NATO at 60: The Post-Cold War Enlargement and the Alliances Future (Nato Science for Peace and Security Series E: Human and Sociental Dynamics)

205 Pages·2010·1.09 MB·English

by  A. Bebler

NATO AT 60
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Sub-Series E: Human and Societal Dynamics – Vol. 63 ISSN 1874-6276
NATO at 60
The Post-Cold War Enlargement and the Alliance’s Future
Edited by
Anton Bebler
University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Social Sciences, Ljubljana, Slovenia
Amsterdam • Berlin • Tokyo • Washington, DC
Published in cooperation with NATO Public Diplomacy Division
Proceedings of the NATO Advanced Research Workshop on “Young at 60”
Kranj, Slovenia
26–27 February 2009
© 2010 The authors and IOS Press.
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or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without prior written permission from the publisher.
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NATO at 60 v
A. Bebler (Ed.)
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© 2010 The authors and IOS Press. All rights reserved.
Preface
This volume is an outgrowth of the international conference which took place at Brdo
near Kranj in Slovenia on February 26–27, 2009. Entitled “Young at 60”, it was de-
voted to NATO’s round anniversary. The conference was prepared and carried out by
the Euro-Atlantic Council of Slovenia, with the support of the Slovenian government
and, as a NATO “flagship event”, also by the Public Diplomacy Division of NATO.
Most texts in this volume were based on the conference papers which were subse-
quently updated and edited. Two official opening speeches by Martin Erdmann, NATO
Assistant Secretary General, and Ljubica Jelušič, Slovenian Defence Minister, follow
this preface.
Since its inception in the summer of 1948 and during the six decades of its legal
existence, the North Atlantic alliance has been expanding in several dimensions: in the
number of member states, in the scope and geographic reach of its activities, in its ca-
pabilities and organizational complexity both on the civilian political and the military
side, in the width of its partnership relations with non-members, in the intensity of co-
operation with other international organizations (OUN, OSCE, EU, African Union
etc.). The concept of enlargement, however, has mostly been used in the literature nar-
rowly to describe (a) the long-term process of expanding the Alliance’s membership
and (b) individual steps, stages or rounds in this direction. Most co-authors of this vol-
ume use the term in the latter sense referring to several phases in NATO’s Eastern
enlargement, starting with the absorption of Eastern Germany in 1989–90 and ending
with the admission of Croatia and Albania in April 2009.
The Eastward expansion of NATO came about unexpectedly. It followed and was
closely related to another development unforeseen by most participants and expert ob-
servers – the breakdown of Eastern European communist regimes, the end of So-
viet/Russian domination in Eastern Europe, the dissolution of its most visible expres-
sion – the Warsaw Treaty Organization and the implosion and breakup of the Soviet
Union. A fundamental difference between the Eastern military bloc and NATO was
reflected in the facts that two Warsaw Pact members were in the past badly aggressed
by their alliance “protector” (1956, 1968) and that in 1990–91 several smaller members
demanded the disbandment of the pact and achieved it against the “protector’s” resis-
tance. On the other hand, the Western alliance since its inception has not experienced
anything comparable and not only survived the “Cold War” power contest, but won it
politically without a single shot fired. The next surprise to the members of the Western
Alliance was the pleas by Eastern European post-communist regimes for admission
into NATO. The Alliance’s initial reaction was rather cool. In 1994 NATO attempted
to divert the rush into a soft security association called the “Partnership for Peace”.
When the Poles refused to take it as a substitute to full-fledged membership, NATO has
chosen a delaying tactic. In 1995 for the first time in NATO’s institutional history the
explicit conditions for admission, called “expectations” were developed. A correspond-
ing elaborate system of qualifying tests especially designed for the Eastern European
post-communist states was subsequently upgraded by individually tailored pre-
membership preparation programs.
vi
The chapters grouped in the sections II and III present various aspects of the new
members’ experiences on the way to NATO. In spite of numerous similarities, these
experiences have differed very considerably in a number of respects. These included
the mixes of motivation, the degree of internal consensus among major national politi-
cal parties, the level of public opinion support, the sharpness of Russian opposition etc.
The next section deals with five states officially aspiring for membership, and also ad-
dresses the positions of several other post-communist states which have participated in
the “Partnership for Peace”, but the potential membership in the Alliance of which re-
mains a controversial matter. Two experts from Denmark and the Russian Federation
present their country’s attitude towards NATO’s Eastward expansion. Several subse-
quent contributions analyze the general characteristics and the consequences of this
important international development, which so far brought into the Alliance thirteen
former Eastern European countries.
During NATO’s entire institutional history its policy of enlargement has under-
gone considerable evolution, although the legal provisions contained in Article 10 of
the North Atlantic Treaty remained unchanged. The geostrategic gains (although still
important) ceased to be the overwhelming consideration, while liberal democratic con-
gruence and several other considerations gained in salience. This evolution started sur-
facing already at the admission of Spain in 1982 and became fully visible and explicit
after the end of the “Cold War”. Buttressed in most cases by the expansion of the
European Union, the NATO enlargement process has promoted the democratic transi-
tion in Southern Europe and strengthened young democracies in Central, Eastern and
South Eastern Europe. The Alliance has contributed significantly to the overcoming
ideological antagonisms, notably the sharp “East-West” divide. NATO has thus ad-
vanced the cause of united, free and democratic Europe. The former “Iron Curtain” had
expressed, however, not only the ideological confrontation between liberalism and
communism, but also and even more profoundly the power struggle between the West
led by the USA and the Russian-dominated USSR. This latter antagonism could not
disappear with the fall of communism in Russia, but only took a different, much milder
form as a new mixture of cooperation and conflict between the expanded NATO and
the Russian Federation. This relationship will largely determine the likelihood and the
extent of NATO’s further expansion into Russia’s “near abroad”, more specifically into
Ukraine and Georgia.
The final group of texts dwells on the prospects for NATOs’ further expansion into
the Western Balkans and the post-Soviet space, on the Alliance’s current dilemmas,
problems and challenges as well as on NATO’s future in the XXI century.
Anton Bebler
vii
Contents
Preface v
Anton Bebler
Chapter I. Introduction
Introduction 3
Martin Erdmann
Introduction 5
Ljubica Jelušič
Chapter II. NATO Enlargement into Central and North Central Europe
East Germany: NATO’s First Eastward Enlargement 11
Hannes Adomeit
Czech Republic 23
Tomáš Karásek
The Baltic States’ Rocky Road to NATO 29
Maria Mälksoo
Poland 35
Longin Pastusiak and Maria Wągrowska
Hungary 41
Gabor Horvath
Slovakia 45
Ivo Samson
Slovenia 49
Anton Bebler and Milan Jazbec
A Scandinavian Perspective 61
Karsten Jakob Møller
Chapter III. NATO Enlargement into South Eastern Europe
Romania 65
Alex Serban
Bulgaria 69
Plamen Pantev
Croatia 73
Lidija Čehulić Vukadinović
viii
Albania 79
Arian Starova
Chapter IV. Further Enlargement into the Western Balkans and the CIS Area
Macedonia 83
Lidija Georgieva
Serbia 87
Andreja Savić
Montenegro 91
Aleksandar Dedović
Bosnia and Herzegovina 95
Selmo Cikotić and Izet Beridan
NATO and the Balkans 99
Amadeo Watkins
Ukraine Against Herself: To Be Euro-Atlantic, Eurasian, or Neutral? 105
Jeffrey Simon
Russian Federation 117
Konstantin K. Khudoley
Chapter V. Strategic and Political Consequences of NATO Enlargement and
the Alliance’s Future
On the Geostrategic Aspects of NATO’s Enlargement 131
Ferdinando Sanfelice di Monteforte
On NATO’s Post-Cold War Eastern Enlargement 135
Justus Gräbner
The Capabilities of the New Member States 139
Bastian Giegerich
NATO’s Demographic Dilemma 149
Jeffrey Simon
Transatlantic Relations and NATO’s Future 159
Stanley R. Sloan
Crisis or Renewal 171
Istvan Gyarmati
A Moment of Truth 173
Michael Ruehle
Rethinking NATO and EU Enlargement 177
Ronald D. Asmus
ix
The Future of the Alliance 185
Theo Sommer
Author Index 191