NATO’s Expansion Eastward

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

1. 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 (Talbott 1995, 1-2).

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.

One of the arguments against NATO expansion regarding security that Reiter poses is that 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. “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 (Reiter 2001, 42).”

To what extent has NATO expansion radicalized Russian domestic politics? In the1999 Duma election, the ultranationalist “Bloc of Zhirinovskii” received only 5.98% of the vote (see Table 3). In the 2000 Russian presidential election, Vladimir Zhirinovskii received only 2.72% of the vote (see Table 4). 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. In fact, the “Bloc of Zhirinovskii” did little better in the 1999 Duma elections as did Zhirinovskii’s ultranationalist Liberal Democratic Party in the previous Duma elections in 1995 (5.63%, see Table 1), before the admission of Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary surfaced as an issue. Zhirinovskii’s showing in the 1996 presidential election was a comparable 5.79% (see Table 2). The next parliamentary election is imminent (December 2003), and it will be interesting to compare this latest electoral outcome with previous results.

Table 1: Russian Duma Elections – 17 December 1995

Source: Popescu and Hannavy 2002. http://www2.essex.ac.uk/elect/database/indexCountry.asp?country=RUSSIA&opt=elc

Table 2: Russian Presidential Elections – 16 June (1st Round) and 3 July (2nd Round) 1996

Source: Popescu and Hannavy 2002. http://www2.essex.ac.uk/elect/database/indexCountry.asp?country=RUSSIA&opt=elc

Table 3: Russian Duma Elections – 19 December 1999

Source: Popescu and Hannavy 2002. http://www2.essex.ac.uk/elect/database/indexCountry.asp?country=RUSSIA&opt=elc

Table 4: Russian Presidential Election – 26 March 2000

Source: Popescu and Hannavy 2002, http://www2.essex.ac.uk/elect/database/indexCountry.asp?country=RUSSIA&opt=elc

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 the former Soviet Union), 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 (Warren 2002).

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 (Nunn 2002; US Department of State 2002).

A final point to consider, as the Putin government takes increasingly to jailing opposition leaders on questionable charges, is that an authoritarian regime might come to power for purely domestic political reasons, and would not necessarily be anti-Western and a threat to NATO. Certainly Franco’s Spain never was.

2. 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 (Talbott 1995, 1).

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 (Talbott 1995, 4).

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 (Talbott 1995, 4).

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 (Talbott 1995, 5).

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 (Reiter 2001, 56).

Reiter hypothesizes three mechanisms to explain how NATO enlargement could encourage democratization in Europe. The first is the “carrot:”

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) (Reiter 2001, 52).

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 (Reiter 2001, 52).

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 (Reiter 2001, 54).

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 except Reiter 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 (Reiter 2001, 56).” 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 had a per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in excess of $4,000 in 2000, or about the time that Reiter wrote his article (Investor Services 2000). However, in terms of Purchasing Power Parity (PPP), a more salient indicator of prosperity, all of the new members and current candidates met the Przeworski criterion in 2000. For 2002, the numbers are even more favorable for the new and prospective NATO members (CIA 2003). The evidence is that a coup is unlikely to occur, and Reiter’s hypothetical “stick” (a blunt instrument at best) is unnecessary.

Table 5: NATO Expansion and the Przeworski Criterion

Sources: Investor Services, http://www.factbook.net/hungary/gdpm.php CIA Factbook, http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/

In any case, it should be pointed out that Greece returned to democracy six years after its 1967 coup. Furthermore, although the Turkish military has intervened in the country’s political affairs on several occasions, it has never displayed a desire to hold power for extended periods. The fact is that the only long-lived dictatorship in NATO was Portugal, which has been a democracy since 1974.

3. 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.

Talbot cites a statement by Hungary's Prime Minister Gyula Hornin an address to the Hungarian Parliament on 22 February 1995:

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 (Holbrooke 1995).

Reiter disputes these claims:

[Q]ualification 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 (Reiter 2001, 49).

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 (Talbott 1995, 4).

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 (Reiter 2001, 50).

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 2002, all of the ten countries under discussion experienced healthy growth rates above two percent (World Bank Group 1997; 2003).

Table 6: Economic Growth in Eastern Europe

Sources: World Bank Group, http://www.worldbank.org/data/archive/cdrom/gdp.pdf and http://www.worldbank.org/data/databytopic/GDP.pdf

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 4.92% during 1996-2002, the rest of NATO was virtually flat at 0.27% per annum. In contrast, the ten Eastern European economies listed in Table 6 had a combined growth rate of 4.48% per annum, only half a percentage point below the growth rate of the United States. Of the top four Western European NATO economies—the economic powerhouses of Europe—actually declined over this six-year period. While all of the ten Eastern European countries grew at rates above two percent, only five of the 14 Western European NATO members could boast the same performance. Reiter questions whether Eastern Europe can afford to join NATO; however, Western Europeans have had greater cause to wonder whether they themselves can afford to maintain their membership.

Table 7: Economic Growth in Western NATO Members

Sources: World Bank Group, http://www.worldbank.org/data/archive/cdrom/gdp.pdf and http://www.worldbank.org/data/databytopic/GDP.pdf

5. Conclusion

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

Table 8: Summary of Findings

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

  The data in favor is weak, simply because there is no credible threat to NATO as it expands. On the other hand, the data negates the opposing arguments, which say that Russian reversion to an authoritarian, aggressive regime could be an ultranationalist reaction to NATO expansion.

• Does NATO expansion promote democracy?

  The data in favor is strong, albeit mixed. NATO tolerated two dictatorships (Portugal and Greece) until the early 1970s, but there have been none since. However, NATO did not state democracy as a goal until the 1990s. Even so, the Cold War era data strongly suggests that NATO has spread the institutional norms of civilian control of the military. The evidence in favor of NATO providing a “carrot” to incentivize the development of democratic institutions in the post-Cold War period is strong as well. A “stick” mechanism is unnecessary, since according to the Przeworski criterion, an authoritarian coup is unlikely to succeed in the long run.

• Does NATO expansion increase stability in Europe?

  Data in favor is strong. No NATO members have ever fought each other. Tensions between Greece and Turkey over Cyprus never erupted into general war. NATO allies are encouraged to resolve disputes peacefully, and the leaders of aspiring new member states have attested that they have been motivated to settle disputes with their neighbors and to strengthen civil institutions in part to satisfy NATO requirements. Data against is weak, in that so far the new members do not appear be economically sinking under the weight of the additional military spending necessary to integrate into the alliance.

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