A Partnership of Unequals Can Be Satisfactory to All : Europe: Promises of NATO membership won’t address security worries in the East.

At next week’s NATO summit in Brussels, President Clinton will propose--and the allies will unanimously agree--that the alliance offer to establish “partnerships for peace” with all the countries of Europe that are not now NATO members as well as with all the states of the former Soviet Union. This “partnership” approach, however, does not meet the security and political challenges we face in Europe; at best, it can only provide some time and rhetorical cover while we turn to the difficult work of fashioning an effective post-Cold War security strategy for Europe.

The partnership proposal is intended to deal with the following dilemma: How to use NATO to respond to the security concerns of countries such as Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic without strengthening the hand of the ultra-nationalists in Moscow who search eagerly for “evidence” to support their claims that the West is engaged in a new plot to isolate and encircle Russia. If Russia is excluded from NATO membership while Poland and Hungary are on the path to becoming NATO allies, how can Moscow avoid the conclusion that a renewed and enlarged NATO retains its traditional objective of confronting Russia? Conversely, why should Poland and Hungary find comfort in NATO membership if Russia--their primary security concern--is on the same path to becoming one of their “allies” in NATO?

The partnership concept skirts this dilemma by nominally treating all the countries of Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union the same, and by offering to form a NATO “partnership” with any that are interested in doing so. As described by the Administration, this “partnership” can also serve as an “apprenticeship” to becoming a full-fledged NATO ally: As a partner demonstrates that it can perform the same military roles as current NATO members and can meet the same political and economic norms, the door will be increasingly opened to NATO membership.

The problem is, the “dilemma” rests on a faulty premise: that NATO membership is the prize, the best--perhaps only--way to address the security concerns of European states. The “partnership for peace” simply reinforces that premise, complicating the task of redefining and reshaping NATO.

The partnership offer is intended as a response to the urgent pleas of Poland and others for strengthened security ties. Yet the prospect of eventual NATO membership loses its value when the possibility is open to countries such as Switzerland and Uzbekistan as well.

Indeed, “partnership for peace” confirms that U.S. deference to Russian sensibilities has now deferred NATO’s expansion to the East. While Poland, Hungary and the Czechs may eventually achieve NATO membership, by then the alliance may have become an empty anachronism.

The faulty premise gives rise to some potentially perverse incentives. By treating “partnership” as an apprenticeship to becoming formal NATO allies, the proposal encourages NATO aspirants to devote scarce resources to improving their military forces at a time when their fragile political systems need to strengthen their economies. Perversely, the security assurances they need now at a time of great political and economic vulnerability will instead be their future reward--if and when they achieve political and economic success.

There is a better way. Like “partnership for peace,” it begins by recognizing that while NATO expansion may be an answer to some other question, offers of NATO membership to the countries of Central and Eastern Europe exacerbate rather than resolve the current political and security problems facing the alliance. But in contrast to the partnership concept, which makes eventual NATO membership both the prize and the standard by which countries compare themselves with others, it would establish relationships with Russia, Ukraine and the countries of Central and Eastern Europe that are tailored to their respective needs.

A new strategy for security in Europe should include the following five elements:

* Preservation of an effective NATO. Both its security role and the strong ties between the United States and our European allies need to be maintained in the face of neo-isolationist impulses on both sides of the Atlantic. A NATO that is little more than a political membership club could strengthen the hand of reactionary forces by suggesting that an irresolute West could not respond to Russian expansionist moves.

* Establishment of a formal relationship between NATO and Russia. NATO membership for Russia is a red herring; it arises only because we have made it into a stamp of political approval. The commitment to collective defense, the central feature of NATO, makes no sense for Russia, which has the wherewithal to safeguard its own security and does not need Belgium to come to its defense. A formal security relationship between NATO and Russia, grounded in a mutual recognition of Russia’s distinctive geostrategic role and importance, by contrast, does make sense. Such a relationship could affirm that neither Russia nor NATO poses a threat to the other and formalize military cooperation in areas such as peacekeeping, nonproliferation, nuclear safety and security, as well as ensure transparency in military matters.

* Extension of formal security assurances by NATO to Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic, the three countries where instability would be the greatest threat to allied interests. Building on the promise of security consultations with “active partners” contained in the “partnership for peace,” NATO could formally state what already is the strategic reality: that an armed attack against any of them would be viewed as an attack on the peace of Europe. Such an assurance would respond to their security concerns without moving NATO’s military presence closer to Russia, and would avoid the difficult dilemmas associated with NATO membership.

* A new approach to Ukraine. There may be no greater proximate threat to the security of Europe than instability in Ukraine. NATO needs to offer Ukraine a security relationship that recognizes its unique character; for example, a formal agreement codifying a program of military cooperation. This should not be contingent on Ukraine’s relinquishing the nuclear weapons in its territory. If we tend to our broader security interests, we make favorable resolution of the nuclear issue more, not less, likely.

* Support for the independence of all the states of Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. This can be furthered by cooperation between NATO and these states within the framework of the North Atlantic Cooperation Council, in which they already participate.

An approach based on these five elements would directly and immediately address the security problems and concerns of post-Cold War Europe while avoiding irrelevant issues. This is the “partnership for peace” that President Clinton should bring next week to Brussels--and Prague, Moscow and Minsk.