The West, and indeed the world, stands on the brink of an historic precipice. The Cold War, which occupied our minds as much as any war and terrorized an entire generation more than any war in history, has ended. The West has won, and many feel that this is a vindication of the West’s values of democracy and free market principles. It is right and inevitable, they argue, that NATO, the symbol of the West’s struggle with the East, should expand to engulf Eastern Europe. As Strobe Talbott, the Deputy Secretary of State, concludes, "the evolution of NATO should reflect the evolution of Europe itself" (Talbott 27). This, however, is a dangerous and misguided idea.

In July 1997, at a conference in Madrid, NATO members decided to invite Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary to join the alliance (Rubinstein 37). Designed in the early days of the Cold War to counter the Soviet threat to Western Europe, NATO has struggled to redefine its role since the fall of the Soviet Union. Proponents of NATO expansion say that collective defense remains a vital need in Europe, despite the collapse of the Soviet Union, and that the states recently freed from the Soviet yoke should be given the chance to join NATO. In addition, allowing these newly-democratic states to join NATO will give them incentives to strengthen democratic and free-market reforms at home, as well as encourage them to settle disputes peacefully (Talbott 27).

However, NATO expansion is a dangerous idea, and it is dangerous to believe in the reasons given for NATO expansion. Collective security is not a valid excuse for the cost and pain of expanding NATO, particularly since there is no threat which would require the collective support of all NATO members, old and new, to counter it. NATO members are under no obligation to offer membership to anyone, and there is no evidence to support the view the "institutional perspective" model; that is, that membership in international organizations encourages reforms and lessens conflicts. In addition, supporting the new states of Eastern Europe is not in the vital interests of the United States, or even current NATO members. New members cannot contribute militarily or financially, increasing the cost for current members exponentially. Expanding NATO threatens Russia unnecessarily, and abets hard-liners who are struggling to overturn democratic and free-market reforms in Russia. States not being considered for immediate membership also fear the development of a new "Iron Curtain" as they are excluded from the new European system (Economist 20). Arguments against NATO expansion can be grouped into three major categories: political, military, and economic.

Despite the serious military and economic concerns with expanding NATO, the political concerns overshadow them. Expanding NATO could have disastrous consequences, both for U.S. foreign policy and for world peace and security. The most important of these consequences is the damage it may cause in U.S.-Russian relations. NATO, the military alliance created to defeat Russia’s predecessor in a total war, is moving east. This is seen, from Russia, as not only a threat but a deliberate provocation (Rubinstein 42). Although the Clinton Administration argues that Russia has neither the ability nor the inclination to respond to NATO expansion as a threat (Talbott 29), this perception is flawed. True, the leaders in power in Russia today seek cooperation and support from the Western powers, particularly the United States. They are, however, in a very weak and precarious position (McFaul 34-35). NATO expansion is widely condemned within Russia, and this issue may be enough to topple the liberals from power in Russia, leaving the Communists and nationalist factions searching for power in Russia to pick up the reins. Rather than embracing Eurasia in a community of democracy and free markets, we are simply moving the dividing line farther east, isolating Russia.

Other political problems exist as well. Just because Russia is unlikely to be spooked enough to launch a war against the West does not mean that there are no strategic consequences for threatening Russia. Instead, by expanding NATO, the West creates an impetus for Russia to expand her own security alliances, often with states unfriendly to the United States. In April of 1997, Boris Yeltsin and Jiang Zemin met in Moscow and devised a "strategic partnership" against those who would "push the world toward a unipolar order" (Joffe 15). By expanding NATO, we are encouraging our enemies to unite against us as they see us build and consolidate our forces. Unless we are planning a full-scale assault on all of the countries unfriendly to the United States, we run the risk of alienating countries, such as China, which are already suspicious of, if not overtly hostile to, the United States.

Another threat is dissension in the ranks— the possibility of weakening the bond between current NATO members. The dissolution of the Soviet Union, as already discussed, has removed the core of the reason for being for NATO. NATO searches today for a new mission to fulfill, for if it does not find one, it will fall apart. However, there is no consensus on what NATO’s new role should be. Most alliance members agree that no real threat of full-scale conventional war exists. Several members have expressed an interest in having NATO intervene to uphold human rights and to end internal conflicts, while several members have argued against just this issue (Kaufman 25). This would usually take the form of serving as military muscle in upholding United Nations resolutions. An example of this is Bosnia. Both U.S. and NATO policy were fraught with contradictions and indecisiveness as to what role the Western powers should play in ending the conflict. This ambivalence led to the worst possible solution: a late and half-hearted attempt to end the fighting, and a lackluster desire to enforce the ensuing peace. The result? A slaughter which went on too long and a peace which the West does not have the stomach to enforce (Kaufman 27-28). Expanding the role— or the roll call— of NATO is a sure-fire way to tear it apart.

As bad as these are, political concerns are not the only reasons to rethink NATO enlargement. Military problems with expansion loom large as well. These fall into three main categories: disparity between the military forces of current and prospective NATO members, dilution of the focus of the alliance and its mission of collective security, and public unwillingness in the United States to support increased risks.

A large disparity exists between the military forces of current NATO members and the prospective ones. Millar and Plesch state that "it may be impossible for current and future NATO members, with different levels of technological capabilities, to achieve intra-alliance comparability" (642). Without this comparability, NATO forces will find it difficult, if even possible, to effectively coordinate their efforts. NATO has become "increasingly reliant on technological innovations too implement . . . changes in acknowledgment of evolving security challenges" (Millar 644). New members simply do not have access to these innovations, the money to implement them, nor the infrastructure necessary to make that a possibility. The head of the U.S. Atlantic Command stated that integration of new members will take "decades, if not longer . . . in some cases it will take generations because you are talking about changing the culture of the military" (Millar 646).

Adding new members to NATO would dilute the alliance and its mission as well. Eventually, the question must be asked, "who is NATO defending itself against?" All of the traditional NATO enemies are being integrated into the alliance. In addition, the alliance and its mission are diluted whenever a new member is added, no matter who it is. There is one more member who must be consulted, who must concur before action is taken, who may suggest an alternate plan. Historically, smaller alliances have had an easier time making decisions and taking action than larger ones, with bilateral alliances, that is, alliances between two countries, working best of all. The new NATO members will certainly cause this sort of confusion, since their situation is so different from that of current NATO members. Their definition of a useful or necessary mission is bound to be different from ours. The timing of the expansion, in this aspect, could not be worse. At a time NATO is struggling to redefine its mission— almost by definition experiencing the sort of confusion discussed earlier— it is also expanding to take in new members with a radically different viewpoint. NATO runs the risk of losing any coherent sense of purpose.

Although not a pure military concern, American public opinion is a powerful force on NATO missions. A large part of the reason that NATO did not act sooner to prevent the genocide in Bosnia was American reluctance to incur casualties (Kaufman, 23). With new members come new threats, especially internal threats in countries that are currently weak and unstable. American public opinion may be unwilling to support combat troops to deal with a problem which has no immediate bearing on American interests.

The economic costs of expanding NATO are great as well. Millar and Plesch claim that "[b]udget constraints . . . force allied nations to delay or abandon projects before they come to fruition" (648). Nowhere are the economic costs of enlarging NATO more apparent than in the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland. At the same time that the United States and her allies are creating new, expensive military technology, defense budgets in the United States, Europe, and elsewhere are being slashed.

The Czech Republic has agreed to increase its defense budget in order to comply with NATO standards. Their current defense budget is 1.7 percent of their gross domestic product, and will increase by 0.1 percent per year until the year 2000. This is a 26 percent increase in their defense budgets, at a time when Western defense budgets are being reduced (Millar 651).

Hungary faces a similar situation. Hungary is expected to pay for "communications compatibility with NATO, an interoperable command and control structure, particularly in air defense, and improvement of language skills" (Millar 652). The West is giving Hungary some aid, but this aid will end in 1998 (Millar 652).

Poland has devised a plan to modernize its armed forces to bring them into compliance with NATO standards. This plan will cost Poland U.S. $84 million, and take an estimated 15 years to implement. Only about 20 percent of Polish military equipment is considered modern and compatible with NATO standards (Millar 652-653).

The problems for all of them remain the same: an excessive burden to modernize their military structures at a time when they can ill-afford to take money away from their social programs. These governments are fighting for legitimacy, and one of the key aspects of doing so is through social spending. Aid from the West would be helpful, but it is little and slow in coming because of cuts in Western defense budgets.

NATO expansion is a poor idea, guided by ill-conceived and poorly-thought-out ideals. We wish the fledgling democracies of Eastern Europe well, but the biggest threat to their stability comes from within, and enlarging NATO to engulf them will only exacerbate the problem. The irony would be for the still-forming democracies in the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland to fall because of, rather than despite, NATO enlargement.

NATO expansion is simply not worth the costs, political, military, and economic. Eastern Europe cannot truly afford to join NATO, and the West cannot afford it either. NATO enlargement threatens democracy, rather than protecting it, in four states— the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Russia. NATO enlargement threatens our basic foreign policy, and should not be continued. The West has won. Try not to push it too far.

"Europe’s Dual Enlargement." Economist 21 March 1998: 20.

This article discusses Europe’s attempt to expand both the European Union and NATO at the same time, concluding that neither is being executed very well.

Joffe, Josef. "How America Does It." Foreign Affairs 76.5 (September/October 1997): 12-27.

This article compare America’s position in the world with that of Bismarck’s Germany, and concludes that the United States should adopt a foreign policy similar to that of Bismarck.

Kaufman states that NATO expansion and the role of NATO in the post-Cold War world are likely to weaken the institutions of collective defense, as well as create untenable divisions between current NATO members.

Lepgold argues that the cause of NATO’s recent problems with collective action are a result of NATO’s need to redefine its role in the post-Cold War world.

McFaul, Michael. "A Precarious Peace: Domestic Politics in the Making of Russian Foreign Policy." International Security 22.3 (Winter 1997/98): 5-35.

McFaul argues that current Russian foreign policy is mostly a reflection of internal power struggles in Russia, and warns that a change in Russian domestic politics could herald a more belligerent foreign policy.

Millar and Plesch point out the economic costs of expanding NATO, focusing on the increasing gaps between technology levels of current NATO members and prospective members, and citing the escalating costs of implementing these new technologies.

This article sets forth the position of both NATO and the Clinton Administration on the subject of NATO enlargement.

Rubinstein, Alvin Z. "NATO Enlargement vs. American Interests." Orbis (Winter 1998): 37-48.

Rubinstein advances the theory that NATO enlargement is driven primarily by President Clinton’s domestic policy concerns, and concludes that NATO enlargement actually threatens existing American interests.

Strobe Talbott, the Deputy Secretary of State, lays out the administration’s policy and reasons for promoting NATO enlargement.