European Summit of Uncertainty : NATO: An alliance in search of a relationship

Russia has a historical fear of encirclement. Eastern Europe has a historical fear of absorption. Which of these fears, if either, should guide the United States as NATO debates whether to enlarge its membership?

In power-political terms, NATO, an alliance formed to deter Soviet aggression, would seem to be made only the stronger by the addition of new allies lying so near to Russia itself. The Eastern European nations themselves are eager for NATO membership. Lithuania has already requested it.

The opportunity to enlarge NATO, moreover, may be fading. Last August Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin said that he would not object to NATO membership for Poland or the Czech Republic. In October, having foiled a coup attempt in Moscow, he cautioned Western European leaders against expanding NATO. Wednesday, tilting toward the electorally resurgent Russian right wing, he denounced Lithuania’s NATO bid in the Cold War language of veiled threat.

Against the arguments of power politics, however, stand those of psycho-politics. If expanding NATO to bring it to the Russian border would strengthen the psychological appeal of right-wing extremists like Vladimir V. Zhirinovsky, then NATO should not be expanded. Russians like Zhirinovsky, yes, must be treated as the enemy, but Russia as a whole must not be so treated lest the prophecy become self-fulfilling.

Neither of these two courses is without risk, and it is unsettling that so basic a matter of U.S. foreign policy seems to have been postponed to the very eve of next week’s NATO summit. That said, the Clinton Administration has wisely recognized that time is, to a point, on NATO’s side. If the second policy is adopted and fails, there will still be time to shift to the first policy, for Russia is economically incapable of rapid rearmament. The Partnership for Peace that NATO will adopt is thus, by design, an ambiguous policy. It begins an association between NATO and Eastern Europe that can mature into either a collective security policy including Russia or a defensive alliance against Russia. Events will determine which option prevails.

Among NATO’s achievements is that it has kept its members from going to war with one another. An expanded NATO may eventually have that effect in an enlarged sphere. Without Russian backing, NATO has defaulted in the Balkans. With Russia in the fold, a NATO changed from a conventional military alliance to a continental police force may be able to do better in comparable crises that surely lie ahead. The moment, in short, is one of confusion and danger--as the resignation Thursday of yet other veteran U.S. State Department official over President Clinton’s Bosnia policy suggests--but also one of considerable gravity and opportunity.