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and allowed new member-states to spend less on security while modernising their
defence forces. Above all, it has meant that the small and militarily vulnerable Baltic
states can be reasonably confident that NATO membership will deter Russia from
intimidating, or invading, their countries in the current standoff between Russia and
NATO.
That said, it is also true that NATO expansion has contributed to – indeed, one can
reasonably argue that it has been the principal cause of – a dangerous geopolitical
struggle for influence in the countries to Russia’s West and South, above all Ukraine.
The Russian political elite is virtually unanimous in viewing NATO as Russia’s most
serious security threat and a direct challenge to its interests as a Great Power. It
likewise views enlargement as an unjust and unnecessary incursion into Russia’s
rightful sphere of influence, and EU expansion and democracy promotion as stalking
horses for NATO and Western hegemony in post-Soviet space.
One cannot know with confidence what would have happened had the Clinton
administration rejected NATO expansion in favour of a concerted effort to build a
European security architecture that included, rather than excluded, Russia. The
obvious mechanism for doing so was the CSCE/OCSE. As many Western foreign
policy experts advocated at the time, NATO could have remained in place, with a
reunited Germany as a member, and it could have assisted with the transformation of
post-Communist countries through a PfP-type program. At the same time, Western
governments could have worked with Russia to transform the OSCE/CSCE into an
authoritative organisation overseeing dispositions, arms control measures, monitoring
missions, and armed peacekeeping operations. Above all, the West could have
postponed enlargement unless and until a genuine security threat to Central Europe
emerged from Russia.
As is turned out, NATO enlargement eventually ran up against the countervailing power
of a resurgent Russia with a preponderance of hard power along its borders. It did so
first in Georgia in 2008, and it did so again in Ukraine in 2014.
References
Burns G. et al. (1997) Open Letter to President Clinton. Available at: http://www.bu.edu/
globalbeat/nato/postpone062697.html.
Chollet, D. and Godgeier J. (2008) ‘American Between the Wars: From 11/9 to 9/11,’
Public Affairs.
Ukraine and Russia: People, Politics, Propaganda and Perspectives