Counting the Cost of NATO Expansion

In recent weeks, The Moscow Times has printed two opinion pieces by Americans urging the further expansion of NATO to include the former Soviet republics in the Baltic region. The authors would have us believe that such expansion is inevitable, that it is somehow in Russia's greater interests, and that Russia should cease its hopeless efforts to block it. Most recently, Michael McFaul of the Carnegie Endowment advised that Russia would be better off by "demonstrating that Russia is too strong and self-confident to worry about the ascension of the tiny Baltic States to the NATO alliance." Such advice is sophistry. The arguments of the pro-expansionists are ludicrous against the backdrop of NATO's strategic concept and the reality of what has happened in the wake of its thus-far limited expansion.

NATO's first "new strategic concept" of November 1991 was a far cry from its previous cautious and highly defined doctrine, but it nonetheless retained some element of restraint in recognition of the fact that the Soviet Union still existed. After the Soviet collapse, however, NATO documents began to shift toward a more assertive posture, issuing warnings to Russia on its behavior toward former Soviet states and the countries of Central Europe.

The logical culmination of NATO's emerging policy, as embodied in documents issued between November 1991 and April 1999, was NATO's revised strategic concept. This is an aggressive and preemptive doctrine that provided justification for the bombing of Yugoslavia and will justify similar responses to any situation deemed by NATO to be directly or indirectly "threatening" in the future. The 1999 revised strategic concept set forth an extremely vague rationale for NATO action ?€” military or otherwise ?€” in an undefined territorial area ("in and around the Euro-Atlantic area" and "at the periphery of the Alliance") and in response to a range of situations that could and almost certainly would involve strictly internal issues of non-member countries.

Among the stated risks to NATO security that would serve as potential triggers for NATO action are "territorial disputes, inadequate or failed efforts at reform, the abuse of human rights, and the dissolution of states," as well as "organized crime" and "the uncontrolled movement of large numbers of people, particularly as a consequence of armed conflicts." NATO also identifies as a risk to its security states on NATO's periphery that sell or acquire or attempt to acquire nuclear, biological and chemical weapons and delivery means. Last, but hardly least from Russia's perspective, NATO states in its 1999 strategic concept that there is potential for the reemergence of "large-scale conventional aggression against the Alliance." This is as close as the strategic concept comes to naming names without actually naming names.

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The merits of NATO's intervention in Kosovo have been and will long continue to be a subject of considerable controversy. What cannot be denied is that the effort to attain a quick and bloodless (for NATO combatants) solution to a centuries-old problem has not achieved the Alliance's stated goals. There is not and has never been a long-term strategy for preserving territorial integrity while protecting the rights of minorities. Kosovo is not a multiethnic society. Repression previously directed by Serbian authorities against ethnic Albanians now is directed by the criminal KLA against ethnic Serbs, Roma and politically irritating ethnic Albanians. On the bright side for NATO members, ethnic Serbs and others fleeing repression in Kosovo are by and large heading for Serbia proper rather than for Western Europe. In this sense, the bombing of Yugoslavia may be considered by some NATO members as a success.

Most recently, we have witnessed a cynical "movement" of ethnic Albanians, armed from Kosovo, against the legitimate authorities in Macedonia. In that event, we were also treated to the spectacle of NATO ?€” which created the monster ?€” feverishly attempting to turn a blind eye to the dispute. Instead of joining forces with the Macedonian government to put down the terrorists, NATO and the EU urged the Macedonian authorities to come to a "political settlement" with those who took up arms against it in pursuit of Greater Albania. We thus see that NATO is very good at military adventures, especially against essentially defenseless "opponents," but pitifully incompetent when it comes to avoiding the negative political consequences of its military actions ?€” of which it was repeatedly warned in advance from many quarters. Despite this vivid and fresh history, we are still to believe that adding more countries to NATO to help out in future ill-conceived military adventures will add to stability on the continent (and no doubt on other continents, as well).

Russia is right to consider further NATO expansion against this background. In the conflict against Kosovo, Russia was "protected" from the folly of disagreeing with NATO actions by having Hungary and Bulgaria (a non-NATO member, but a NATO "partner") collaborate in blocking Russian efforts to provide assistance to Belgrade. Now many are keen to invite Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania into the NATO fold, which would mean moving NATO infrastructure up to Russian borders and putting Russia squarely in the area of "the periphery of the Alliance" ?€” where NATO actions in response to that vast array of potentially destabilizing events would be justified by the Alliance's strategic concept. Indeed, with regard to Kaliningrad, it would put non-member Russia within NATO territory. It is in this context that we should judge arguments that the inclusion of the "tiny Baltic States" ?€” and no doubt everybody else in the former Warsaw Pact except Russia ?€” is in Russia's interests.

NATO has already demonstrated its readiness to use its power and resources in pursuit of self-serving, short-term goals without any sort of long-term policy or vision. It has demonstrated a blithe lack of concern about using force unilaterally and in defiance of international law. Is there thus any serious reason to believe that advancing NATO to Russia's doorstep ?€” that is to say, up against a country that NATO's own strategic concept has set out as a potential future enemy ?€” would heighten European security? Is this a step that Russia should regard as helpful to its own security? Is the prospect of the Baltic and Central European states collaborating to block Russian defense of its vital interests in the face of NATO "crisis response" one that Russia should embrace? In the case of NATO's bombardment of Yugoslavia, the only negative fallout was the expansion of armed separatist action to Macedonia. In the case of Russia, the results of miscalculation carry much graver risks.

Russia should not abandon its efforts to persuade the more rational Europeans and Americans that further expansion of NATO is not in anybody's interests. What is needed today is a new European-Atlantic security system that recognizes Russia's right to be fully engaged as an equal partner. It is inarguably in the interest of Europeans and Americans to forge a genuine partnership with Russia that will avoid the creation of an artificial enemy. A bigger NATO is simply a bigger threat to both European and global security.

Norma Brown is a retired U.S. diplomat who served on the U.S.-Kosovo Diplomatic Observer Mission and was head of Ambassador Bill Walker's political reporting unit at the OSCE mission to Kosovo. She contributed this comment to The Moscow Times.