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 Diplomacy of Pragmatism: Britain and the Formation of NATO, 1942–49
The Diplomacy of Pragmatism sets Britain's role in the formation of NATO, not in the context of orthodox, revisionist or post-revisionist approaches to the Cold War, but in terms of what has become known as "depolarization." This approach emphasizes the distinctive and leading roles of other countries, apart from the Soviet Union and the United States, in the early Cold War period. In focusing on Britain's role there is no attempt to be chauvinistic. The key role of other states in the formation of NATO is acknowledged. Britain certainly did not establish NATO single-handedly. Nor was British diplomacy wholly consistent or completely successful throughout ther period covered. Different strands of policy, focusing on the United States, Europe and a "Third Power" global role, struggled for pre-eminence. Foreign policy and global strategy were not always well-coordinated. Nevertheless, despite the failures, it is argued that Ernest Bevin, the British Foreign Secretary, made a decisive contribution to postwar diplomacy by his pragmatic and patient attempts to coordinate the policies of Western European states together with the United States and Canada. By 1949, a new system of European security had been developed in the context of rapidly changing domestic and international events. The author argues that, despite the differences, there are important lessons to be learned from postwar diplomacy by today's statesmen as they struggle to build another new European security system in the post-Cold War era.