NATO Expansion: Strategic Genius or Historic Mistake?

NATO Expansion: Strategic Genius or Historic Mistake? 

http://nationalinterest.org/feature/nato-expansion-strategic-genius-or-historic-mistake-11114 

08/21/14

Eugene Rumer

NATO, Global Governance, Foreign Policy, United States, Russia

The crisis in U.S.-Russian relations over Ukraine reopens an important debate. Who was right?

Two decades after the debate about NATO enlargement pitted “NATO-firsters” against “Russia-firsters,” both sides have had reasons to say, “I told you so.” And they did. But with Russia and Ukraine poised to go to war with each other, it doesn’t really matter that they did. Little can be done about the escalating crisis in Eastern Europe, even though it was predictable and predicted.

NATO-firsters had a sound argument on their side: the Cold War is over. Europe is at peace. The Soviet threat is no more. Central Europe, that graveyard of European empires, needs help transitioning from its Communist interlude to market democracy. Unless NATO helps and takes the region under its wing, old habits will reemerge and Central Europe will once again get mired in its old internecine rivalries endangering the hard-won peace. NATO has to take the region under its wing; it has to admit new members. Otherwise, the alliance will stagnate and die.

But, Russia-firsters countered—Russia will not like it; not now, not ever. Russia is weak now and cannot do much to oppose NATO enlargement, but once it recovers a measure of its strength, it will act to counter any expansion. Russia is more important to Europe and the United States than Central Europe, and it makes much more sense to work out the terms with Russia than to make Central Europe happy. Besides, they added, it makes as much sense for an alliance in trouble to take on new members as it does for a couple having matrimonial difficulties to have more children in the hope of saving the marriage.

NATO enlargement, NATO-firsters replied, is not aimed against Russia. It is a move toward Russia, intended to bring the zone of stability and prosperity closer to its borders. Russia will eventually realize that NATO enlargement is beneficial and will accept it. And if it does not—too bad, it wasn’t meant to be. Expanding NATO now, while Russia is weak, is the right move anyway. It is a hedge against future Russian neoimperial resurgence.

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