansion plans would "poison the entire international climate". He also expressed concern over U.S. Republican moves to withdraw from the 1972 ABM Treaty. Some experts believe this suggests that Russia might intend to link NATO expansion to arms control issues. OMRI Daily Digest I, No. 49, March 8, 1996, pg. 2.

In a February 16, 1996 interview with The Washington Post, Viktor Mikhailov, Russia's Atomic Energy Minister and a member of Yeltsin's National Security Council, said that if NATO expands into Eastern Europe and places tactical nuclear weapons on sites there, Russia should respond by destroying the sites where they are based. Mikhailov noted that NATO's decision to expand eastward "means that you are officially carrying out a policy of nuclear weapons proliferation". NATO has expressed a willingness to admit Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic into its membership. While it has not announced plans to base nuclear weapons on those territories, it remains an open question. The Washington Post, February 16, 1996, pg.

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