NATO Chief, in U.S., Hopes to Buttress Transatlantic Ties

Newly appointed NATO Secretary-General Javier Solana begins a three-day visit to the United States today hoping to clarify the muddled debate on the future of the alliance.

In addition to meeting with President Clinton and other senior administration officials, Solana is expected to lobby congressional leaders on the importance of transatlantic ties and the need to back the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s controversial plans for eastward expansion.

Although supporting NATO expansion into former Soviet Bloc nations was the only foreign policy item that congressional Republicans placed on their 10-point “contract with America” two years ago, there remains little understanding among lawmakers that enlarging the alliance will cost money and extend U.S. nuclear guarantees deeper than ever before into Central Europe.

“I’m concerned about that,” Solana said in an interview. “We want NATO to enlarge, and this will require new resources.”

Unlike his predecessor, Willy Claes, who was committed intellectually to the importance of American ties to Western Europe but displayed a far less emotional attachment to the idea, Solana is a virtual crusader for strong U.S.-European ties.

In his role as Spanish foreign minister during Spain’s six-month presidency of the European Union, which ended in December, Solana was a key figure in negotiating a new U.S.-EU agreement aimed at reviving and expanding a relationship that seemed in danger of atrophying.

“When Americans and Europeans work together, they can do anything,” he said. “If we think the alliance is the center of this link, then we’ve got to maintain it, keep it up to date. And if we want to do that, we need to put more resources into it.”

During his visit, Solana is also likely to underscore the longer-term benefits he hopes will emerge from the NATO-led peacekeeping force in the Balkans, known as IFOR--including on-the-ground cooperation with Russian forces and those of other Central and East European nations.

“This is about turning theory into reality,” he said.