America sovereign The most striking element of the April 1999 Washington Summit, celebrating NATO'S 50th anniversary, is the participation of the alliance's three new members, Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic -all former members of the Warsaw Pact. NATO's expansion into Eastern Europe is the strongest sign of the west's historic victory in the Cold War. The future of NATO expansion will be the most controversial question during the 50th anniversary celebrations. At the same time, it is an eloquent expression of the limits of the "European Identity" in strategic matters. Europe has been unable to make an autonomous choice on an essentially European question which directly concerns her future and her security. The future of NATO and its relations with Russia will determine the political and strategic future of the European continent, once 10 International Viewpoint #310 April 1999 divided by the iron curtain of bipolarity. The dice have already been cast, and they suggest bad news for the security of a continent which has spilt so much blood during the century now drawing to a close. Gilbert Achcar* The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) existed "to keep the Americans in, the Russians out, and the Germans down", in the famous words of the Organisation's first General Secretary, Lord Ismay. This well describes the perception of NATO in Britain's ruling circles.
From the point of view of the United States, NATO's dominant power, the same formula could be restated, in a more machiavellian language, as: maintain American hegemony over the countries of Western Europe, exploiting their fear of the USSR and communism, and arbitrate between the west European countries (which, even before the second world war, had been divided by all kinds of rivalry.)
This domination continued, without major problems, during the 1949-1990 Cold War. One exception was France's withdrawal from NATO's integrated military command, following Charles de Gaulle's 1966 decision. The end of the Cold War obviously posed a major challenge for an Alliance created in the collapse of the system of Communist states, the reunification of Germany within the framework of the (Western) Federal Republic of Germany, the collapse of communist power in the USSR and the dissolution of the USSR itself, the west faced a choice which, one might think, was already illuminated by the history of the 20th century.
In the face of the Russian empire, the great loser in the Cold War, there were two strategies, based on the treatment given to Germany, the continent's main loser in the two world wars.. The first option was the humiliation of the defeated power, with a vae victis similar to the 1919 Versailles treaty, or the integration of Russia into a Europe itself in a process of unification, as was done with Germany in the second half of this century.
Historical experience argues for the second option. Like Germany in 1945, Russia in 1991 underwent a radical transformation, rallying to the west's political and economic liberalism, which it had long opposed. This even seemed the best choice from the point of view of US interests, seen through a "liberal" perspective (in the anglo-saxon sense of the word, which is based in Adam Smith's pacifist aspirations).
And there is no doubt that such a strategy would perfectly reflect the Gaullist logic of a Europe "from the Atlantic to the Urals". The man who decided to partially withdraw France from NATO, so as to reduce the country's dependence on the USA, would, after 1991, probably have argued for the dissolution of NATO, and in favour of a Euro-Atlantic defence system managed within the framework of the OSCE, and based on a European defence system.
De Gaulle would have fixed, as an objective, the eventual integration of all the East European countries, including
----- pull-quotes on this page -----
* NATO Gia
and particularly Russia, into the European Union. He would have recognised the Franco-Russian and EuroRussian alliances as a possible rebalancing of Europe against reunified Germany, and the world as a whole against triumphant America.
Washington's decision to adopt the other, 1919-style solution can only be explained by a desire to exorcise the demon of Russian reintegration into a Europe which would no longer need America's strategic guidance.
In the face of repeated requests from East Europe's post-communist leaders, supported by German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, and "realists" within the US foreign policy establishment, led by Zbigniew Brzezinski and Henry Kissinger, president William Clinton, after some hesitation, ceded, and, in January 1994, proclaimed his desire to widen NATO so as to incorporate Moscow's former vassals in central and eastern Europe.
He confirmed the Alliance's nature as an anti-Russian shield, and provoked fury in Moscow.
The enlargement, Zbigniew Brzezinski and Anthony Lake, had put forward three arguments, in the New York Times, to justify the Clinton Administration's position on the eve of NATO's July 1997 Madrid Summit, at which the organisation decided to integrate three new states, Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic-all former members of the Warsaw Pact.
The first argument is curious: enlargement is "a necessary step to preserve the force of the transatlantic link." Why exactly should NATO expansion into eastern Europe reinforce the Euro-American alliance? This argument could be dismissed as pure rhetoric, except that in their second argument, the two former national security advisors unambiguously affirmed that "an enlarged alliance offers a hedge against the improbable, but real risk that Russia will return to its past behaviour. [The enlarged alliance] should contribute to the objective of preventing this from happening."
This second argument should really have come first. The existence of a potentially menacing Russia is used to justify NATO expansion to reinforce NATO-an organisation which has always existed to confine Russia. [l'endiguement de la Russie]. Backed into a corner during the animated debate in the USA, Clinton was unable to avoid stating the underlying postulate: "the alliance should be ready for other possibilities, including the possibility that Russia abandons democracy and returns to the menacing behaviour of the Soviet period.
This is a typical example of the selffullfilling prophesy. Clinton's strategy would obviously increase Russian hostility towards the Atlantic Alliance.
The prestigious names signing the open letter to President Clinton published before the Madrid summit were not wrong in this regard.. In Russia, NATO expansion, which is still rejected by all the country's political currents, will reinforce the non-democratic opposition, and play against those who are favourable to reform and to cooperation with the West.
It will push the Russians to challenge the whole post-Cold War settlement, and stimulate opposition to the START II and START III treaties within the Duma [Russian Parliament]. This is another example of the infamous "security dilemma", in which the measures adopted to reinforce security actually increase insecurity.
The decision to enlarge NATO to include former members of the Warsaw Pact, and the conflicts in former Yugoslavia, played a key role in squashing the aspirations to "a European security and defence identity" (ESDI) which had emerged around the European Union's Maastricht summit in December 1991.
The Clinton administration was split between "liberal" and "realist" camps. The president finally opted for an "intermediate" solution - though one perceived by Moscow as fundamentally hostile, NATO was to expand to the East, but Russia would receive meagre compensation in the form of the NATORussia foundation act, signed in Paris in May 1997.
In security and in economic aid, Russia's treatment is far from the kind of Marshall plan which the country would need to accomplish its transformation.
NAVY
The attitude of the Clinton administration is a perfect illustration of the dilemma described by one American opponent of NATO enlargement: on the one hand non-assistance of Russia created the risk of dangerous chaos or the growth of revanchism, and on the other hand the reconstruction of Russian economic power would resuscitate Moscow's regional hegemony, and restore the bipolarity [of international
NATO expansion was officially decided at the July 1997 NATO summit in Madrid. Washington restricted the expansion to Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary, against the wishes of European NATO states who wished to include other countries, including Rumania and Slovenia, in this first wave.
The decision of the Madrid Summit still had to be ratified by the parliaments of each NATO member state. Although the risks of the White House's strategy were mostly risks for Europe, the American parliament contained the greatest risk of rejection of the expansion
There was a great contrast between the intensity of the debate in the United States, and the hurried ratification of the Madrid accord by the various European
Only small minorities of parliamentarians opposed this very serious transformation of the continent's security system. Apart from a few untypical right-wing parties like Italy's Lombard League (a secessionist party in the rich north-east of the country), it was Europe's communists, notably the French Communist Party and Italy's Refounded Communists, and a few Green groups (there were splits inside a number of progressive movements, including the parliamentary fraction of the German greens.)
In Charles de Gaulle's homeland, both chambers of parliament approved the expansion plan after an incredibly short debate, given the importance of the
Even the RCV group, which includes the left radical supporters of Jean-Pierre Chevènement and the Greens, surprised their supporters outside parliament by approving NATO expansion, despite a few critical statements before the vote.
International Viewpoint #310 April 1999 11
* NATO
France's "Gaulist" president Jacques As well as the military command and Chirac adopted a strategy diametrically the State Department (now headed by opposed to that which his ideological Madeleine Albright, proud of her Czech father would have done in similar cir- origin), a considerable role was played cumstances. He promised to reintegrate by "ethnic" lobbies, groups representing France into NATO's military structures, Americans of central and east European and pleaded for an even wider expansion
Plus, of course, the defence industry, already hungry for the lion's share of the
On the other side of the Atlantic, President Clinton was obliged to devote reconversion market considerable efforts to the campaign for Moscow's former satellite states, which the ratification of the enlargement plan. would have to completely retool their After a long struggle Clinton won the armed forces, so as to make them two-thirds majority in the Senate compatible with NATO weaponry (the (required for modification of the principle of "interoperability").
In this epoch of neoliberal faith, country's international agreements).
Unlike in Europe, the US establish- when balanced budgets have become a ment was divided over the question, and sacred principle, the US Senate was there was a great debate in the quality much more concerned about the cost of press - which was itself divided on the this operation than the European question. The White House organised the countries, despite their efforts to cut intervention of all the lobbies that could public spending in preparation of support enlargement. European Monetary Union. Sweden