A NATO That Won’t Ruffle Russia’s Security Feathers

The level of bitter recriminations over Bosnia within the Atlantic Alliance is unparalleled since the Suez Crisis nearly four decades ago. Only this time there is no unifying threat to impose a sense of urgency to the quest for unity.

What the Bosnian failure demonstrates is not so much the failure of the alliance as the penalty of evasion. It poses, above all, these questions: Is the alliance still important? And, if the answer is affirmative, will it be able to generate common purposes even in the absence of a strategic threat?

The oft-invoked “new world order” will only emerge, if at all, at the end of a period of instability, which is its birth pang. A vital Atlantic Alliance could play a crucial role in the resolution of its attendant crises, provided it is able to focus on its common necessities, as it previously did on common fears. If the enlargement of democracy is to have any operational meaning, it must begin with the Atlantic Alliance.

The nations of the Atlantic area need each other. Without the United States, Europe turns into a peninsula at the tip of Eurasia, unable to find equilibrium, much less unity. Without Europe, the United States will become an island off the shores of Eurasia, condemned to a kind of pure balance-of-power politics that does not reflect its national genius.

Some Europeans advocate European Union as a device to render the United States dispensable. In fact, a major U.S. role in Europe is a prerequisite for European coherence. It provides a measure of equilibrium by giving France a safety net against German hegemony and Germany an emotional harbor as European unification slows down, as well as protection against outside dangers and excessive European nationalism. Even Russia has much to gain from a U.S. presence, which is one of the best guarantees against the re-emergence of historic European rivalries. Europe by itself cannot handle the two most dangerous Russian contingencies: resurgence of nationalism or implosion.

Until recently, the Clinton Administration has been hesitant to give Atlantic relations their traditional priority. Many of its key members, having formed their political convictions during the Vietnam protests, viewed the Cold War as unnecessary and its institutions as potentially dangerous. Treating the North Atlantic Treaty Organization as a relic of the Cold War, they preferred to rely on Russian goodwill as the key to international order.

The Administration’s new emphasis on Atlantic cooperation needs to take account of a number of principles:

* The crisis in the Atlantic Alliance can be solved only by opening a dialogue on fundamentals; previous U.S. vacillations complicate the ability to restore confidence. But the task is not insuperable since, despite all controversies, the current NATO leaders all have a long record of friendship with the United States and, even in France, understand the need for a continued U.S. role.

* The structure of U.S.-European relations needs to be modified. With the military threat receding and the risk of political crises growing, the political role of the alliance should be given greater emphasis. In the security field, autonomous European military capabilities could prove in the common interest because they permit political flexibility in the application of Allied power.

* The most sensitive immediate issue is NATO expansion, which the Administration courageously put before the recent NATO ministerial meeting. But it must take care lest, in seeking to please every constituency and to respond to every pressure, it winds up in the same dead end as Bosnia.

The new U.S. proposal calls for an exploration of NATO expansion with each member of the Partnership for Peace, which is composed of all NATO members, the former Soviet satellite orbit and all the successor states of the Soviet Union, some 40 altogether. If this is anything other than an opening gambit, it will lead either to stalemate or to confrontation. Russia will either veto expansion or approve it only if Russia itself becomes a member. In that case, NATO would stop being a defensive alliance and turn into a system of general collective security similar to the United Nations.

Having started down the road of NATO expansion, the Administration must choose between the concept of the NATO Alliance, based on defining an area to be protected, and the concept behind the Partnership for Peace, designed to unite the former blocs. NATO is not the instrument to serve both purposes. Nor can the decision wait until an acute Russian threat appears. Pressures against NATO expansion will grow more insistent at that point, compounded by the fact that a skillful Russian challenge will be made to appear ambiguous.

NATO expansion represents a balancing of two conflicting considerations: the fear of alienating Russia against the danger of creating a vacuum in Central Europe between Germany and Russia. A wise policy, instead of pretending that Russia has an option for NATO membership, would take two steps. It would proceed with membership for Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary and reject a Russian veto. But at the same time, it would propose a security treaty between the new NATO and Russia to make clear that the goal is cooperation. Such a treaty would provide that no foreign troops be stationed on the territory of new NATO members on the model on the arrangement for East Germany (or no closer than a fixed distance from the Poland’s eastern border.

At the same time, such a treaty could provide for consultation between NATO and Russia on matters of common interest. In such a structure, there would be no reason for Russian security concerns. Going beyond it would grant Russia a right to create a vacuum around its borders, preserving the options of historic Russian expansionism.

Failure to expand NATO in the near future is likely to prove irrevocable. Russian opposition is bound to grow as its economy gains strength; the nations of Central Europe may drift out of their association with Europe. The end result will be the very vacuum between Germany and Russia that tempted so many previous conflicts. When NATO recoils from defining the only limits that make strategic sense, it is opting for progressive irrelevance.