Future Nato Enlargement

Past NATO enlargement helped create a Europe whole, free, and at peace, but future enlargement, should it occur, faces a hostile and militarily revitalized Russia. This report examines the military requirements and resulting budget costs of extending NATO’s Article 5 commitment to countries such as Ukraine, Georgia, or Bosnia-Herzegovina, which are actively seeking NATO membership, and Sweden and Finland, about which there has been analysis and speculation about membership. Costs to the United States range from $11 billion per year to defend Ukraine to half a billion dollars or less to defend Sweden. The project recommends that NATO incorporate force requirements and cost considerations into its future decisionmaking.

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.

In this collection the leading authorities address the complexity of present day NATO, its inherent contradictions, and its current direction. The authors reflect on the significance of these issues for the alliance's future prospects, for Russia, and for European security generally. The Future of NATO looks at the conceptual and theoretical approaches that underlie the question of enlarging NATO's membership and the consequences of enlargement on international relations. It examines the policies of some of NATO's leading member states - including Canada, which has recently begun a two-year term on the security council - and deals with the issue of enlargement from the point of view of the East European candidates, focusing on Russia and its opposition to the current process. Contributors include Andràs Balogh (Loràn Eötvös University), Martin Bourgeois, Charles-Philippe David (UQAM), André P. Donneur (UQAM), David G. Haglund (Queen's), Philippe Hébert (Montréal), Stanislav J. Kirschbaum (Glendon College), Richard L. Kugler (RAND, National Defence University), David Law (Queen's), Paul Létourneau (Montréal), Jacques Lévesque (UQAM), Gale Mattox (U.S. Naval Academy), Marie-Claude Plantin (Lumière Lyon 2), Sergei Plekhanov (York), Jane M.O. Sharp (Kings College, London).

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.

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 central aims of the book is to present, in the form of a collection of papers, a variety of views on NATO from member states “formerly known as new”, and to assess in this context the prospects for NATO enlargement. Therefore, the book consists of two parts. The main objective of the first part is to present how NATO is now perceived in Central and South-Eastern Europe. Papers collected here offer an opportunity to reflect on the impact of the enlargements starting from 1999 on NATO functioning and evolution, roles, tasks and capabilities. The issue of how accession has transformed accessioning states will also be discussed. Last but not least, the perspective of “new” members on NATO’s future will be presented. The authors of the articles in this part mainly come from those countries that joined the Alliance after the end of the Cold War. The second part is devoted strictly to the topic of enlargement. In this part we asked experts from NATO members (both “old” and “new”), potential candidates and other NATO partners (including Russia, Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Sweden, Finland etc.) how they view the future of NATO cooperation with external partners in Europe and the prospects for enlargement of the Alliance.

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.