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TOWARD A EURO-ATLANTIC COMPROMISE
VOLUME 4 ISSUE 7 NOVEMBER 1997
PUBLISHED BY THE CENTER FOR POLITICAL AND STRATEGIC STUDIES
Professor Hall Gardner,
American University of Paris
Despite its promises, the Clinton Administration has yet to publicly formulate a truly comprehensive and inclusive approach to security for all of Central and Eastern Europe, fully incorporating the security concerns of the European Union and Russia.
The Clinton Administration's plans to enlarge NATO's integrated military command into Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary fall far short of developing a truly comprehensive system of security. The costs of NATO enlargement could begin to crowd out overall resources available for the Partnership for Peace (PfP) initiative and the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council -- programs which have been designed to promote positive relations among NATO and non-NATO members. PfP and Euro-Atlantic Partnership activities, including joint training of NATO and non-NATO members, have been considered crucial to the success of comprehensive security, as the Administration itself has defined it. Although the Departments of Defense and State have these programs incorporated into their long range plans, they have not been included as part of the direct costs of NATO enlargement.
Moreover, the enlargement of NATO's integrated military command into Central Europe alone does not fully address the security concerns of the entire region. The security concerns of the Baltic states have not been addressed; neither have those of Romania and Slovenia, which were left out of the first round of expansion despite having been supported for "full" membership in the Alliance by nine NATO allies, including France, Italy, and Canada. The Clinton Administration's position has been to leave open the question of "full" membership for these states; yet by making what could be false promises, U.S. policy generates even greater insecurity for these states, and for those of the entire region.
The Clinton Administration has stressed both the dramatic "inclusive" changes that have taken place in NATO's strategic doctrine since 1991 and the new role of Combined Joint Task Forces involving non-NATO members, yet it still clings to a traditional conception of "full" membership. The major problem is that "full" NATO membership is, by military necessity, exclusive. Non-members, such as Russia, may be consulted, as outlined in the May 1997 NATO-Russian Founding Act, but they cannot be full participants in key military and nuclear-strategic decision-making. This is one factor that has worked to prevent the formulation of truly inclusive conjoint NATO-Russian security guarantees for the entire region, as has been urged by Moscow.
Accordingly, if NATO works to bring Central European states beyond an initial capability to conduct Article V security missions, as expected by the Pentagon between the years 1999-2009, NATO and Russia could begin to clash over the burgeoning defense capabilities of new NATO members. If a truly inclusive and comprehensive system of security is not implemented as soon as possible, an increasingly alienated Moscow could play upon the political differences among NATO and non-NATO members, forcing the Baltic states, and possibly Slovakia and Bulgaria, in addition to Belarus, into an overtly Russian sphere of influence and alliance. A new partition of Europe thus becomes increasingly plausible if Russia should then move to counter NATO's forward (and overexposed) deployment into Central Europe.
In the effort to create a truly comprehensive system of security in Europe, an alternative strategy should be considered, a "Euro-Atlantic compromise." It would consist of the extension of NATO security guarantees, but not its integrated military command, to a select group of core states, including Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, as well as Romania and Slovenia. This core group would play the major role in the creation of a wider Euro-Atlantic Defense and Security Identity under the separate command of the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council and in close cooperation with the NATO-Russia Permanent Joint Council, the Western European Union (WEU), and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).
In effect, this core group of states would be backed by NATO, Russia, and the WEU, and would work closely with their regional partners, such as the three Baltic states, Sweden, Finland, Austria, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Albania, as well as states such as Belarus and Ukraine, to form a regionally integrated system of security. Such a regional system could, for example, deploy Euro-Atlantic war-preventive forces of differing nationalities in key areas of potential disputes under a general mandate of the OSCE.(1) This proposal accordingly seeks to integrate all Central and Eastern European states into a common Euro-Atlantic Defense and Security Identity, backed by inclusive overlapping NATO, WEU, and Russian security guarantees, so as to help Central and Eastern European states overcome their historical disputes.
By providing a positive role for key Western European allies, this alternative strategy would help to draw France closer to the Alliance and would serve to mediate historical German-Russian rivalry in Central and Eastern Europe. NATO, the WEU, and Russia would conjointly prepare for regional reinforcement in case of conflict. The American commitment to regional reinforcement would not be as costly as NATO enlargement, but it should be adequate enough to help deter regional conflict. NATO forces would remain in the background, and would provide needed training and assistance to all participants in coordination with Russia, the WEU, and the OSCE, but would be ready for intervention if necessary, in the event that states such as Russia--or more likely, Belarus--drop out of any security accord. (As Moscow would actively and fully participate in the planning of such a system, however, it is less likely to be alienated.) Costs for the entire system of security would not be borne by NATO members alone, but would be more evenly spread among all participating OSCE and Euro-Atlantic Partnership countries.
Moreover, rather than offering "full" NATO membership in the traditional sense (which would require a difficult to achieve two-thirds majority in the U.S. Senate), a Euro-Atlantic compromise would redefine the concept of "full" membership in political and legal terms. All interested Central and Eastern European states could accordingly join this proposed Euro-Atlantic Defense and Security Identity, initially composed of a core group of five "full" members, plus all participating "associate" members, who could later join as "full" members depending upon the extent of their contributions. The extension of NATO security guarantees, but not NATO's integrated military command, to a core group of Central and Eastern European states would require a more readily obtainable simple majority in both the House and the Senate upon passage of a joint resolution.
The Clinton Administration has promised "full" NATO membership to Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary, yet nothing prevents Congress and NATO from redefining the terms of "full" membership. They could then implement a truly comprehensive and inclusive system of security for the entire Central and Eastern European region.
1. OSCE peace-keepers have recently been deployed in Albania, but the intent of this proposal is to deploy war-preventive forces (trained by PfP) in key areas of potential conflict throughout Central and Eastern Europe before, not after, conflict erupts.
Hall Gardner is author of Surviving the Millennium (Praeger, 1994) and Dangerous Crossroads: Europe, Russia, and the Future of NATO (Praeger, 1997).