Nato Enlargement During The Cold War

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.

This book analyses the expansion of The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) into the post-Soviet space after the end of the Cold War. Based on an extensive analysis of the literature and government documents, including doctrines, statements and speeches by the most influential decision-makers and other actors, it sheds new light on the geopolitical and geostrategic context of the expansion of the military alliance, and assesses its impact on international security relations in Europe. The first chapter introduces readers to the neo-realist approach and develops the methodological basis of the book. The following chapters provide a historical overview of the causes and consequences of two waves of eastward NATO enlargement. Special attention is paid to the annexation of the Crimea and to Russian hybrid-asymmetric warfare. Finally, thirty years after the end of the Cold War, the book notes a disturbing return to militarization in international security relations. To counter this process, the author calls for a reduction of current international tensions and a new policy of détente.

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.

Why did NATO expand its membership during the Cold War years, and what was its attraction to new members? This book locates the answers to these questions not solely in the Cold War, but in the historical problems of international order in Europe and the growing idea of the West. A wide range of sources is used, and the analysis looks at a process of neo-enlargement during NATO's inception as well as the formal accessions that followed.

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.

This book analyses the expansion of The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) into the post-Soviet space after the end of the Cold War. Based on an extensive analysis of the literature and government documents, including doctrines, statements and speeches by the most influential decision-makers and other actors, it sheds new light on the geopolitical and geostrategic context of the expansion of the military alliance, and assesses its impact on international security relations in Europe. The first chapter introduces readers to the neo-realist approach and develops the methodological basis of the book. The following chapters provide a historical overview of the causes and consequences of two waves of eastward NATO enlargement. Special attention is paid to the annexation of the Crimea and to Russian hybrid-asymmetric warfare. Finally, thirty years after the end of the Cold War, the book notes a disturbing return to militarization in international security relations. To counter this process, the author calls for a reduction of current international tensions and a new policy of détente.

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.

How and why did NATO, a Cold War military alliance created in 1949 to counter Stalin's USSR, become the cornerstone of new security order for post-Cold War Europe? Why, instead of retreating from Europe after communism's collapse, did the U.S. launch the greatest expansion of the American commitment to the old continent in decades? Written by a high-level insider, Opening NATO's Door provides a definitive account of the ideas, politics, and diplomacy that went into the historic decision to expand NATO to Central and Eastern Europe. Drawing on the still-classified archives of the U.S. Department of State, Ronald D. Asmus recounts how and why American policy makers, against formidable odds at home and abroad, expanded NATO as part of a broader strategy to overcome Europe's Cold War divide and to modernize the Alliance for a new era. Asmus was one of the earliest advocates and intellectual architects of NATO enlargement to Central and Eastern Europe after the collapse of communism in the early 1990s and subsequently served as a top aide to Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Deputy Secretary Strobe Talbott, responsible for European security issues. He was involved in the key negotiations that led to NATO's decision to extend invitations to Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic, the signing of the NATO-Russia Founding Act, and finally, the U.S. Senate's ratification of enlargement. Asmus documents how the Clinton Administration sought to develop a rationale for a new NATO that would bind the U.S. and Europe together as closely in the post-Cold War era as they had been during the fight against communism. For the Clinton Administration, NATO enlargement became the centerpiece of a broader agenda to modernize the U.S.-European strategic partnership for the future. That strategy reflected an American commitment to the spread of democracy and Western values, the importance attached to modernizing Washington's key alliances for an increasingly globalized world, and the fact that the Clinton Administration looked to Europe as America's natural partner in addressing the challenges of the twenty-first century. As the Alliance weighs its the future following the September 11 terrorist attacks on the U.S. and prepares for a second round of enlargement, this book is required reading about the first post-Cold War effort to modernize NATO for a new era.