Columbia International Affairs Online: Working Papers

CIAO DATE: 08/2014

NATO Enlargement Reloaded

Karl-Heinz Kamp

September 2012

NATO Defense College

Abstract

The dispute about who will become a new NATO member and when is set to make it back on the transatlantic agenda. Debates in the Alliance have for years been dominated by the operations in Afghanistan or the evolution of NATO's partnership approach, but now the enlargement question is coming up again and might lead to strong disagreements among the allies. All NATO nations certainly concur that the door for new members should remain open; the question is which countries should join the Alliance, and when?