Evaluating NATO Enlargement: From Cold War Victory to the Russia-Ukraine War

648 Pages·2023·6.784 MB·English

by  James Goldgeier, Joshua R. Itzkowitz Shifrinson

Evaluating
NATO Enlargement
From Cold War Victory to
the Russia-Ukraine War
Edited by James Goldgeier
Joshua R. Itzkowitz Shifrinson
Evaluating NATO Enlargement
“Casual observers of the “Transatlantic Relationship” likely read or heard few
criticisms of NATO enlargement, though these criticisms were indeed levelled.
The Russia-Ukraine war, the first large-scale interstate war in Europe since 1945,
suggests that something about the project did not work out as hoped. “Eval-
uating NATO enlargement,” brings together a diverse array of scholars who
are expert in every facet of the debate from, “was it wise for the U.S. from
a security point of view?” to “was it beneficial for eastern Europeans from a
democratization/liberalization point of view?” These analyses are informed by
deep knowledge of the region, close study of NATO as an organization, rich
accounts of the history itself, and theoretical and methodological sophistication.
The authors disagree about many questions. Because of their sophisticated treat-
ment of their disagreements, the book will be an essential resource for those
who wonder how we reached this tragic moment, and whether the extraordinary
extension of U.S. influence deep into Eurasia has proved an act of immense
strategic foresight or a major strategic irritant.”
—Barry R. Posen, Ford International Professor of Political Science & Director
Emeritus, Security Studies Program, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
“I so admire that Jim Goldgeier and Josh Shifrinson, who disagree profoundly
about both the motives for and consequences of NATO enlargement, teamed
up to bring together this serious collection of diverse arguments. This collection
is outstanding scholarship by many of the best thinkers about alliances and
international security. A great read, and a great teaching book.”
—Dr. Kori Schake, Senior Fellow and Director of Foreign and Defense Policy
Studies at the American Enterprise Institute
·
James Goldgeier
Joshua R. Itzkowitz Shifrinson
Editors
Evaluating NATO
Enlargement
From Cold War Victory to the Russia-Ukraine War
Editors
James Goldgeier Joshua R. Itzkowitz Shifrinson
American University University of Maryland
Washington, DC, USA College Park, MD, USA
ISBN 978-3-031-23363-0 ISBN 978-3-031-23364-7 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-23364-7
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Acknowledgements
This volume has a long history, especially if we count the years the two of
us have spent researching, writing, and talking about NATO and its post-
Cold War evolution. In early 2019, we had a conversation centering on
how dissatisfied each of us was with the debate over NATO’s post-Cold
War enlargement into Central and Eastern Europe. Enlargement remains
one of the most consequential international policies of the post-Cold War
era, yet the conversation over its consequences seemed stagnant. On one
side were critics who, to varying degrees, argued that NATO’s expan-
sion was a—if not “the”—primary cause for the downturn in U.S.–Russia
relations, had left the United States over-committed to a range of ques-
tionable allies (many of which were cheap-riding), and broadly failed on
its own to promote democracy and free-markets in areas formerly under
Soviet control. On the other side, however, were those who argued the
enlargement of the alliance was an unadulterated good given its impact
on Central and Eastern European security, success in promoting liberal
values, and ability to deter an increasingly revisionist Russia.
The two of us have different views on the matter—and, recognizing
that debate is central to intellectual and analytic progress, decided to
jointly develop a program examining in detail the consequences of NATO
enlargement. The goal was to, first, identify merits and drawbacks of the
policy itself before, second, comparing it to plausible alternative policy
options. Given the importance of the topic and the numerous issues at
play, we also sought to convene researchers who could speak to, inter
v
vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
alia, the impact of NATO enlargement on U.S.–Russia relations, on Euro-
pean security, and on NATO as an institution. The overriding hope was
to contribute to a more nuanced debate over NATO enlargement that
would both look at the past and offer insights for the future at a time
when transatlantic and European security is increasingly in flux.
To this end, an initial group of authors came together at a work-
shop hosted by Boston University in May 2019 and funded partly by the
Charles Koch Foundation (CKF). We are immensely grateful to CKF for
its financial support, as well as to Michael Desch and the other conference
participants for their comments on the papers presented at the inaugural
workshop. Subsequently, revised versions of the papers were published as
a special issue of International Politics in the summer of 2020 (“Legacies
of NATO Enlargement: International Relations, Domestic Politics, and
Alliance Management.”). Immense thanks go to Michael John Williams,
co-editor of International Politics, for encouraging and facilitating publi-
cation of the papers, as well as to Monica Achen for her tremendous
services copyediting the pieces.
So the matter rested for two years. Shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine
in February 2022, however, Anca Pusca, Executive Editor for Interna-
tional Studies at Palgrave Macmillan, reached out to suggest updating the
articles in the International Politics special issue for an edited volume.
In light of the war and the prospect of further enlargement (now to
Sweden and Finland), the original authors quickly agreed. Recognizing
that the special issue necessarily covered a constrained set of topics, we
also solicited additional chapters delving further into Russian views of
NATO enlargement, the dynamics of NATO–Ukraine relations, Chinese
views of NATO enlargement, and the internal assumptions undergirding
the enlargement process. The result thus updates and expands upon the
2020 special issue while suggesting pathways for future research—after
all, the topic is anything but exhausted!
Besides those acknowledged above, the editors wish to thank Ashwini
Elango, Project Coordinator at Springer Nature, and Mathru Srinivasan,
Production Editor, for helping move the manuscript through the produc-
tion process. Thanks also go to Agneska Bloch, Stephen Dyer, Jonathan
Hogan, Olivia Parker, and Adeline Perkins for their research assistance.
We are further grateful to Engelsberg Ideas for permission to include an
updated version of Vladislav M. Zubok’s chapter, as well as the Stan-
ford University Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and
the Brookings Institution for their support of this project. Above all, the
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS vii
contributors did a superlative job working on a compressed timeline while
keeping abreast of a fast-changing security environment; their efforts and
responsiveness are immensely appreciated.
Ultimately, having begun this project on opposite sides of the enlarge-
ment debates, we have found our ideas sharpened—if not altered—by
systematically engaging those with different views. So do we hope this
volume will inform scholars, students, and policymakers alike. This project
is not the final word on the legacies of enlargement, and we look forward
to continuing the conversation.
James Goldgeier
Joshua R. Itzkowitz Shifrinson
Contents
1 Evaluating NATO Enlargement: Scholarly Debates,
Policy Implications, and Roads not Taken 1
James Goldgeier and Joshua R. Itzkowitz Shifrinson
Part I Foreign Policy and Strategy Debates
2 Patterns of Continuity in NATO’s Long History 47
Timothy Andrews Sayle
3 NATO as a Political Alliance: Continuities
and Legacies in the Enlargement Debates of the 1990s 73
Susan Colbourn
4 The NATO Enlargement Consensus and US Foreign
Policy: Origins and Consequences 97
Joshua R. Itzkowitz Shifrinson
5 Myths and Realities of Putinism and NATO
Expansion 145
Vladislav M. Zubok
ix
x CONTENTS
Part II Great Power Relations
6 NATO Enlargement and US Grand Strategy: A Net
Assessment 165
Rajan Menon and William Ruger
7 NATO Enlargement: Evaluating Its Consequences
in Russia 209
Kimberly Marten
8 The Tragedy of US–Russian Relations: NATO
Centrality and the Revisionists’ spiral 251
Andrey A. Sushentsov and William C. Wohlforth
9 China Views NATO: Beijing’s Concerns About
Transatlantic Cooperation in the Indo-Pacific 283
Liselotte Odgaard
Part III European Security
10 Thank Goodness for NATO Enlargement 307
Alexander Lanoszka
11 Good for Democracy? Evidence from the 2004 NATO
Expansion 341
Paul Poast and Alexandra Chinchilla
12 Ukraine’s Bid to Join NATO: Re-evaluating
Enlargement in a New Strategic Context 373
Rebecca R. Moore
13 Every Which Way But Loose: The United States,
NATO Enlargement, European Strategic Autonomy
and Fragmentation 415
Paul van Hooft
CONTENTS xi
Part IV Organizational Politics and Debates
14 Assessing the Consequences of Enlargement
for the NATO Military Alliance 459
Sara Bjerg Moller
15 In Peace and War: The Military Implications
of NATO Enlargement 495
James J. Townsend Jr.
16 NATO Enlargement and the Failure
of the Cooperative Security Mindset 531
Stéfanie von Hlatky and Michel Fortmann
References 563
Index 639