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NATO Cooperation with Former Adversaries: The Historical Record, 1990-1997
By Sorin Lungu
The North Atlantic Cooperation Council and the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council
The Partnership for Peace
The Process of NATO Enlargement
Final Remarks
End Notes
“As long as the U.S. aspires to be a European power and extends a security guarantee to key European countries. . . it will be inevitably concerned about major political and economic developments in Eastern Europe.”
Ronald D. Asmus
International Herald Tribune
March 2, 1992As NATO begins its fifty-first year, involved (at this writing) in its first armed conflict ever, the author, a former Romanian diplomat, addresses from an historical perspective NATO's "out-of-area" issue—adding new membership in Europe—and its bearing on US-German relations in Europe. Mr. Lungu contributed a comprehensive retrospective look at NATO developments in the Spring 1999 issue (Vol. IV, No. 2) of American Diplomacy. — Ed.
Since its formation during 1949-1950, 1 the North Atlantic Treaty Organization has achieved two fundamental results.
First, it “won” the Cold War without firing a shot. It proved also to be the most important aspect of a Western policy of containment of Soviet expansion that culminated in the collapse of the Soviet Union and of the communist governments of Eastern Europe.
Second, NATO provided the necessary security framework for the economic and political integration of Western Europe, which fostered European Union institutions strong enough to rule out war among states that had been fighting one another for over a millennium.
As the communist regimes of Eastern Europe began to collapse, NATO governments, led by the United States and Germany, undertook rapid steps, while avoiding measures that might alarm the declining Soviet Union, to deal with the desires of the new democratic governments of Eastern Europe for some degree of security assurance in a confusing new situation. Their objective was also to improve long-term chances for democratic government in the former Warsaw Pact states by transmitting to their armed forces and civilian leaders essential concepts from Western practice. This situation has increasingly obliged NATO to struggle with the problem of achieving its ultimate political objective, as stated in the 1967 Harmel Report: “to achieve a just and lasting peaceful order in Europe accompanied by appropriate security guarantees.” 2
Moreover, despite the fact that NATO is an intergovernmental organization in which national views must be reconciled, Germany and the United States played a decisive role in expressing the Alliance’s determination to construct a stable political order in Europe as a whole. In this process, two of the keys to stability in Europe are considered to be the Western relationship to Russia and the internal development of Europe’s society.
German actions have been embedded in multilateral frameworks, and have followed a strategy of diversification, balance and compensation. In the absence of a strategic threat, united Germany has acted as “a civilian power,” avoiding as far as possible the ways of a traditional great power and hence the use of force. 3 Conventional European (through institutions such as the European Union, the Council of Europe, and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe) and NATO diplomacy monopolized quite successfully the mediation between Germany and the Central and Eastern European states.
For some Americans, the new environment brought an implicit warning in the transatlantic bargain, namely that the United States might abandon its interest in European security. Such warnings were based on a complete misjudgment of Europe’s unique role as a key strategic region for North American security. Europe continued to play a vital role in the U.S. security calculus. The Americans need to stay in Europe: “every security problem which touches on the military great power Russia, every crisis which has even the remotest nuclear dimension, and every conflict which threatens escalation on NATO territory thus will force the United States to become engaged.” 4
It should be noted that the United States has a special interest in close German-American relations. It seems clear that partnership with the strongest nation in the heart of Europe serves U.S. interests in influencing European affairs. “Europe, and in addition Germany, provide a strategic base for the United States from which it can pursue its national and common interests in Western Europe, Eastern Europe, and Russia, as well as in the Near and Middle East.”
5
In this context, the Alliance launched in 1990 its new policy of “cooperation with former adversaries,”
6
a phrase that announced two new roles for the Allies.
7
“To pursue the development of co-operative structures of security for a Europe whole and free,”
8
NATO has established four new institutions: Partnership for Peace (PFP); the NATO-Russia Permanent Joint Council; the NATO-Ukraine Commission; and the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council (EAPC), which replaced the North Atlantic Cooperation Council (NACC) in May 1997.
This set of institutions tried to address at least two of the most important issues of European security in the post-Cold War environment:
Given that “NATO also provides a unique institutional framework for the Europeans to affect American policies” 9 and that “liberal democracies successfully influence each other, in the framework of international institutions by using norms and joint decision-making procedures as well as transnational policies,“ 10 this analysis could provide a better understanding of the two countries’ particular interests in establishing a new “concert of Europe” and of some of the rationales that led to the process of NATO’s enlargement.
Moreover, analyzing the German and American strategic decisions and actions in the development of this process might throw light on a larger question: whether this new set of institutions is an effective answer to the Old Continent’s security concerns or only “a diversion from the specific policy issues arising in the eastern half of Europe” and “from direct discussion of the vital interests, regional policies and needed military readiness of the governments in the Euro-Atlantic community.” 11 To achieve the mentioned above goals, it is necessary to examine, at a minimum, the following topics: 12
The North Atlantic Cooperation Council and the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council
In the post-cold war period, NATO has changed in at least three important aspects:
The NATO London Declaration of July 1990 cited the need for the establishment of a closer relationship with the CEE nations. In terms of concrete proposals, it suggested “military contacts” between NATO and Warsaw Pact commanders, “regular diplomatic liaison” between NATO and the states of the Warsaw Pact, and a joint declaration by the nations of NATO and the Warsaw Pact affirming that they were “no longer adversaries.” 13 In April 1991 the United States reaffirmed its support for the positive developments in CEE, but implied that countries in this region should not expect membership in NATO and/or explicit security guarantees:
European security is indivisible. The United States is committed to supporting the process of democracy, as well as the independence and sovereignty of Central–East European countries. . . . Formal military alliances and guarantees are not the sole measures of national security, nor the only means of filling perceived political and security vacuums. 14
At the June 1991 Copenhagen NATO meeting, the Alliance proposed the “further development of a network of interlocking institutions and relationships” with the former Warsaw Pact nations, including the Soviet Union. 15 During the debates for adopting the final communique of the meeting, German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher “in particular believed that deepening the contacts between NATO and Central and Eastern Europe was implicit recognition of NATO’s role as [a] stabilizing factor in Europe.” 16
In October 1991 Genscher and his American counterpart James Baker presented an initiative to put the CEE countries at ease by “strengthening and deepening co-operation” 17 in a North Atlantic Cooperation Council. Thus, the November 1991 Rome Declaration proposed the creation of such a body. 18 Consequently, on December 20, 1991, the NATO ministers of foreign affairs met with their counterparts from the former Warsaw Pact in Brussels for the first session of the NACC.
The first meeting of the NACC was itself of enough symbolic significance to ensure its place in NATO’s history despite a certain lack of substance. Moreover, occurring on the very day when the Soviet Union ceased to exist, it was somewhat overshadowed by this event. 19
During this first session, both Genscher and Baker described the NACC as a new pillar of the emerging European security order. It was intended to play specific and unique functions. 20 Among them it would serve as a forum for consultation with the “liaison states” on issues such as civilian control over the military and the conversion of defense industries to civilian purposes; it might also serve as a forum for negotiating further conventional arms control and confidence and security building measures; and it was suggested that the NACC could play a peace-making role in Nagorno-Karabakh and other contested areas in the former Soviet Union and CEE. 21
James Sperling concluded that, after the Copenhagen and Rome North Atlantic Council (NAC) meetings, visible change occurred in the Alliance’s fundamental tasks:
[M]ilitary principles are reinforced by an up-dated and reformulated Harmel doctrine, which was the prior touchstone of alliance policy. The dyad of detente and defense has been replaced with a triad of dialogue, cooperation, and collective defense capability within the alliance and the triad of dialogue, partnership, and cooperation among the member states of the NACC. 22
At the same time, NATO “sought to offer the former communist states some surrogate connection, just enough to keep them happy, but not too much, so as not to raise their expectations.” 23 Touted as ”a most ingenious invention,” and “with no particular thinking behind it,” 24 NACC was similar in its procedures and methods of operation to the OSCE, reflecting in a way the Genscherist belief “that strengthening the CSCE was a way to increase stability in Central and Eastern Europe, a vital German interest.” 25
In this setting, in order to achieve its post-1989 security objectives—to create a pan-European security system that integrates Germany into Europe as an equal if not a leading state; to accelerate the demilitarization of the European area in order to create an environment favoring German economic interests, a development that would increase German leverage with the other European states and minimize Germany’s historically dictated disadvantage in the military realm; to retain an American political-military presence in Europe as insurance against the failure of a demilitarized pan-European security structure; and, to ensure the integration of the republics of the former Soviet Union, especially Russia, Ukraine and Belarus in that pan-European order—Germany pursued a pragmatic policy to secure its immediate Vorposten.
Thus, Germany advocated the necessity of Western help for the CEE countries (especially for the Visegrad states-Poland, Hungary, and the Czech and Slovak Republics) in order to obtain the guarantees that they felt they needed for their own security and a stable domestic development. Germany’s prime interest was to establish a stable security space between its eastern border and the Russian frontier. 26 In this context, it also sought to engage the CEE states in European structures. 27 NATO was intended to become, in the words of then Foreign Minister Genscher, “a transatlantic security bridge for the whole of Europe, for the democracies of Eastern and Western Europe.” 28
These actions and statements were components of a strategy consistent with a foreign and security policy which, since German unification, “has been designed to deepen the traditional Westbindung (Western integration) and simultaneously widen the Euro-Atlantic structures to the East.” 29 From a German perspective it was natural to pursue such policies because, as Christoph Boer stated,
In the long term, no country will be able to derive greater benefits from intensified cooperation with the East than Germany. . . .And as no country is so directly affected by the threat of instability as Germany, no country must do as much to reconstruct the East as Germany. Germany’s interests and responsibilities demand this in equal measure. 30
In the German domestic political arena, relations with CEE and Russia in particular were perceived by public opinion in 1992 as the country’s top vital interest. 31 Despite broad support in some decision-making circles for pro-East policies, “the lack of strategic thinking of the political class becomes increasingly obvious. Unfortunately, the academic community provides also little help in this respect.” 32 Overall German policies before Maastricht and the collapse of the Soviet Union were prudent responses to outside challenges. After the above-mentioned events took place, however, “a more fundamental debate on European order and [the] German role within it began to emerge.” 33
It might be concluded that, at the moment when NACC was created,
A continuation of the postwar strategy of self-containment, which had complemented the American security strategy of double-containment and has had the (retrospectively beneficial) consequence of producing foreign and security polices that reflexively expressed German interests in the language of Europe or the Atlantic Alliance. Germany has offered to entrap itself in integrative and constraining political and military structures, despite a legitimate claim to European leadership by virtue of geography, demography, economic capacity, and latent military power. 34
From the American perspective the creation of the NACC was part of a larger strategy involving diplomacy and economics, in order to maintain a political-military equilibrium in Eurasia. It was in the U.S. strategic interest to promote a balanced configuration of power in this part of the world, presumably following from at least three specific interests:
The 8 June 1992 (Oslo) and the 18 December 1992 (Brussels) NACC meetings of foreign ministers proved to be turning points for the NACC because they “cleared the way for active co-operation between NATO and the partners in the field of peace-keeping.” 36 The NACC work plan for 1993 included the following activities:
Consultations on peacekeeping and related matters, starting in a brainstorming format at ambassadorial level, followed by ad-hoc meetings of political-military experts, as agreed by ambassadors, leading to cooperation among interested NACC members in preparation for peace-keeping activities, including: joint-sessions on planning of peace-keeping training, and consideration of possible joint peace-keeping exercises. 37
According to de Wijk, “The first brainstorming session of the ambassadors took place on 26 January 1993 on the basis of a German-American non-paper.” 38 As a result of these activities, in February 1993 the NACC Ad Hoc Group on Cooperation in Peacekeeping was founded. 39
The U.S. in particular believed that, starting from this group, the NACC could form the nucleus of a new security system. A structure needed to be developed which would enable the partners to take part in an operational “framework,” with NATO acting as a catalyst behind this development. “The Americans directed their endeavors mainly towards involving the Russians in all questions concerning European security in order to avoid a new division of Europe.” 40 The German Foreign Minister, Klaus Kinkel, argued for a more operational role for the NACC. 41 “There was consensus within NATO that intensification of co-operation with the Central and Eastern European countries could promote stability and security in the whole of Europe.” 42
Under these circumstances, the NACC activities (1992-1997) consisted in fact mainly of meetings—workshops, conferences, seminars, colloquiums, etc. The initial agenda was repeatedly expanded in annual agreed work plans, 43 and eventually encompassed topics such as peacekeeping, civil emergency planning, defense budgets and economic planning, air defense, military procurement, disarmament technologies, materiel and technical standardization, and communications and information systems operability. 44
Cooperation within the NACC was aimed increasingly at crisis control, and with the successful development of the PFP after December 1994, the Americans had “already maintained that the NACC had fulfilled its function, namely the demolition of barriers between East and West.” 45 From the German perspective, complementarity between the NACC and PFP was required in order to promote the salient features of German security and defense policy, as stated in the 1994 German White Paper on Defense:
As far as Central and Eastern Europe are concerned, Germany’s policy is thus characterized by three key terms: stabilization through cooperation and integration. These three factors of a forward-looking approach to stability are indivisible elements of a convincing overall concept. The transfer of stability will benefit everyone. Stability in and for Europe is the future crucial task of the Euro-Atlantic community. 46
In the new context, the center of gravity was shifting to topics such as peacekeeping, arms control verification, scientific and environmental cooperation, and the conversion of defense industries, and to an enterprise designed to be more inclusive than the NACC and to encompass activities in addition to meetings—the PFP. 47 Thus, a new institution was required. The NACC was replaced in May 1997 by an organization including all PFP and NACC participants—the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council, a new forum that would “combine the activities of NATO’s aging Cooperation Council (NACC) and the PFP Program.” 48
Warren Christopher, then U.S. Secretary of State, first proposed the EAPC on 6 September 1996.
We should involve our Partners in the planning as well in the execution of NATO missions. We should give them a stronger voice by forming an Atlantic Partnership Council. In all these ways, NATO gives us a foundation to built our New Atlantic Community—one in which all of Europe and North America work together to build lasting security, one that succeeds where all past efforts have failed. 49
A few weeks later, during the informal meeting of the NATO ministers of defense (on 25-26 September 1996, at Bergen, Norway), the German minister of defense suggested a merger of the NACC and PFP, and also suggested the aim of an enhanced PFP in order to minimize the distance between NATO members and non-members. 50 Thus, from the German and American perspective, this council “would be a body for consultations between NATO and the OSCE members,” 51 and, thus, at the NAC meeting in December 1996, the Allies “agreed to work with the partners on the initiative to establish APC.” 52
Upon its establishment on 30 May 1997, in Sintra, Portugal, the EAPC adopted the NACC work plan as its own, with a view to replacing it with an even more extensive agenda of topics for consultations. The EAPC’s founders, the NACC members and the PFP partners, declared that its establishment would be a “qualitative step forward in raising to a new level the dynamic and multifaceted political and military cooperation” already achieved in NACC and PFP, and that it would “make a strong contribution to cooperative approaches to security and form an enduring part of the European security architecture.” 53
Germany insisted that the concrete tasks and purposes of such a forum be clarified. At least two aspects require clarification from the German perspective.
First, the specific relationship between EAPC and the enhanced PFP remains unclear, as does the impact of EAPC on OSCE, which basically covers the same ground. Another question has to do with the impact of a proliferation of decision-making bodies on NATO’s decision making. 54
The EAPC is to be guided by the principles of inclusiveness and self-differentiation. 55 It will offer options for cooperation to Partners that aspire to NATO membership but that were not selected for the “first round” of enlargement and, in a formal sense, it is dependent on the NAC. At the same time it may illustrate the disadvantages of decision-making by consensus, which include the general risk of paralysis. The EAPC “is guided by the desire to soothe the disappointment of the unsuccessful applicants for membership by creating a whole range of different offers.” 56
In this setting, because PFP and the process of NATO enlargement represent essential elements in the Western effort to extend the pattern of peace and prosperity achieved by NATO in Europe during the Cold War to a larger area, they deserve closer scrutiny.
A variety of factors, which included persistent demands by the East Europeans to join the Alliance, 57 the unstable situation in Russia, developments in the Yugoslav crisis, as well as personnel changes (especially in the U.S. administration), contributed to the American and German actions in 1993 which envisaged “the birth of a new concept designed to meet the security concerns” 58 of the CEE countries and the filling of the security void which had been created in the heart of the continent. Thus, two significant initiatives dominated from that moment NATO’s and Europe’s security agenda: the PFP and NATO’s enlargement.
At the June 1993 meeting of NAC foreign ministers in Athens, Greece, Secretary Warren Christopher said that expanding NATO’s membership was “not now on the agenda.” 59 On 21 September 1993, Anthony Lake, President Clinton’s national security adviser, gave a major foreign policy speech in which he argued that “the successor to a doctrine of containment must be a strategy of enlargement—enlargement of the world’s free community of market democracies.” And he added, “At the NATO summit that [the] president called for this January [1994], we will seek to update NATO, so that there continues behind the enlargement of market democracies an essential collective security.” 60
Thus, during the summer and fall of 1993, the Pentagon, the State Department and the National Security Council (NSC) collaborated in Washington regarding the launching of a proposal that would develop and increase military ties between NATO and its former adversaries. 61 In September 1993, during the preparations for the announced summit the Americans proposed a solution in the form of a “Partnership for Peace.” “Rapid enlargement was not part of the plan; neither was strengthening of the NACC. This would be seen by the Central and Eastern Europeans as an implausible attempt to postpone their membership debate.” 62
Officials at the Pentagon unanimously favored the PFP idea. From their standpoint it “did not make sense to talk about expansion until after NATO had established the type of military-to-military relationships that would enable new countries to integrate effectively into the Alliance.” 63 The State Department suggested making the PFP “the centerpiece of our NATO position,” 64 while opposing any decision on enlargement.
On 18 October 1993, at the White House, after a meeting with his main foreign policy advisers, President Clinton endorsed the reached consensus that “at the January summit, the alliance should formally present the PFP, and he should announce NATO’s intention eventually to expand.” 65 The decision to develop the PFP was, for the moment, the Clinton administration’s NATO outreach policy.
In this context, at the informal meeting of the NATO defense ministers (19-21 October 1993, Travemunde-Germany), Les Aspin, then U.S. secretary of defense, presented for the first time a detailed proposal for PFP. 66 He sought to gain Alliance endorsement for the new project, and emphasized that NATO would not enlarge soon. 67
From the American perspective the PFP was intended to create the possibility of reacting quickly to potential crises in Europe by means of political consultations based on Article 4 of the Washington Treaty. 68 It would also be an agreement between the sixteen NATO countries and each “partner for peace,” and it was meant to offer the possibility of made-to-measure cooperation. It was also sometimes presented as an activity within the NACC, instead of a new form of cooperation. 69 Last, but not least, “the partnership was deliberately designed to enable member states to put off questions of formal enlargement and of NATO’s ultimate disposition in post-Cold War Europe.” 70
At Travemunde, German Defense Minister Volker Ruehe, representing a younger generation of Christian Democratic leaders, and one of the first advocates of NATO’s enlargement, 71 received the U.S. initiative positively. The Germans eagerly embraced the PFP, even though their interpretation of its significance differed from that held by the Americans. In a sense it “may come to represent for [the new] Ostpolitik what flexible response once did for collective defence: an agreement to disagree.” 72 Ruehe also “maintained that it must be made quite clear that this was not to be regarded as a surrogate NATO membership.” 73 At the same time leaders in Bonn understood that this initiative, despite its weaknesses, 74 was better than either “participating in central Europe’s local alliances,” 75 or reaching a deal with Moscow in order to keep the CEE region under control. 76
Under these circumstances, at the Brussels NATO summit (10-11 January 1994) the heads of state and government approved three PFP documents on the first day, namely an invitation to countries wishing to take part in the program, a “framework document” in which the framework of the PFP was sketched, and a “classified ‘Intra Alliance Understanding’ with the interpretation of the allies of the PFP.” 77 The PFP would function under the NAC; and Partners were invited to participate in NATO’s political and military institutions so far as these concerned PFP activities. 78
During the next few years the PFP won recognition as “without doubt a diplomatic invention of the first order.” 79 Some of its most important aspects were as follows: the 16+1 formula allowed each Partner to determine the nature and depth of the cooperation, which meant there was a certain amount of self-differentiation; 80 it made it clear to the CEE countries that NATO was concerned about their internal stability and security, without giving them a formal guarantee of security and without Moscow being able to accuse NATO of enticing these countries into the Western camp. 81
The activities of the PFP were to be coordinated with those of the NACC, so that maximum effectiveness and minimal duplication of the NACC work plan might be achieved. 82 PFP activities in the fields of crisis control and military planning, especially the planning of exercises, would have to be coordinated via the newly established Partnership Coordination Cell at Mons, which was to function under the NAC.
By the end of 1994, with the introduction of the Planning and Review Process (PARP) for the interested Partners, the emphasis within the PFP shifted from peacekeeping exercises to planning. 83 A Political-Military Steering Committee (PMSC) under the chairmanship of the Deputy Secretary-General was established and became the most active PFP forum. 84 The NACC and the PFP were formally complementary. The PFP concentrated on practical defense-related and military cooperation activities, while the NACC was the forum for broad consultations on security issues, including security-related economic issues. 85 Furthermore, the activities of the NACC and the PFP were being increasingly combined.
Despite the fact that “the PFP was very successful in bringing NATO and the Central and Eastern European countries closer together in the short term,” 86 the PFP aroused ambivalent feelings in some partners, especially the Czech Republic and Poland. 87 “On the one hand NATO seemed to have given the impression that the accession to NATO was imminent; on the other the PFP could be interpreted as an activity aimed at shelving membership.” 88
The East Europeans nonetheless welcomed the fact that, unlike the procedures in NACC, the PFP plan envisaged from the start a process of self-differentiation, since cooperation agreements were signed between NATO and individual countries. But there were suspicions about its long-term implications; it was feared that NATO might not honor the expectations regarding accession that had been raised in these dedicated PFP members. 89 Worried about potential embarrassment, before the January 1994 NATO summit to be held in Brussels, the U.S. administration dispatched senior officials to all CEE capitals in order to explain this concept. 90
The result was a subtle shift in emphasis: having been created as an instrument for avoiding a discussion about NATO’s enlargement, PFP was suddenly presented as a structure which 'neither promises NATO membership, nor precludes this membership'. And once PFP was in full swing, the same concept was presented as the road to NATO membership. Interestingly, however, it was not PFP which dictated either the pace of NATO’s enlargement or the timing of the process; PFP remained the necessary smoke-screen for an essentially political debate which was conducted within the alliance. 91
For Germany, the PFP was an excellent opportunity to work for the integration of the CEE countries into both NATO and the EU, not only to ensure security in the heart of Europe, “but also in order to spare the Germans themselves any new historic choices between East and West.” 92 Moreover, as a supplement to NATO’s PFP, Germany established close ties of military cooperation with its CEE neighbors on a bilateral and, in some cases, trilateral basis. 93 “Germany’s noises were heard, particularly in Washington, where the argument on NATO initially proceeded on a different route, only to reach the same conclusion.” 94
Finally, with the decision on enlargement ready to be taken at the July 1997 summit meeting in Madrid, the Alliance was preparing solutions to prevent the emergence of new “dividing lines” in Europe after enlargement. In order to give the cooperation with “non-Allies” a new and more profound meaning, NATO’s September 1995 Study on NATO Enlargement announced that PFP would become a more significant institution for strengthening security in Europe after NATO enlargement. 95
After a similar statement by NATO’s Defense Ministers in June 1996, 96 in April 1997 U.S. Secretary of Defense William Cohen underscored the need for the enhancement of the PFP, highlighting the central question of its purposes, including the types of “military contingencies” for which it should be prepared. 97 Thus, several measures to enhance PFP were announced in May 1997 at Sintra and approved in July at the NATO summit in Madrid. 98
Thus, while there will inevitably be a distinction between Allies protected by Article 5 and partner countries that do not enjoy this type of commitment, even in an enhanced PFP, NATO allies—the United States and Germany in particular—might give the PFP significantly greater substance and different form in the future. 99 This is a necessary step, because otherwise the decline of the PFP into a marginal role would be inevitable and its role as an instrument for reducing the security differences between Allies and Partners the might be compromised. 100
The Process of NATO Enlargement
Although Henry Kissinger and Ronald Asmus, among others, advocated NATO enlargement as early as 1991-1992, 101 the Clinton administration initially took up the policy of the Bush administration. “The latter was marked by the prevalent view that an enlargement of NATO to include eastern Central European countries, would be a provocation for Moscow and was thus out of the question.” 102 President Clinton initially followed this example, and thus the new administration began to discuss the problem in earnest in the autumn of 1993. 103
The Clinton administration was divided over this issue. National Security Council (NSC) adviser Anthony Lake was most receptive to enlargement. Partly because the defense budget and the U.S. military presence in Europe had declined, the Pentagon opposed enlargement. Furthermore, Secretary of Defense Les Aspin considered that until the end of the century Russia would not become a military threat to other CEE countries. Although no one in the State Department called for the early accession of new NATO members, Secretary of State Warren Christopher favored the view stressed that the Alliance was open to new members if they fulfilled certain criteria. But then he accepted the arguments presented by Strobe Talbott in October 1993, 104 which basically promoted the view that NATO’s expansion toward CEE would create new dividing lines in Europe, and fuel fears that the Alliance wanted to contain and isolate Russia. 105 The Clinton Administration therefore came to the conclusion that a carefully weighed compromise had to be found between consideration for Russia’s position and the desire of CEE states to join NATO; and this compromise was the PFP.
Criticism of the PFP by, among others, still prominent voices such as Kissinger and Brzezinski, pressure from the “Polish-American Congress,” and the fact that the Republican-led Congress discovered that the issue of NATO enlargement was a welcome vehicle for criticizing the administration’s “Russia-first” policy pushed President Clinton to accelerate efforts to define the concept of NATO enlargement. 106
After President Clinton’s remarks in July 1994 in Warsaw 107 and the involvement of Richard Holbrooke 108 in the enlargement debate in September 1994, the administration emphasized that the demand for a contribution to collective defense and for inter operability with NATO armed forces were criteria for early NATO membership. In addition, the acceding countries had to introduce democracy and establish a market economy and be willing to accept consensus decision making in NATO. There would be no rigid timetables; all applications for membership would be individually examined. 109
On the German side, despite the fact that Defense Minister Ruhe repeatedly called for a discussion of NATO enlargement in the spring of 1993, the main concern was that moving quickly to expand the Alliance would trigger a backlash in Russia that would endanger European security. As German Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel argued: “We cannot risk reviving East-West strategic rivalry. It would be tragic if reassuring some countries, we alarmed others.” 110 “Chancellor Kohl, as always the stickler for political correctness, sometimes hinted that he supported the idea and sometimes regarded it as ‘premature’, depending on whom he was speaking to.” 111 The German government was not pushing for the rapid expansion of the Alliance.
In this setting, in the run-up to the December 1994 ministerial meeting of the NAC, the United States proposed a six-to-eight-month study of enlargement. Germany, along with France, argued successfully in favor of a longer study and played a leading role in modifying the American proposal. 112 NATO subsequently decided to study the questions of “why” and “how” before tackling the questions of “who” and “when.” Thus, the answers to the first two questions were set out in the Alliance’s September 1995 Study on NATO Enlargement—a document that laid out seven rationales for enlargement. 113
The study reflected the summer 1995 debate on the long-term effects of NATO enlargement inside the U.S. administration. The administration hoped that the enlargement would have two effects: the consolidation of the new democracies and the prevention of big-power rivalries and spheres of influence in Europe. 114 Talbott, now Deputy Secretary of State, considered that the prospect of NATO membership might push reforms further in CEE and that various border and minority conflicts might receive a peaceful settlement. 115
Holbrooke tended to reflect the geopolitical perspective. 116 The U.S. engagement would be necessary also in the future in order to assure stability and a balanced relationship between the CEE countries and to prevent the resurgence of historic rivalries. The possible spread of unrest and destruction from this region to Western Europe raised serious security concerns. Furthermore, the uncertainty there had repeatedly triggered aggressive behavior by the two big nations on the flanks of Central Europe, Germany and Russia. 117
At least parts of the Administration, therefore, stick to the traditional logic which contends that Europe is threatened by old security dilemmas and rivalries if the USA fails to assume the leading role there. There is an unspoken underlying conviction that an unstable Europe has negative repercussions on the security and economy of the USA. A continuation of the policy of “benign hegemony,” therefore, seems expedient, in which the interests of other countries are incorporated into the definition of [America’s] own national interest. From this viewpoint, the enlargement of NATO is primarily attributable to the interest of the USA in a continuation of its role as a European power, not to any desire for the “neo-containment” of Russia. 118
The study allowed the Germans once more to repeat the official rhetoric of the enlargement process. Arguments in favor of near-term enlargement honoring West’s moral responsibility to democratic European neighbors were combined with those against early enlargement as a reflection of the debates that took place in the traditional German classe politique. Thus, considerations such as projecting stability eastward, not allowing Russia a veto over NATO’s security arrangements, fulfilling the West’s moral responsibility to democratic European neighbors, and providing a framework for the long-term consolidation of democratization and free-market economic reform and for more effective resolution of minority and border disputes among CEE countries were opposed to the risks of provoking nationalist reactions in Russia and the paralysis of NATO’s decision-making abilities, the importation of new instabilities into the Alliance in the form of minority and border disputes, and the drawing of new dividing lines in Europe. 119
Moreover, the official rhetoric also brought together, as any document of German foreign or security policy that involves the overlapping responsibilities of the ministries of foreign affairs and defense, as well as the pervasive overall responsibility of the Chancellor’s Office, the divergent positions among the Kohl-Kinkel-Ruhe troika. 120
For Germany, integration of the CEE countries in Western security structures was the main aim. Thus, the study reflected Germany’s request not to regard the geographical enlargement of the security guarantee as an aim of enlargement, but as the result of membership 121 and Germany’s interest in establishing a clear link between integration, stability and peaceful relations. 122 This attitude, which represented generally far more grounds for skepticism than support, characterized also the analyses on NATO enlargement published by German experts in Britain and the United States. 123 However, in NATO Europe Germany was probably the strongest proponent of enlargement.
It should be also noted that “the development of American policy with regard to NATO enlargement was strongly influenced by domestic policy aspects” 124 in which pressure from the Congress played a major role. At least three factors were decisive in shaping the decision to formally invite the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland at the NATO summit in Madrid in July 1997 to begin accession talks with a view to signing protocols of accession in December 1997 and completing the ratification process in “time for membership to become effective by the 50th anniversary of the Washington Treaty in April 1999.” 125
First, Senator Richard Lugar and others expressed concern about the United States’s leadership role in Europe and the continued existence of NATO. His motto “out of area or out of business” encompassed NATO’s extension and the assumption of new tasks.
Second, the surge for “neo-containment” had its influence. The call for NATO enlargement become louder following growing doubts in 1994 about Russia’s willingness to cooperate (especially the difficulties regarding the acceptance of the PFP initiative and the ratification of the SALT II Treaty). 126
Third, domestic politics and both presidential and congressional elections had their particular input. The Republicans wanted to dissociate themselves from Clinton’s “Russia first” policy and, at the same time, to win votes from the Americans of Polish, Czech and Hungarian origin. The prevention of a “second Yalta” became their favorite slogan, targeting especially “those sixteen states in which 6 to 18 percent of the population are of eastern Central European and Eastern European origin.” 127
Taking into account the plurality of ideas in American political debates and the fact that there is often a high degree of congruence between public opinion and political decisions—not only in the field of foreign policy, but in the United States as a whole—the following overview might provide a more accurate picture of the NATO enlargement debate and its final result in the Congress:
Despite the lopsided 82-13 Senate vote in favor of ratification of the North Atlantic Treaty, the Truman administration faced opposition from three elements: isolationists, defense hawks, and liberal internationalists. This political triangle shows signs of forming again, possibly more potently that in 1949. 128
On the German side, from the beginning there “has never been much open criticism or strong public opinion against the idea itself.” 129 Acknowledging that NATO enlargement serves Germany’s political, strategic, and moral interests, the parliamentary groups of the ruling coalition parties (Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union—CDU/CSU Demokratische Union and Free Democratic Party-FDP) in the Bundestag, as well as those of the Social Democratic Party—SPD (notwithstanding a dissenting minority of pacifists), strongly supported enlargement. The Green Party Coalition ‘90 (with a strong anti-NATO history) was deeply split between the anti-NATO faction and the one that has seen enlargement as the lesser evil, while the only opposing party remained the Party of Democratic Socialism—PDS (the heir of the former Socialist Unity Party/Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands—SED). 130
Thus, “German ratification of NATO enlargement is likely to give raise to little argument and be concluded by the early summer 1998, before parliament goes into recess and the heated phase of the national election campaign begins.” 131
After the 1989 events in CEE, the changing strategic landscape attracted Europe’s attention. The Cold War concern about instability at the heart of a partitioned Germany and a divided continent was supplanted by anxiety over potential instability centered along two geographic arcs running along the periphery of the continent. One was the Eastern arc, running from the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe south between Germany and Russia through the Balkans to the Black Sea. The other one was the Southern arc, running through North Africa and the Mediterranean into Turkey and including the Greater Middle East region. 132
In this context, the NACC was established at the end of 1991 to provide a link between the NATO countries and the former Warsaw Pact states. It was not originally envisaged as an all-European organization with membership that would include neutral and non-aligned nations of Europe.
NACC had a special role in helping to manage the allocation of conventional force reductions among the states of the former Soviet Union. It has also become a forum for exchanging information among the NATO and former WTO [Warsaw Treaty Organization] countries on many types of security issues, including peacekeeping. 133
The PFP, “initially designed to postpone the pressing requests of Central and Eastern European countries for NATO membership,” 134 proved its success as the provider of a tailored menu of options for engagement according to the preferences of each partner and as a unique experiment in peacekeeping (Bosnia). Both NACC (through multilateral channels) and PFP (by developing bilateral activities) laid the political groundwork for possible NATO enlargement. 135
These initiatives proved that German and American interests overlap in Eastern Europe—the two countries wanting this region to remain as stable as possible. “As long as the U.S. aspires to be a European power and extends a security guarantee to key European countries, above all Germany, it will be inevitably concerned about major political and economic developments in Eastern Europe.” 136 Thus, their policies toward the region were closely coordinated and “Germany is destined to become [from the U.S. perspective] the major political and economic actor in the region.” 137
After the end of the Cold War, the “US has retained its normative principles — democracy and free-market economics — as well as its claim to global leadership; its methods of implementation have changed.” 138 The Clinton administration is following a strategy of “engagement and enlargement” 139 that aims at the further integration of states and regions into the democratic and free-market structure of the West. At the same time, it has given up its primary focus on Europe. This focus was the result of the political and military conflict with the Soviet Union and served America’s policy of containment. In the new environment, for the United States, “[a]lliances have become instruments for achieving certain political goals, and allies are seen as partners in burden-sharing.” 140
“In this respect the Americans have great expectations for Germany which the present administration views as the most powerful partner in Europe due to its demographic potential, stable political structure and economic power.” 141 Thus, “[i]n the balance between threats and capacities at the crux of security, Germany will increasingly contribute to the capacities of an alliance for common defense while driving the economic engine of Europe.” 142 Moreover, in order to avoid a German-Russian security competition in CEE, 143 the United States had to address Germany’s security concerns. 144 These might be considered the essential and decisive points in understanding “who,” “when” and “why” in the process of NATO enlargement.
However, “the appeal by the Central Europeans to erase the line drawn for them in 1945, the need to demonstrate U.S. leadership at the time when others questioned it, the domestic political consensus, and his own Wilsonian orientation toward spreading liberalism combined” 145 were also important factors which encouraged President Clinton to push for NATO’s enlargement toward CEE after mid-1994.
With the overcoming of the division of Europe and the regaining of its full sovereignty Germany has returned to the international stage. “Germany is Europe’s central power.” 146 Thus, Germany increasingly asserted its preferences regarding the future of CEE after 1989 and it tried to define the parameters of its post-Cold War relationship with the Americans. Bonn wanted more economic and political investment in CEE than Washington was ready to allocate. When the United States was unable to articulate a strategy for Europe, it looked to Bonn to take the lead.
Germany also needs to cooperate closely with the Americans. In Europe the United States continues to represent a factor of stability. U.S. engagement relieves the concerns of some of Germany’s neighbors that Germany could strive to attain a hegemonic position in Europe. 147 It also makes Germany’s leading economic role politically acceptable to other European states. However, this only operates under the condition that the U.S. “balancing function” is not directed against German policy. 148 This might become an issue in German politics in the future.
In order to avoid such a perspective, with Bush’s invitation to establish a German-American “partnership in leadership” 149 and Clinton’s view that “America has no better friend than Chancellor Kohl,” 150 “Germany, rather than the UK, began to act as America’s senior partner. This role found its expression in joint initiatives such as the proposal for the North Atlantic Cooperation Council (NACC) and NATO’s Partnership for Peace program.” 151
The complementarity shown by Germany and the United States during the process of NATO enlargement proved that they have overcome some difficult moments in their relations during 1990-1992. Taking into account the fact that the hallmark of a special relationship is the ability to overcome crises, the two countries proved that they can remain pivotal partners (both to each other and to the international community) as long they are able to refashion in strategic terms their new security “bargain.”
In order to accommodate these new requirements, a “layer-cake” that reflected German interests was developed.
Germany aimed to create interlinked layers of stability with a fully integrated core Europe at the center, surrounded by a layer of bilateral and multilateral affiliation agreements with eastern Europe, combined with a second layer of strong bilateral and multilateral support for Russia. This order would be secured by a transatlantic layer of relationships with a deepened German-American central axis. 152
The Alliance’s decision to enlarge toward CEE, with NATO membership for Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic, will not address all the economic, political and social problems that the CEE region is facing. A complementarity between the European Union (EU) and NATO is necessary to solve the delicate problems of European security. Despite the fact that there are countless references to this complementarity in official communiques, only in the last two to three years has there been an acceptance of this principle in U.S. thinking.
An increased role for the EU in security policy, especially in CEE, is necessary, and the Americans need to develop a better appreciation of this fact. 153 This might be required because, “[t]he strategy of [NATO] enlargement was correct, but its execution was poor,” and thus, “ with a bit of luck, some of its negative consequences will not be permanent.” 154
The ability and determination of the United States to lead in the post-Cold War period also remain open questions. President Clinton has sounded Wilsonian themes such as: “It is time for America to lead a global alliance for democracy as united and steadfast as the global alliance that defeated communism.” 155 But it remains uncertain whether the transatlantic security relationship will survive the absence of the Soviet threat, the presence of a united Germany, and the erosion of U.S. Cold War authority. As Mary N. Hampton has asked,
Finally, is community-building in fact possible when unaccompanied by the objective of defense against an external threat? Assuming that community-building does remain valid for the recast NATO and trans-Atlantic relations, whose community-building scheme will be applied to incorporate the former East bloc? These are central questions that must be answered in the coming years. 156fs
Note 1: On the origins of NATO see Timothy P. Ireland, Creating the Entangling Alliance: The Origins of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1981), and Robert S. Jordan, with Michael W. Bloome, Political Leadership in NATO: A Study in Multinational Diplomacy (Boulder: Westview Press, 1979). Back
Note 2: North Atlantic Council, Harmel Report, 13-14 December 1967, par. 9. Back
Note 3: The German domestic debate over security policy is predominantly characterized by an almost total neglect of military power as an instrument of foreign policy. Back
Note 4: Michael Ruehle and Nick Williams, “View from NATO: Why NATO Will Survive,” Comparative Strategy, vol. 16 (1997), p. 113. Back
Note 5: Mey, “View from Germany: German-American Relations: The Case for a Preference,” Comparative Strategy, Vol. 14 (1995), p. 209. Back
Note 6: See the 5-6 July 1990 London Declaration and the 7-8 November 1991 Strategic Concept. Back
Note 7: The cooperation with former adversaries (and, increasingly, other non-NATO countries) will ensure complementarity with the OSCE in the Euro-Atlantic region and support an “open-ended” process of NATO enlargement. Back
Note 8: North Atlantic Council, Strategic Concept, 7-8 November 1991, par. 19. Back
Note 9: Thomas Risse-Kappen, “Collective Identity in a Democratic Community: The Case of NATO,” in Peter J. Katzenstein, ed., The Culture of National Security: Norms and Identity in World Politics (New York: Columbia Press University, 1996), p. 396. Back
Note 10: Ibid. Back
Note 11: Philip Zelikow, “The Masque of Institutions,” in Philip H. Gordon, ed., NATO’s Transformation: The Changing Shape of the Atlantic Alliance (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 1997), p. 88. Back
Note 12: A complete analysis would include also the German and American attitudes toward Russia and Ukraine. Back
Note 13: North Atlantic Council, London Declaration, July 5-6, 1990, par. 6-8. This declaration was made in Paris in November 1990, less than eight months before the Warsaw Pact was formally disbanded in July 1991. Back
Note 14: Paul Wolfowitz, then Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, Remarks at the Conference on “Future of European Security,” Prague, Czechoslovakia, 25 April 1991, pp. 3-4. Text furnished by Professor David Yost, Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California. Back
Note 15: New York Times, 7 June 1991. Back
Note 16: Rob de Wijk, NATO on the Brink of the New Millenium: The Battle for Consensus (London and Washington, D.C.: Brassey’s, 1997), p. 31. Back
Note 17: Ibid. Back
Note 18: After the summit the countries of the former Warsaw Pact, including the Baltic states, were invited to a meeting with the NATO ministers of foreign affairs to formally commence the new initiative. Back
Note 19: de Wijk, p. 63. Back
Note 20: The initiative provided for annual meetings at ministerial level in the NACC, periodic meetings with the ambassadors, extra meetings “as circumstances warrant,” and regular meetings with the Military Committee and other NATO committees. The meetings would concentrate on matters of NATO expertise, such as defense planning and civil-military relations. See North Atlantic Council, Rome Declaration on Peace and Cooperation. Rome, 7-8 November 1991, Sect. 9-12. Back
Note 21: Ibid., p. 21; James A. Baker, III, “US Commitment to Strengthening Euro-Atlantic Cooperation,” US Department of State Dispatch, 2 (23 December 1991), p. 903; Hans-Dietrich Genscher, Bulletin der Bundesregierung, 27 (12 March 1992), p. 264; Robert Mauthner, “NATO, CIS peace plan for Nagorno-Karabakh, Financial Times, 11 March 1992; Edward Mortimer, “Europe’s Security Surplus,” Financial Times, 4 March 1992. Back
Note 22: James Sperling, “German Security Policy, ” in Donald M. Hancock and Helga A. Welsh, eds., German Unification: Process and Outcome (Boulder: Westview Press, 1994), p. 265. Back
Note 23: Jonathan Eyal, “NATO’s enlargement: anatomy of a decision,” International Affairs, vol. 73, no. 4 (October 1997), p. 701. Back
Note 24: Ibid. Back
Note 25: de Wijk, p. 31. Back
Note 26: Helga Haftendorn, “Gulliver in the Center of Europe: International Involvement and National Capabilities for Action,” in Bertel Heurlin, ed., Germany and Europe in the Nineties (London: Macmillan Press Ltd., 1996), p. 99. Back
Note 27: Bilateral treaties have been signed between Germany and the former countries of the Warsaw Pact in the early 1990s with the intent to commit the German government to advocate EU membership for the countries involved. Back
Note 28: Hans-Dietrich Genscher, “Eine Vision fur das ganze Europa,” Bulletin der Bundesregierung, 14 (February 1991), p. 92. As quoted in Sperling, p. 266. Back
Note 29: Karl-Heinz Kamp and Peter Weilemann, “Germany and the Enlargement of NATO,” Center for Strategic & International Studies, Occasional Papers in European Studies (OP-97/23, September 1997), p. 1. Back
Note 30: Christoph Boehr, “At the End of the Post-War Order in Europe: In Search of a New Coherence of Interests and Responsibilities,” Aussenpolitik (vol. 46, no. 2), p. 5. Avalable [On line]: [http://www.isn.ethz.ch/au_pol/boehr.htm]. [30 January 1990]. Back
Note 31: Ronald D. Asmus, Germany’s Geopolitical Maturation: Public Opinion and Security Policy in 1994 (Santa Monica: Rand Corporation, 1995), pp. 7-9. Back
Note 32: Holger M. Mey, “New Members—New Mission: The Real Issues Behind the New NATO Debate,” Comparative Strategy, vol. 13, no. 2 (April/June 1994), p. 224. Back
Note 33: Hartmut Mayer, “German concepts on a European order,” International Affairs (vol. 73, no. 4, October 1997), p. 724. Ideas and arguments about the new role of Germany in international affairs in the post-1989 setting were exchanged in various political circles and foundations, in universities, think tanks (such as the Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik, the Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Auswartige Politik, the Bertelsmann Foundation, the Centrum fur angewandte Politikforschung) and in the quality media (most importantly the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Die Zeit and Suddeutsche Zeitung). However, compared to Washington, with its open competition among institutes, lobbies and political consultants, the practical influence of the German international affairs community on government policy was and continues to be limited. Back
Note 34: Sperling, p. 276. Back
Note 35: Samuel P. Huntington, “America’s changing strategic interests,” Survival, vol. XXXIII (January/February 1991), p. 13. Back
Note 36: de Wijk, p. 67. Back
Note 37: North Atlantic Cooperation Council, Work Plan for Dialogue, Partnership and Cooperation 1993, Brussels, 18 December 1992, p. 2. Back
Note 38: de Wijk, p. 68. Back
Note 39: Ibid. The work of this group progressed rapidly and as a result it prepared a series of reports in the next years. See, for example, the NACC meeting in Athens on 11 June 1993. Back
Note 40: Ibid., p. 69. Back
Note 41: Ibid., p. 70. The German position coincided with the French one and this was to lead to the “Pact of Stability” (known also as the “Balladur Plan”) which aimed to resolve points of difference between CEE countries by means of regional consultative forums, so that stability would be increased. Back
Note 42: Ibid., p. 72. Back
Note 43: This was also a result of the fact that since mid-1993 it was clear that the Central European states were no longer satisfied with the tactics of “prevarication” pursued by a mechanism of postponing decisions, in which NACC, at that moment, had great chances of being transformed. Eyal, p. 702. Back
Note 44: See NATO Handbook (Brussels: Office of Information and Press, October 1995). Back
Note 45: de Wijk, p. 87. Back
Note 46: White Paper on the Security of the Federal Republic of Germany and the Situation and Future of the Bundeswehr, 1994, chapter 3, par. 313, p. 42. Back
Note 47: See Robert Weaver, “NACC’s Five Years of Strengthening Cooperation,” NATO Review, vol. 45 (May/June 1997), pp. 24-26. Back
Note 48: Kamp and Weilemann, p. 12. Back
Note 49: Secretary of State Warren Christopher, speech in Stuttgart, 6 September 1996. Text from USIS Wireless File. Back
Note 50: de Wijk, p. 137. Back
Note 51: Ibid. Back
Note 52: North Atlantic Council, Final Communiqué, Brussels, 10 December 1996, par. 9. Back
Note 53: Chairman’s Summary of the meetings of the North Atlantic Cooperation Council and the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council, Sintra, Portugal, 30 May 1997, par. 3. Back
Note 54: Kamp and Weilemann, p. 12. Back
Note 55: Basic Document of the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council, 30 May 1997, par. 4. Back
Note 56: Kamp and Weileman, p. 12. Back
Note 57: In late April 1993, at the opening of the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., President Clinton met one-on-one with a series of CEE leaders, including the highly regarded leaders of Poland and the Czech Republic, Lech Walesa and Vaclav Havel. Each delivered the same message to Clinton: their top priority was NATO membership. Back
Note 58: de Wijk, p. 74. Back
Note 59: James M. Goldgeier, “NATO Expansion: The Anatomy of a Decision,” Washington Quarterly, vol. 21, no. 1 (Winter 1998), p. 87. Back
Note 60: Anthony Lake, “From Containment to Enlargement,” Lecture at the John Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, Washington, D.C., U.S. Policy Information and Text, no. 97 (23 October 1993), pp. 6-12. Back
Note 61: Goldgeier, p. 86. Back
Note 62: de Wijk, p. 74. Back
Note 63: Goldgeier, pp. 87-88. The PFP proposal was developed largely through the efforts of Gen. Shalikashvili and his staff, first as SACEUR and then as chairman of the JCS. Shalikashvili and Les Aspin, then Secretary of Defense, opposed expansion and, in particular, feared diluting the effectiveness of NATO. The Pentagon appeared to support a sequential approach toward enlargement: countries would participate in the PFP for a number of years and then the Alliance might start addressing the issue of expansion. Back
Note 64: Ibid., p. 90. Back
Note 65: Ibid., p. 91. Among Clinton’s top foreign-policy advisers, Lake sought to push ahead with expansion, Aspin and Shalikashvili sought to delay consideration of expansion and instead supported the PFP, and Christopher fell somewhere in between, open to gradual expansion but concerned about Russia’s reaction. Back
Note 66: de Wijk, p. 75. Back
Note 67: Goldgeier, pp. 91-92. Back
Note 68: The launching of the PFP program was also coupled with an increased U.S. involvement in the handling of the war in the former Yugoslavia, which ultimately led to a major U.S. and NATO engagement in the region. Back
Note 69: de Wijk, pp. 74-75. Back
Note 70: Charles A. Kupchan, “Strategic Visions,” World Policy Journal (vol. XI, no. 3, Fall 1994), p. 113. Whether the PFP should focus on each partner’s individual relationship to NATO or evolve as a broader multilateral undertaking in which partners would also build new ties with each other triggered US interagency debate during the planning process. The DOD, in contrast to the NSC and the State Department, was initially intent on restricting the PFP to a series of bilateral agreements between individual states and NATO. The Pentagon was seeking to ensure that NATO would retain complete control over the evolution of the PFP and feared that institutionalizing a multilateral framework might jeopardize this objective. All agencies eventually agreed that the PFP should be a multilateral undertaking. However, the Pentagon’s concerns continue to be reflected in the PFP’s focus on developing security cooperation primarily between NATO and individual partners. Back
Note 71: His early public remarks about NATO enlargement created quite a stir. Ruehe’s Alastair Buchan Memorial Lecture in London, on 26 March 1993, is usually cited in this regard: Volker Ruehe, “Shaping Euro-Atlantic policies: A Grand Strategy for a New Era,” Survival, vol. XXXV (Summer 1993), pp. 129-137. Back
Note 72: David Haglund, “Germany’s Central European Conundrum,” European Security, vol. 4, no. 1 (Spring 1995), p. 35. Back
Note 73: de Wijk, p. 75. Back
Note 74: The weaknesses included the following points: no relationship was established with NACC; PFP’s focus on military cooperation implied inadequate opportunities for broad-based political cooperation; PFP was insufficiently focused on intra-regional military cooperation; there was continuing ambiguity within NATO about how and to what degree to include Russia in partnership activities; and, PFP enabled NATO to put off difficult decisions about its future. Back
Note 75: Eyal, p. 703. Back
Note 76: William E. Odom, “NATO’s Expansion: Why the Critics Are Wrong,” The National Interest (Spring 1995), p. 41. Back
Note 77: de Wijk, p. 79. Back
Note 78: Partnership for Peace, Framework Document, Brussels, 11 January 1994, Sect. 3. Back
Note 79: de Wijk, p. 82. Back
Note 80: This differed greatly from the NACC, whose work plan applied to every one. Back
Note 81: After all, PFP applied to the Russian Federation too. Back
Note 82: In practice it was at first unclear how the relationship between NACC and PFP should evolve. Back
Note 83: The PARP was introduced in January 1995. It was based on a two-year planning cycle and was intended to increase interoperability between the partners. Cooperation was limited to humanitarian aid, search and rescue, and peacekeeping. Back
Note 84: This could meet, depending on the subject, in various combinations: the 16, the 16+1, the 16+several partners, or in a full NACC combination. Later it merged with the NACC Ad Hoc Group on Cooperation in Peacekeeping and formed the PMSC Ad Hoc Group. Back
Note 85: See North Atlantic Cooperation Council, Work Plan for Dialogue, Partnership and Cooperation 1994/1995, Brussels, 2 December 1994. Back
Note 86: de Wijk, p. 88. Back
Note 87: Ibid., pp. 85-86. Back
Note 88: Ibid., p. 89. Back
Note 89: Goldgeier, p. 92. Back
Note 90: This came as a reaction to President Lech Walesa’s threats, which commanded attention in the West, to reject the PFP agreement. Just prior to his trip to Brussels, Clinton sent Polish-born General Shalikashvili, Czech-born U.S. ambassador to the UN Madeleine Albright, and Hungarian-born State Department adviser Charles Gati to explain the administration’s policy and to quell criticism stemming from this region prior to the summit. Back
Note 91: Eyal, pp. 702-703. Back
Note 92: Ibid., p. 703. Back
Note 93: The Visegrad countries, the Baltic States and Slovenia were in particular offered military personnel exchange programs and military training and education programs, in addition to arms transfer arrangements. For example, the 1996 German defense budget allocated about 11 million-DM for such undertakings. See Kamp and Weilemann, p. 5. Back
Note 94: Eyal, p. 704. Back
Note 95: See Study on NATO Enlargement (Brussels: North Atlantic Treaty Organization, September 1995), par. 34 and 36. Back
Note 96: See North Atlantic Council in Defense Ministers session, 13 June 1996, par. 22. Back
Note 97: See Prepared Statement by William S. Cohen, Secretary of Defense, before the Senate Committee on Armed Services, 23 April 1997, p. 8. Back
Note 98: See NATO Press Release, “The Enhanced Partnership for Peace Program,” Madrid, 8 July 1997. Back
Note 99: At a minimum, according to some experts, “peace enforcement” should be added to the list of specified PFP activities. See, for example, Vernon Penner, “Partnership for Peace,” Strategic Forum, no. 97 (December 1996), Institute for National Strategic Studies, National Defense University. Back
Note 100: For a comprehensive analysis see Michael Ruehle and Nick Williams, “Partnership for Peace after NATO Enlargement,” European Security, vol. 5 (Winter 1996). Back
Note 101: Ronald D. Asmus, “Germany and America: partners in leadership?” Survival, vol. XXXIII, no. 6, (November/December 1991), p. 563; and Henry Kissinger, “The Alliance Needs Renewal in a Changed World,” International Herald Tribune, 2 March 1992. Back
Note 102: Peter Rudolf, “The USA and NATO Enlargement,” Aussenpolitik, vol. 47, no. 4 (1996), p. 1. Available [On line]: [http://www.isn.ethz.ch/au_pol/47_4/rudolf.htm]. [20 January 1998]. Admittedly, this was not stated publicly; the Bush administration maintained silence on the issue. Back
Note 103: Goldgeier, pp. 87-88. Back
Note 104: Then special adviser to the President on the successor states of the Soviet Union and a close friend of President Clinton. Back
Note 105: Rudolf, p.1. Back
Note 106: Ibid., p. 2. Back
Note 107: For President Clinton’s exchange with reporters in Warsaw after meeting with President Lech Walesa in July 1994, see William J. Clinton, Public Papers (1994), p. 1206. Back
Note 108: Talbott encouraged Christopher to bring Holbrooke back from his post as ambassador to Germany to be Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs in summer 1994, both to fix the Bosnia policy and to work on NATO enlargement. Goldgeier, p. 96. Back
Note 109: Speech by Secretary of Defense William J. Perry during the Wehrkundetagung conference in Munich, in U.S. Policy Information and Texts, 12 (2 July 1995), pp. 10-14. Back
Note 110: Klaus Kinkel, “NATO Requires a Bold But Balanced Response to the East,” International Herald Tribune, 21 October 1993. Back
Note 111: Eyal, p. 704. Back
Note 112: Michael E. Brown, “The Flawed Logic of NATO Enlargement,” in Philip H. Gordon, ed., NATO’s Transformation: The Changing Shape of the Atlantic Alliance (London: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 1997), p. 127. Back
Note 113: See Study on NATO Enlargement, par. 3. Back
Note 114: Warren Christopher, “America’s Leadership, America’s Opportunity,” Foreign Policy, vol. 98 (Spring 1995), pp. 6-27. Back
Note 115: Strobe Talbott, “Why NATO Should Grow,” The New York Review of Books, 10 August 1995, pp. 27-30. Back
Note 116: Talbot encouraged Christopher to bring Holbrooke back from his post as ambassador to Germany to be Assistant Secretary of State for European affairs in summer 1994, both to fix the Bosnia policy and to work on NATO enlargement. Goldgeier, p. 96. Back
Note 117: Richard Holbrooke, “America, a European Power,” in Foreign Affairs, vol. 74, no. 2 (March/April 1995), pp. 38-51. Back
Note 118: Rudolf, p. 3. Back
Note 119: See Karsten Voigt, "The Enlargement of the Alliance," Draft Special Report of the Working Group on NATO Enlargement, North Atlantic Assembly, November 1994. Back
Note 120: Usually the party coalition politics in Germany led to positions characterized by less than total coherence and by mild to serious discord. For a complete analysis of the different profiles of Kohl, Kinkel and Ruhe see Roger Morgan, “Foreign Policy and Domestic Policy,” in Bertel Heurlin, ed., Germany and Europe in the Nineties (London: Macmillan Press Ltd., 1996), pp. 152-178. Back
Note 121: This was an attempt to remove as far as possible Russian fears of enlargement. Back
Note 122: de Wijk, p. 91. In this way the importance of NATO’s internal pacifying function was stressed. Back
Note 123: See Holger M. Mey, “New Members—New Mission: The Real Issues Behind the New NATO Debate," Comparative Strategy, vol. 13, no. 2 (April/June 1994), Karl-Heinz Kamp, “The Folly of Rapid NATO Expansion,” Foreign Policy, no. 98 (Spring 1995); and Josef Joffe, “Is There Life After Victory? What NATO Can Do, “ The National Interest (Fall 1995). Back
Note 124: Rudolf, p. 4. Back
Note 125: Madrid Declaration on Euro-Atlantic Security and Cooperation, published at the meeting of the North Atlantic Council in Madrid, 8 July 1997, par. 6. Back
Note 126: The anti-Russian motive was strongly voiced by the conservative Republican Jesse Helms, the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Back
Note 127: Rudolf, p. 3. This was reflected, among others, in the new version of the National Security Revitalization Act (H.R. 7) adopted by the House of Representatives in February 1985, which includes (as Title VI) the NATO Expansion Act of 1995; the NATO Participation Act (adopted by the Congress on 2 November 1994); the draft version of the NATO Participation Act Amendments of 1995; and, the NATO Enlargement Facilitation Act of 1996. Back
Note 128: Jeremy D. Rosner, “NATO Enlargement’s American Hurdle,” Foreign Affairs, vol. 75 (July/August 1996), pp. 14-15. In March 1997, Mr. Rosner became the special adviser to the President and to the Secretary of State for NATO Enlargement Ratification. Back
Note 129: Kamp and Weilemann, p. 4. Back
Note 130: Ibid. Back
Note 131: Ibid., p. 3. Back
Note 132: On the twin arcs, see Ronald D. Asmus, Richard L. Kugler, and F. Stephen Larrabee, “Building a New NATO,” Foreign Affairs, vol. 72, no. 4 (September/October 1993), pp. 28-40. Back
Note 133: James Goodby, “Can Collective Security Work? Reflections on the European Case,” in Chester A. Crocker & Fen Osler Hampson with Pamela Aall, Managing Global Chaos: Sources of and Responses to International Conflict (Washington, D.C.: United States Institute of Peace Press, 1996), p. 248. Back
Note 134: Kamp and Weilemann, p. 11. Back
Note 135: Brown, p. 136. Back
Note 136: Asmus, “Germany and America: Partners in Leadership?,” p. 552. Back
Note 137: Ibid., p. 553. Back
Note 138: Haftendorn, p. 108. Back
Note 139: See A National Security Strategy of Engagement and Enlargement, The White House, Washington, D.C., February 1996. Back
Note 140: Haftendorn, p. 109. Back
Note 141: Ibid. Back
Note 142: Daniel Nelson, “Germany and the balance between threats and capacities in Europe,” International Politics, vol. 34, no. 1 (March 1997), p. 73. Back
Note 143: And the renationalization of Western defense and security policies. Back
Note 144: However, from the American perspective, one of the greatest threats posed to the U.S.-German relationship during 1990-1994 was the possibility that the mood in America might turn hostile toward CEE, at the time when the Germans were still inclined “to work” with Russia. Back
Note 145: Goldgeier, p. 101. Back
Note 146: Boer, p. 4. Back
Note 147: Nelson, pp. 66-70. Back
Note 148: After 1989, it might be argued, the United Statesalso tried to limit German power in the new Europe, by encouraging German involvement in NATO and European international organizations, while at the same time working with the U.K., France and other countries in order to limit the degree of German influence over those organizations. Back
Note 149: See President’s Bush speech, “Proposals for a Free and Peaceful Europe” delivered in May 1989 and reprinted by the Bureau of Public Affairs, Department of State, Current Policy, no. 1, June 1989, p. 179. Back
Note 150: As quoted in Karen Dornfried, German Foreign Policy: Regional Priorities and Global Debuts, CRS Report for Congress, 25 October 1995 (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Research Service, 1995), p. 23. Back
Note 151: Mayer, p. 733. Back
Note 152: Ibid. Back
Note 153: However, this is not a zero-sum game, in which one organization’s gain is necessarily another’s loss. Back
Note 154: Eyal, p. 719. Back
Note 155: President Bill Clinton quoted in Tony Smith, America’s Mission: The United States and the Worldwide Struggle for Democracy in the Twentieth Century (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), p. 320. Back
Note 156: Mary N. Hampton, The Wilsonian Impulse: U.S. Foreign Policy, the Alliance and German Unification (Westport: Praeger, 1996), p. 150. Back