Explaining Nato Enlargement

This work evaluates the pros and cons of NATO enlargement. It explains why NATO offered membership to three of its Cold War adversaries and makes recommendations about which countries, if any, should be offered membership in the future.

The decision to expand NATO eastward is a fateful venture that has received surprisingly little public attention. Advocates of enlargement insist that the step will foster cooperation, consolidate democracy, and promote stability throughout Europe. But the contributors to this volume conclude that an expanded NATO is a dubious, potentially disastrous idea. Instead of healing the wounds of the Cold War, it threatens to create a new division of Europe and undermine friendly relations with Russia. Even worse, it will establish expensive, dangerous, and probably unsustainable security obligations for the United States.

Mobilizing an interdisciplinary group of scholars and practitioners, this book reviews the history and consequences of NATO’s post-Cold War enlargement into Central and Eastern Europe. It offers a nuanced discussion of the merits and drawbacks of NATO enlargement across the different actors involved and compares the results of the policy against potential alternatives that were not chosen. Particular attention is given to NATO enlargement’s influence on the course of U.S. foreign policy, democracy and security in Central and Eastern Europe, NATO’s own development as a political and military institution, and relations with China and Russia (including the 2022 Russia-Ukraine War). Written for an engaged audience, the book is designed to appeal to students, researchers, and policymakers alike while offering both policy insights and avenues for future scholarship.

The Kremlin has sought to establish an exclusive Russian sphere of influence in the nations lying between Russia and the EU, from Georgia in 2008 to Ukraine in 2014 and Belarus in 2020. It has extended its control by means of military intervention, territorial annexation, economic pressure and covert activities. Moscow seeks to justify this behavior by referring to an alleged threat from NATO and the Alliance’s eastward enlargement. In the rhetoric of the Kremlin, NATO expansion is the main source for Moscow’s stand-off with the West. This collection of essays and analyses by prominent politicians, diplomats, and scholars from the US, Russia, and Europe provides personal perspectives on the sources of the Russian-Western estrangement. They draw on historical experience, including the Russian-Western controversies that intensified with NATO's eastward expansion in the 1990s, and reflect on possible perspectives of reconcilitation within the renewed transatlantic relationship. The volume touches upon alleged and real security guarantees for the countries of Eastern and Central Europe as well as past and current deficits in the Western strategy for dealing with an increasingly hostile Russia. Thus, it contributes to the ongoing Western debate on which policies towards Russia can help to overcome the deep current divisions and to best meet Europe’s future challenges.

The future of the Central European nations will in many ways be linked with the enlargement of NATO to meet the new challengers of the post?Cold War world. As a result of reunification with the Federal Republic of Germany, East Germany has, in effect, become the first of the former Warsaw Pact nations to enter NATO. The four countries discussed in this volume ? Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia ? all have interest in joining the Alliance as well, and all have made commitments in varying degrees toward that goal. To understand why these nations are striving to meet the criteria for inclusion in a NATO enlargement program, and how well they are succeeding, one needs an appreciation of the political history of each nation since the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact. In this book, Jeffrey Simon, one of the most experienced and well informed analysts of Central European matters, offers just such a history. He begins with Poland's extremely complex and difficult struggle toward democratic government since 1989, reminding us of the violende done to Polish society and the Polish people earlier this century and illuminating recent political events that otherwise might seem merely chaotic. Then he traces the somewhat easier struggles of Hungary and Czechoslovakia, explaining with admirable clarity how these nations advanced along parallel but different paths, and why the Czech Republic and Slovakia have advanced at different paces since the 'Velvet Divorce' ?? the amicable separation of these two nations. This invaluable work ?? which has been completed with the cooperation and encouragement of the nations involved ?? stands as an authoritative, meticulously documented, and very timely history of the swift transition from socialist to democratic political principles in Central Europe in less than a decade.Ervin J. RokkeLieutenant General, United States Air ForcePresident, National Defense University

In 1999 three East-Central European states (Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic) gained membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Professor Barany argues that, once it began, the Alliance should continue the enlargement process. Nevertheless he maintains that only states that satisfy NATO's membership criteria should be allowed to join. Through an extensive analysis of four countries, Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia who, at the time of the book's original publication in 2003 were NATO aspirants, Barany demonstrates that they were in several important respects unprepared for membership and that there was no pressing reason for NATO's haste. Barany argues that while NATO should be clear that its doors remain open to qualified candidates, the Alliance should hold off further expansion until prospective members will become assets rather than liabilities.