The Pros and Cons of NATO Expansion

Abstract

Two contradictory views on the expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) into Eastern Europe are compared:

• Pro: Strobe Talbott, "Why NATO Should Grow," The New York Review of Books, August 10, 1995.
• Con: Dan Reiter, "Why NATO Enlargement Does Not Spread Democracy," International Security, 25.4 (2001) 41-67.

Three questions were developed to test the arguments presented by the two authors:

• Does NATO expansion increase security for the alliance against external threats?
• Does NATO expansion promote democracy?
• Does NATO expansion increase stability in Europe?

This paper will show that the arguments against NATO’s eastward expansion are weak, while the historical evidence supports the arguments in favor of NATO expansion.

1. About the Authors

Strobe Talbott was Deputy Secretary of State during the Clinton Administration. He is currently President of the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC.

Dan Reiter is Associate Professor of Political Science and Winship Research Professor at Emory University in Atlanta, GA.

2. Does NATO expansion increase security for the alliance against external threats?

Talbott makes the following case in favor of NATO expansion and increased security:

Collective defense remains an imperative need of European and transatlantic security, and central to American engagement in Europe. The end of Soviet communism, the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact, and the breakup of the USSR have eliminated the threat that NATO was created to counter during the cold war. But new threats may arise that would require NATO to protect its members and to deter attack. During the cold war, membership in the Alliance was limited by the artificial division of Europe into two camps. With the cold war's end, NATO should be open to the new democracies that have regained their independence, that share common values, and that can advance the military and political goals of the Alliance.

The evolution of NATO should reflect the evolution of Europe itself.... Freezing NATO's eastern boundaries approximately along the line fixed by Western and Soviet negotiators on August 13, 1945, would only make sense if Europe's cold war division was natural and enduring. But in fact, that division is becoming unnatural and anachronistic.[1]

An expanded NATO means more security for more Europeans. There is no threat to European security now, but there may be in the future (whether a reinvigorated and belligerent Russia might be one of these future threats is unstated), and so NATO should use the opportunity provided by the current environment of reduced tensions to build a larger and stronger alliance.

Three of the arguments against NATO expansion regarding security that Reiter poses are:

• The only foreseeable threat to Europe is a resurgent and aggressive Russia; however, NATO expansion "may jeopardize relations between Russia and the West," and provoke the very threat it is intended to deter.[2]
• "... Enlargement weakens NATO because the more members it has, the more difficult it will be to reach decisions."[3]
• "The states that have applied for membership are unlikely to make significant contributions to NATO."[4]

2.1 The Russian Reaction to NATO Expansion

Reiter’s argues that a resurgent Russia would be the only credible future threat to NATO, and that NATO expansion eastward might excite the very threat that it is intended to deter. "Expansion may jeopardize relations between Russia and the West, pushing Russia away from cooperating on issues such as strategic arms control and peacekeeping in the Balkans, and perhaps turning it back toward belligerence and even ultranationalism." However, Reiter demolishes his own point by observing that:

Other than among minority ultranationalists on the political fringe, Russia has exhibited no inclination to rebuild the Soviet empire through threats or force, especially against the states that have formally applied for NATO membership. This docility is easily understood for a variety of reasons: an awareness that empire pays no economic returns, the complete absence of a military threat from Western Europe, and a recognition that such action would devastate the emerging structure of Western-Russian cooperation. Although some foreign policy analysts have outlined scenarios of the ascension of Russian ultranationalists or the collapse of Russian democracy, the survival of an essentially mainstream Russian leadership and the failure of potential demagogues such as Aleksandr Lebed and Vladimir Zhironovsky to seize power even in the wake of the economic collapse of 1998 should strengthen Western confidence in the stability of Russian democracy and foreign policy.[5]

Reiter argues two related points in opposite directions, that NATO expansion will offend Russian sensibilities, but that it will not offend them enough or if it did, there is not much that Russia could do about it anyway. He thus weakens one argument with the other. One can reasonably conclude from this that NATO expansion will do little or no harm to relations with Russia, which increasingly sees its future as being tied to the West.

To what extent has NATO expansion radicalized Russian domestic politics? In the1999 Duma election, the ultranationalist "Bloc of Zhirinovsky" received only 5.98% of the vote (see Table 1).[6] In the 2000 Russian presidential election, Vladimir Zhirinovsky received only 2.72% of the vote (see Table 2).[7] These elections occurred not only within a few months of the formal admission of Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland into NATO, but also within a few months of NATO’s 78-day bombing campaign of Serbia, Russia’s traditional ally. Despite a great deal of heated rhetoric, there simply was no Russian ultranationalist backlash to these events.

Nor has there been much reaction to the current round of NATO expansion, which not only completes the entire absorption of the former Warsaw Pact (excepting Russia itself), but includes three former Soviet republics. After years of voicing opposition to NATO expansion, Russian President Vladimir Putin has bowed to the inevitable. On 25 June 2002, he characterized the prospect on NATO's second round of enlargement to include, among others, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, as "no tragedy". Mr Putin predicted that these countries joining NATO would not harm relations with Russia.[8]

Even more startling evidence of Russia’s lack of concern as NATO expands eastward toward it, is that Russia continues to allow the United States to assist in its own disarmament via the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Treaty Reduction (CTR) program. Through CTR assistance, the United States is assisting Russia to meet Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) elimination levels on intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), and strategic bombers earlier than Russia could do so unassisted.[9]

2.2 Enlargement and the Weakening of NATO

A second argument that Reiter raises with regard to NATO expansion and security is that expansion actually weakens the alliance:

... enlargement weakens NATO because the more members it has, the more difficult it will be to reach decisions. As NATO includes more states, it will become increasingly difficult to reach consensus, especially on the conduct of peacekeeping and out-of-area operations.[10]

Reiter makes a good point here regarding the increasing difficulty of reaching consensus on conducting operations that are outside of NATO’s central purpose, that of collective defense. However, it is arguable whether this actually weakens the alliance. A central doctrine of NATO is that an attack on one member is an attack on the entire alliance. In the more than 50-year history of the alliance, no outside nation or alliance of nations has ever challenged NATO’s resolve to defend one of its members. Based on that history, it is unlikely that there will be such a challenge in the foreseeable future. Were a member state to be attacked from outside the alliance, it is hard to imagine that there would be much delay in reaching a consensus, for failure to do so would destroy the credibility of the alliance. Logically, therefore, expansion does not weaken the central purpose of NATO. It is, however, a credible argument that expansion will make it increasingly difficult to reach consensus regarding operations that are not central to NATO’s primary mission. In a way, this can be seen as strengthening NATO; to the extent that the alliance is less likely to employ its awesome military capability in operations outside its purview, other nations will be less likely to see NATO as an offensive threat. The expansion of NATO enhances its defensive nature. It is small wonder then, that as Reiter admits, Russia sees "the complete absence of a military threat from Western Europe."[11]

2.3 Significant Contributions by New Members

A third point that Reiter argues on the security question is that "the states that have applied for membership are unlikely to make significant contributions to NATO." As can be seen in Table 3 and Table 4, it is true that the "Class of 1999" (the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland) and the current candidates for admission have on the average smaller military expenditures than the Western European and North American members.[12] However, as a whole, the Eastern European countries have the potential to contribute more than ten of the Western members considered individually. For instance, one cannot help but wonder what "significant contribution" tiny Luxembourg makes to the alliance, yet this was no barrier to its being a founding member of NATO.

For that matter, is it possible that Iceland, despite the fact that it has no military establishment whatsoever, somehow contributes significantly to the alliance? The answer is yes, and the reason is "location, location, location." Iceland, simply by virtue of its position in the middle of the North Atlantic, provides a vital base linking the European and North American member states. Similarly, the admission of Romania, Slovenia, and Slovakia would be important to NATO as a matter of geography. Hungary is already a NATO member; however, it shares no border with any other member of the alliance. NATO is already committed to defending Hungary against an aggressor, but if Hungary were attacked, the alliance could not get to the scene of the action without the permission of Romania, Slovenia, or Slovakia (see Figure 1).[13] The admission of these three states would bring Hungary into contiguity with the rest of NATO, thus they can significantly contribute to the alliance simply by being where they are and staying there.

3. Does NATO expansion promote democracy?

The second question examined in this paper is whether NATO expansion promotes democracy in Europe. Talbott asserts that it does:

The prospect of being admitted to NATO provides the nations of Central Europe and the former Soviet Union with additional incentives to strengthen their democratic and legal institutions, ensure civilian command of their armed forces, liberalize their economies, and respect human rights, including the rights of national minorities. In short, nations that are encouraged in their aspirations to join NATO are more likely to make a successful transition from their communist past..[14]

What is the historical evidence that NATO has supported democracy within the alliance in the past? Talbott points out that:

... for its first forty years, the principal reason both for its existence and for admitting new members was to keep the Red Army from invading Western Europe.[15]

At the same time:

NATO's leaders used the Alliance to manage relations among the various Allied nations; to provide a secure environment for rebuilding ravaged economies; and, in some cases, to strengthen democratic institutions against anti-democratic forces.[16]

Thus, while NATO, as an alliance of mostly democratic states, was a bulwark against communist totalitarianism, its primary purpose was to deter the external threat rather than to concern itself with the internal politics of its member states. The rules of the game have now changed:

During the cold war, military and geopolitical considerations mainly determined NATO's decisions. Promoting democracy within NATO states and good relations among them was only complementary—desirable but not the primary motive for bringing in new members. But today, with the end of the cold war, other, nonmilitary, goals can and should help shape the new NATO.[17]

It can be expected then that the historical record of NATO and democracy during the Cold War might be spotty. Reiter concedes as much:

During the Cold War, NATO was focused more on maintaining allied unity in the face of the Soviet threat than on democratizing its members, arguably reducing the significance of the Cold War period in evaluating the claim that NATO spreads democracy. Still, to provide a complete empirical record, it is important to cover the Cold War period as well as the post-Cold War period. Further, some NATO enlargement advocates have argued that the alliance's success in spreading democracy during the Cold War should increase confidence that it will be able to do so after the Cold War, highlighting the importance of examining the historical record in both periods.[18]

It is also to be expected that Talbott and Reiter examine the same historical record and draw differing conclusions. To resolve the dispute, it is important to distinguish the prevailing trend from the isolated instances that contradict that trend. The trend is in favor of democracy, despite the inherent unfairness of testing NATO according to a standard that it did not set for itself until 1994:[19]

• Italy was the only defeated Axis state to be granted membership at the inception of NATO. It had been a fascist dictatorship for two decades under Benito Mussolini, yet it has been democratic throughout the six decades since. Talbott points out:

Great Britain, among other allies, opposed Italian membership at first.... But Secretary of State Dean Acheson argued that rebuffing Italy "would increase the communist influence and discredit the present [Christian Democrat] government and its pro-western policies." The Allies ultimately agreed that admitting Italy would strengthen pro-Western political forces in Italy and complement the effort to bring Italy into Western economic organizations.[20]

• After half a century of peace, as societal memory fades with the passing of "The Greatest Generation" into that good night, the enormity of the decision to admit the Federal Republic of Germany into NATO is easily overlooked, that a country that had spawned one of the most monstrous regimes in history, one which had been put down at the cost of millions of lives only a decade before, was admitted into an alliance of mostly democratic nations... and invited to re-arm itself! Talbott points out that:

... There was some reluctance, especially in Paris, about accepting West Germany into NATO. The United States argued that membership for the Federal Republic would advance the cause of European integration and bind more firmly to the West a country that had turned away from its totalitarian past. The admission of the Bonn government in 1955 contributed to Franco-German reconciliation, without which the European Union would still be a dream.[21]

The spreading of democracy sometimes requires courageous decisions. It has now been five decades since Germany joined NATO. It would be difficult to point to a state on the European continent that has stronger democratic institutions than Germany.

• "The admission of Spain in 1982 was another telling case," Talbott says:

Before Franco's death in 1975, there had been little incentive for bringing Spain into the Alliance since bilateral US arrangements with Madrid ensured that US forces assigned to NATO could use Spanish naval and air facilities. But after an attempted right-wing coup in 1981, the centrist government of Leopoldo Calvo Sotelo concluded that NATO membership would be the best way to ensure civilian control of the Spanish military and thus protect Spain's transition to democracy. "Entry into NATO will kill at birth any attempted coup," Calvo said. The Alliance leadership agreed.[22]

Spain was a fascist dictatorship for three decades under Francisco Franco, yet has been a stable democracy since joining NATO.

Other historical examples will be explored shortly in the context of three mechanisms that Reiter hypothesizes to explain how NATO enlargement could encourage democratization in Europe:

The first mechanism is that the prospect of NATO membership can be used as a carrot to induce potential new allies to become democratic. The proposition is straightforward: NATO promises to admit states that make democratic reforms, and potential new members respond by adopting such reforms. Compliance with this democracy requirement would be relatively easy to verify, through inspection of a state's electoral laws and constitution and by election monitoring (note that transparency is also a democratic characteristic, facilitating verification).[23]

Next, Reiter theorizes that:

... NATO membership can be used as a stick to spur democratization: Any new member that reverts to authoritarian rule would be ejected from the alliance. Significantly, the stick must be credible to make the carrot incentive work. Without the threat of ejection from NATO, a tyrannical cabal within a state could permit democratic reforms, earn alliance membership, and then reimpose authoritarian rule (perhaps through a military coup) without jeopardizing the state's membership status. The stick argument also would carry more weight for new East European members, given that all former East European states have already taken significant steps toward democracy, most of them enjoying an uninterrupted decade of democratic governance.[24]

Reiter’s third mechanism regarding how NATO membership could nurture democracy concerns civil-military relations:

One potential threat to democracy is military intervention in domestic politics, specifically military coups d'état, which are frequently ignited by economic collapse. A recommended inoculation against such military intervention is institutionalized civilian supremacy over the military that the military accepts. Specific suggestions regarding the formulation of civil-military relations in East European states include having a civilian minister of defense, ensuring that civilian officials work in the defense ministry, keeping the military out of partisan politics, maintaining legislative supervision of both the defense budget and defense policy, and encouraging open discussion of defense issues.[25]

Reiter cites the contentions of institutionalist authors that:

... Membership in a democratic alliance, especially one that is highly institutionalized, provides an environment within which transgovernmental contacts between militaries can spread norms of civilian control of the military. Some institutionalists have argued that international organizations in particular can be effective in spreading norms, and thereby change national preferences. Robert Keohane and others have proposed that transgovernmental and transnational connections can affect domestic politics, in particular on issues such as domestic governance and human rights.

Transgovernmental linkages between militaries are thought to institutionalize civilian control both by exchanging technical information and by spreading norms of conduct. The "technical" information in this context concerns the building of legal structures--including matters of constitutional form, budgetary authority, and so forth--which would in turn provide an institutional foundation for civilian control. Spreading norms would mean the communication from the members of one military to another of the importance of accepting civilian control of policy, avoiding participation in national politics, and so on.[26]

Is there historical evidence for or against any of Reiter’s three mechanisms?

3.1 The "Carrot"

The evidence for the prospect of NATO membership as an inducement for developing democratic institutions during the Cold War is nil. Germany, Italy, and Spain were formerly fascist dictatorships, but in none of these cases can it be said that NATO membership was a carrot. The downfall of Hitler and Mussolini preceded the existence of NATO, and it is probable that Franco installed Juan Carlos as his successor with expectation that Spain would become a constitutional monarchy, without regard to whether this would lead to a future offer of NATO membership.

In the post-Cold War period, the former communist dictatorships of the Czech Republic (as part of Czechoslovakia), Hungary, Poland, Slovenia, and the Baltic states transitioned to democracies well before NATO "made respect for democracy and international norms of behavior explicit preconditions for membership" in 1994. The efficacy of the so-called "carrot" can really only be evaluated since that 1994 declaration.

Slovakia’s path to democracy has had some twists and turns. Its continued predilection for the authoritarian leftist style of governance was a factor in the breakup of Czechoslovakia. Talbott cites what was then a recent statement by Peter Weiss, the reformist head of Slovakia's former Communist Party:

Although our country has been named among the first candidates [for NATO], a number of conditions must be satisfied before joining—the observance of the rules of democracy that are common in the pact countries, progress in the implementation of the market economy, the protection of human and civic rights, and the freedom of the press.... We should openly admit that it is to our disadvantage that our partners perceive democracy in Slovakia as unstable.[27]

Apparently, in the seven years since this statement, Slovakia has succeeded in dispelling that negative perception, for it has now been offered the NATO membership that it has long sought.

Similarly, the struggle to build democratic institutions in Bulgaria and Romania has been a difficult one. In both cases, the most notable progress has been made since NATO’s 1994 declaration, and both states have now been offered membership.

3.2 The "Stick"

The mechanism that Reiter calls the "carrot" is a widely used argument in favor of NATO expansion. The "stick" theory seems to be Reiter’s invention. This argument can be seen as a strawman he sets up to knock down. Quite obviously, a state could revert to authoritarian rule. It happened in Greece in 1967, for instance. Additionally, the Turkish military overthrew democratic governments in 1960, 1971, and 1980. Neither country was ever threatened with expulsion. Clearly, the "stick" does not and never has existed, but no one has ever claimed that it did.

However, it is hard to see why a "tyrannical cabal" would deliberately open the Pandora’s box of democracy just to gain entrance into NATO. Authoritarians by their very nature grab power and hold onto it, they rarely give it up willingly. Obviously, democracy is a threat to their arrogation of power. What could be more foolhardy than to deliberately foster democratic reforms in the hope that a coup could later recapture the state?

Furthermore, in practice (that is, since 1994), NATO has required democracy, civil institutions, and the rule of law to be fairly well established and stable as conditions for membership. For example, NATO first offered membership to the more solidly democratic Czech Republic in 1997, whereas Slovakia, whose struggle to shuffle off authoritarianism was slower, was obliged to wait until 2002 for such an offer. As another example, NATO has offered membership to the former Yugoslav republic of Slovenia, while Croatia, having only in the past few years emerged from the authoritarian rule of Franjo Tudjman, has been left out.

Reiter is probably correct in arguing that a state would not be expelled if it suffered a coup d'état. The "stick" might only be credible if the North Atlantic Treaty guaranteed to each state a republican form of government, as the US Constitution does. In this case, NATO would have the legal authority to intervene and put down a coup. One wonders how Eastern European countries would feel about such a provision if it did exist, having previously belonged to a security organization (the Warsaw Pact) that intervened several times to put down democratic "counterrevolutions."

It should be pointed out that the "stick" that Reiter insists is essential to the credibility of the "carrot" is unnecessary if the third mechanism that he postulates, that of the institutional spreading of the norms of democratic institutions, is an effective one. Why disrupt the alliance by kicking a country out of NATO because of a coup d’état if, in the long run, it is inevitable that democracy will be restored?

It is interesting that Reiter refers to Adam Przeworski’s work, stating, "Once a democracy's per capita income reaches $4,000 per year, it essentially cannot be overthrown."[28] If so, why worry about a "tyrannical cabal?" A quick look at the economies of the new NATO members and current candidates should indicate the likelihood of a coup. Table 5 shows that only the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Slovenia have a per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in excess of $4,000.[29] However, in terms of Purchasing Power Parity (PPP), a more salient indicator of prosperity, all of the new members and current candidates meet the Przeworski criterion. The evidence is that a coup is unlikely to occur, and Reiter’s hypothetical "stick" (a blunt instrument at best) is unnecessary.

3.3 Institutional Spreading of Norms

Reiter contends that NATO membership does not spread the institutional norms of civilian control of the military:

Some have attributed the perseverance of Spanish democracy since 1982 to NATO membership, arguing that the acceptance of civilian supremacy was encouraged by the institutional structure of NATO within which civilians are dominant. Disturbingly, however, several of the 1981 coup participants had taken courses at American military schools in part to fulfill the pre-NATO security agreements between the United States and Spain. Therefore the attempted overthrow occurred despite the presence of the kinds of transgovernmental military-to-military contacts that are supposed to make coups less likely.[30]

Reiter makes a weak case. Just because a couple of coup plotters attended a few courses at American military schools hardly refutes the institutionalist argument, which rests on sustained and pervasive transnational contacts. A few rogue officers do not an institution make. In the end, Reiter is compelled to observe, "In Spain no military coup has occurred since accession to NATO in 1982."[31] Might not this be due to NATO’s institutional norms taking hold in the Spanish military during the past 20 years?

Meanwhile, Reiter admits, "Military contacts with NATO strengthened the Portuguese military’s motives for overthrowing the dictatorship in 1974." His only complaint seems to be that it was a gentler, kinder military cabal, but a cabal nevertheless, that fostered Portuguese democracy. "But although this action eventually had a pro-democratic impact, it runs contrary to the model of civil-military relations touted by NATO of the military accepting firm civilian control."[32] However, the fact that Portugal has been a democracy since 1974 is certainly evidence that the military is firmly under civilian control.

Reiter also allows, "Contact with NATO militaries probably helped to restore civilian rule quickly in the Turkish coups."[33] It should also be considered that the last Turkish coup was two decades ago. However, it is also true that the Turkish military pressured an elected pro-Islamic prime minister to resign in favor of a secular politician in 1997.

The most damning case against NATO’s spreading of institutional norms is unquestionably the Greek coup of 1967:

The (limited) postwar Greek democracy persevered until a military coup in April 1967, which was motivated by a desire to protect the corporate interests of the armed forces. Interaction with officers from other NATO states had failed to instill in the Greek military respect for the idea of civilian control; for example, the Greek military resisted a May 1964 effort by the civilian leadership to expand control over and depoliticize the armed forces. The coup did not disrupt support for and aid to Greece. Democracy returned in 1974, but not because of NATO or American pressure.[34]

Again, the Alliance never claimed to be in the business of guaranteeing democracy in those years, so it is unfair to examine the Alliance in those terms ex post facto. In any case, consider that Greece was unstable from the end of the Second World War, to the point that the US intervened to put down a communist insurgency. If Greek democracy in the 1950s and 1960s was "limited," it was nevertheless something of an achievement. Also consider that the Greek military dictatorship lasted only seven years, and since then the country has been a fairly stable democracy. This may or may not have had anything to do with Greece’s NATO membership, but as John F. Kennedy once said, "Success has many fathers, but failure is an orphan." NATO has as much right as any to claim paternity to the eventual success of Greek democracy, difficult though its childhood may have been. The fact is that there has been no military coup in the three decades since democracy was restored. Is it not likely that the Greek military has been infused with NATO’s institutional norms during these years?

4. Does NATO expansion increase stability in Europe?

The term "stability" is used here in the sense of peaceful relations between alliance members, as well as domestic tranquility within member states. As such, this is a distinct question from the first one asked in this analysis, whether NATO expansion promotes security from threats from outside the alliance.

Talbott advocates NATO as a force for stability in Europe:

The prospect of membership can also foster among the nations of Central Europe and the former Soviet Union a greater willingness to resolve disputes peacefully and contribute to peace-keeping operations. Thus the process of expansion can help to promote regional stability and peace.

To make themselves eligible for NATO, potential members must... make convincing progress in resolving disputes with their neighbors peacefully and show they are committed to multi-ethnic democracy. Some potential members have already acted in this spirit. One of the more hopeful developments this year has been a rapprochement between Hungary and Slovakia. In an address to the Hungarian Parliament on February 22, [1995] Hungary's Prime Minister Gyula Horn said:[35]

What do the EU and NATO want from us? They say very firmly that we must settle our relations with our neighbors. Simply put, neither the European Union nor NATO is willing to admit states which have contentious border issues, unsettled minority problems, and the like.[36]

The US and its European allies are using Hungary's and Romania's hopes for entering NATO and the EU to nudge them toward a similar accommodation on a treaty that would confirm their existing border and guarantee the rights of the Hungarian minority in Transylvania, a region that has changed hands between the two countries three times in this century.[37]

Reiter disputes these claims:

... Qualification for NATO membership is probably not necessary as an incentive for East European states to resolve their disputes with one another. Early 1990s' fears of an epidemic of conflicts in Eastern Europe driven by border disputes and concerns for minority rights have not come to pass: The only clashes have been in former Soviet republics in the Caucasus (which have not applied for NATO membership) and the former Yugoslavia (among the former Yugoslav republics only Slovenia, which has avoided involvement in much of the post-1990 Balkan conflict, has applied for membership). Although some attribute NATO membership demands as encouraging the 1996 Romania-Hungary reconciliation treaty, domestic political changes and incentives to qualify for EU membership were at least as important to completion of this agreement. Further, this "success" for NATO should be weighed against Romania's failure to reach similar agreements with Moldova, Ukraine, and Russia. Second, NATO's alleged ability to lessen disputes between its members should not be taken for granted; NATO was famously unsuccessful in preventing conflict between Greece and Turkey during the Cold War.[38]

The fact that no NATO members have ever fought each other ought to be a prima facie case in favor of the proposition that NATO fosters stability and peace in Europe, and that expanding NATO ought to expand that zone of stability and peace. However, let us take Reiter’s points one at a time.

First, that "qualification for NATO membership is probably not necessary as an incentive for East European states to resolve their disputes with one another" is a negative statement. Why should we not do everything that is practicable to give peace a chance? That some things might not be necessary is hardly a case for not doing them, if the outside chance of being wrong leads to the increased possibility of war. Notice that Reiter does not argue that the carrot of NATO membership was unimportant in Romanian-Hungarian reconciliation. Prime Minister Horn’s statement is clear evidence that the prospect of NATO membership was a motivating factor. That Romania has not yet resolved certain issues with Moldova, Ukraine, and Russia is not necessarily evidence of bad faith, but may only mean that these issues are difficult and negotiations continue. The fact is that there has been no violence, and Romania’s democratic development and pacific foreign policy has resulted in it being offered NATO membership.

Secondly, Reiter’s mention of Slovenia as the only former Yugoslav republic to avoid violence with its neighbors is curious in its logic. Indeed, it may be the only former Yugoslav republic to have applied for membership, but is it likely that any others, given their short but tragic history of conflict, instability, and authoritarianism, would be offered membership?

Finally, it is interesting that Reiter observes that "NATO was famously unsuccessful in preventing conflict between Greece and Turkey," while Talbott gives NATO credit for improving relations between these traditional rivals:

Crises over Cyprus brought those two countries close to armed conflict on several occasions, but their membership in NATO helped American and other mediators to keep them from going to war.[39]

Obviously, these historical facts can be argued from various viewpoints. However, on the subject of stability, Reiter makes a point that is testable:

NATO membership will force new members to increase their own spending on defense to facilitate integration into NATO's command framework; the Czech Republic, for example, is planning to heighten the share of its gross domestic product devoted to defense by a tenth of a percent per year. The increased budget and trade deficits that may attend such growing spending are especially ill-advised for new democracies with fragile market economies, given that economic prosperity is one of the most important factors driving successful democratization.[40]

The argument that the military spending necessary to tool up to NATO specifications would prove too costly for emerging Eastern European market economies was raised as an objection to the first round of NATO expansion. How have the economies of the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland fared since being offered NATO membership in 1997, and how have the economies of this year’s candidates performed during this time? Table 6 shows that from 1996 to 2001, seven of the ten countries under discussion experienced healthy growth rates above two percent.[41] Slovakia’s economy grew at a slightly slower average annual rate of 1.64%. Only the Czech and Slovenian economies were flat during this period.

But this is only half of the story. The other question that must be asked is how well did the economies of the Western NATO members perform during the same period? Not nearly as well, as it turns out (see Table 7). While the US economy grew at an average rate of 7.71% during 1996-2001, the rest of NATO posted a 1.29% per annum decline in economic activity. In contrast, the ten Eastern European economies listed in Table 6 had a combined growth rate of 3.95% per annum. Only two Western European NATO members averaged annual growth rates above two percent, and nine economies actually contracted during this period. While Reiter questions whether Eastern Europe can afford to join NATO, Western Europeans have had greater cause to wonder whether they themselves can afford to maintain their membership.

5. Conclusion

Gailieo Galilei said that "nature abhors a vacuum." Given that the need for security is very strong in human nature (Abraham Maslow identified safety as second in the hierarchy of human needs, just below physiological needs), it may be said that human nature abhors a security vacuum. The collapse of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact left such a vacuum in Eastern Europe. It would be unnatural for NATO, the only remaining military alliance in Europe, not to expand into this vacuum. There is no force to oppose it, and Reiter poses no forceful arguments against it.

On the whole, Talbott’s position is much better supported by the facts (see Table 8).

• Does NATO expansion increase security for the alliance against external threats?

• Does NATO expansion promote democracy?

• Does NATO expansion increase stability in Europe?

Throughout his article, Dan Reiter suggests that the Eastern European states that are transitioning from command economies to free-market economies would be better served by joining the European Union than by joining NATO, but as Table 9 shows, this is not an either-or proposition.[42] The fact is that the NATO class of 1999 and the seven states being offered NATO membership in 2002 are all on track to become EU members as well. Furthermore, all members of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) are also current or prospective members of either NATO or the EU or both. Although each of these organizations has a different purpose, they are interlocking, mutually supporting Euro-Atlantic institutions. Together, they provide the integrated structure for what Immanuel Kant envisioned as the liberal pacific union.

Notes