NATO Expansion: Making the Case for the 2002 Summit
Abstract : This monograph examines the United States' position regarding further expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to include additional countries that were part of the former Warsaw Pact during the Cold War. This process has been evolving since the early l990s and has already seen Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic join the ranks of the alliance in 1999. The purpose of this monograph is to recommend a position that the United States should favor at the 2002 Summit in Prague, where the allies will address further expansion. This monograph begins by analyzing the history of NATO, an alliance that many consider one of the most successful in history, concentrating on NATO's evolving strategy after the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact in 1991. This monograph also explains why the United States must stay involved in European affairs and keep Europe as a cornerstone of our national security strategy. This monograph next analyzes lessons learned from previous alliance expansions and how the alliance has helped solve historic differences between countries, as in the case of France and Germany, or perhaps helped them at least avoid war, as in the case of Greece and Turkey. This section also analyzes the impact of the first round of expansion on the alliance and concludes with a brief country overview of each of the nine NATO aspirant countries. This monograph next evaluates the suitability, feasibility, and acceptability of the nine aspirant countries wishing to join the alliance.
The Future of NATO
Different from other institutions founded prior to the end of the Cold War, NATO’s existence is not challenged. The transatlantic alliance has undergone transformations and faces global tasks. But NATO lacks a concept to arrange and regulate the structure of the Alliance under new circumstances. In particular, answers are needed to the questions of further enlargement, NATO’s relation with Russia and the nature of the links between NATO and the European Union. A new approach is required to cope with the dramatic change in the global situation and lay down new tasks for the Alliance.
The Internet and the Changing Beijing-Taipei Relations: Toward Unification or Fragmentation?
Information and its technologies facilitate the exercise of what has been called “soft power,” a concept that differentiates information from the conventional dimensions of “hard power,” which is mainly associated with military force and economic influence. Soft power, according to Nye, a former Assistant Secretary of Defense of the United States, means that “A country may obtain the outcomes it wants in world politics because other countries want to follow it, admiring its values, emulating its example, aspiring to its level of prosperity and openness. In this sense it is just as important to set the agenda in world politics and attract others as it is to force them to change through the threat or use of military or economic weapons.”1