>       NATO’s EXPANSION: Provocation, Not Leadership
>
>                    by Douglas Roche, O.C.
>
>     NATO claims that by bringing Poland, Hungary and the Czech
> Republic into  the 16-member Organization, the new NATO will
> "meet the challenges of the 21st century."  But 50 American former
> Senators, diplomats and officials maintain that NATO expansion
> would be "a policy error of historic proportions."  George Kennan,
> the father of the U.S. containment policy on the Soviet Union, says:
> "Expanding NATO would be the most fateful error of American
> policy in the entire post-Cold War era."
>     Why is NATO so determined to enlarge?  Why is the opposition
> so strong?  Why is the U.S. Senate rushing to judgment on such a
> controversial step?
>     I am an opponent of NATO expansion.  I see the expansion of a
> nuclear-armed Alliance up to Russia’s borders as provocative, not
> an act of leadership for peace.  In fact, NATO’s expansion
> undermines the struggle for peace.
>     I want to set out my reasons in three main categories: instilling
> fear in Russia; setting back nuclear disarmament; and undermining
> the United Nations.
>
> Instilling Fear In Russia
>
>     It is claimed that the idea of NATO expansion started with the
> leaders of Central and Eastern Europe who wanted to look West in
> confidence rather than East in fear.  President Clinton was
> impressed with this stance and U.S. policy set out reasons for
> widening the scope of the American-European security
> connection.
>     NATO expansion would respond to three strategic challenges: to
> enhance the relationship between the U.S. and the enlarging
> democratic Europe; to engage a still evolving Russia in a
> cooperative relationship with Europe; and to reinforce the habits of
> democracy and the practice of peace in Central Europe.
>     Secretary of State Madeleine Albright set out the case cogently:
> "Now the new NATO can do for Europe’s east what the old NATO
> did for Europe’s west: vanquish old hatreds, promote integration,
> create a secure environment for prosperity, and deter violence in
> the regions where two world wars and the Cold War began."
>     Russia’s early objections to NATO expansion were met by
> NATO’s assurances that it wanted a strong, stable and enduring
> partnership with Russia based on the Founding Act on Mutual
> Relations.  Russia would be consulted; a Russian military
> representative arrived in Brussels; the NATO-Russia Permanent
> Joint Council began meeting at the ministerial level.  NATO insisted
> it was moving away from forward defense planning and reducing its
> military capability.
>     But that is not what Russian leaders see.  They maintain that,
> despite Moscow’s disbanding of the Warsaw Pact, deeper
> reductions in nuclear and conventional forces than in the West, the
> hasty withdrawal of half a million troops from comfortable barracks
> in Central Europe to tent camps in Russian fields, the most
> powerful military Alliance in the world started moving toward
> Russian borders.
>     Offered only membership in a limited "Partnership for Peace"
> rather than full membership in the new NATO, Russia is now
> having a much harder time achieving the goals of Russian
> democrats.
>     Russians are little impressed with Western benign assurances.
> And their apprehension increases at the prospect of more East and
> Central European countries joining NATO in the next expansion
> wave.  Worst of all, they fear the entry of the three Baltic States of
> Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania—Russia’s intimate neighbors—into
> NATO.  A Charter of Partnership has already been signed between
> the U.S. and the three Baltic nations in which Washington has
> promised to do everything possible to get them ready to join
> NATO.
>     How can the West expect the Russians, a proud people who
> have suffered the ravages of war throughout the 20th century, to
> calmly accept such isolation?  They see a ganging-up of nations
> against Russia as a travesty on the end of the Cold War.
>     Why, Russians ask, cannot the Organization for Security and
> Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) be the guarantor of security for the
> whole of Europe?  The OSCE was started a quarter of a century
> ago to serve as a multilateral forum for dialogue and negotiation
> between East and West.  As a regional arrangement under Chapter
> VIII of the UN Charter, the OSCE was established as a primary
> instrument for early warning, conflict prevention and crisis
> management in Europe.  In the Charter of Paris for a New Europe,
> the OSCE was called upon to contribute to managing the historic
> change in Europe and respond to the new challenges of the post-
> Cold War period.  It was believed that the OSCE would replace
> NATO as the principal security watchdog in Europe.  Russia would
> like to have NATO subservient to the OSCE.  But in NATO’s
> resurgence, the OSCE is fading.
>     Why?  One reason is because all states in the OSCE have equal
> status and decisions are made on the basis of consensus.  This does
> not sit well with the lone superpower in the world whose military
> might exceeds the combined power of most of Europe.
>     Why should the U.S.— exercising its military might through
> dominance of an expanding NATO — create such a permanent
> source of friction with Russia?  NATO expansion is a backward
> step in drawing Russia into the community of nations.
>     The expansion process should be stopped and alternative actions
> taken:
>      Open the European Union to all the countries of Europe.
> Develop a cooperative NATO-Russian relationship that implements
> arms reductions and      builds trading relationships.
>
> Setting Back Nuclear Disarmament
>
>     The setting back of nuclear disarmament is the most serious
> consequence of NATO expansion.  Global security will suffer.  In
> fact, it is NATO’s insistence that "nuclear forces continue to play
> an essential role in NATO strategy" that poses such a threat to
> peace in the 21st century.
>     The nuclear weapons situation in the world is at a critical stage.
> Nearly a decade after the end of the Cold War, more than 35,000
> nuclear weapons remain in the world.  No new nuclear negotiations
> are taking place; the Conference on Disarmament is paralyzed.  The
> Russian Duma, fearing NATO’s expansion, has not ratified START
> II; START III is immobilized.  Some Russian politicians and
> militarists, concerned about Russia’s crumbling conventional force
> structure, are once again talking of nuclear weapons as a vital line
> of defense for Russia.  Even if START II were ratified, there would
> still be at least 17,000 nuclear weapons of all kinds remaining in
> 2007.  More than 8,500 will be in Russia.
>     Under Gorbachev, Russia started to move down the road to
> nuclear disarmament, starting with a no-first-use pledge and other
> unilateral moves.  When he came to power, Boris Yeltsin projected
> a sweeping foreign policy on democracy, a market economy, the
> slashing of weapons, a pan-European collective defense system and
> even "a global system for protection of the world community."  "A
> new world order based on the primacy of international law is
> coming," Yeltsin said.
>     Such talk has ceased as Russia, ever more desperate for hesitant
> Western financial assistance, became mired in constant economic
> and political crises.  Instead of offering a 1990s Marshall Plan-scale
> of help to Russia (which would be in the economic and political
> interests of the West, not least in cleaning up the "loose nukes"
> peril), the West offers an expanded NATO.  Since Russia so
> desperately needs the new eighth seat at the G7 Economic Summit,
> its protests, though not its resentments, are weakened.
>     Despite the indefinite extension of the Non-Proliferation Treaty
> (NPT) and the signing of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty
> (CTBT), a new technology race in the quest for more innovative
> nuclear weapons, led by the U.S., has broken out.  Since the U.S.
> so clearly intends to keep producing better designed nuclear
> weapons, there is virtually no hope that other nations will forego
> seeking the technology to allow them to keep up with this race.
> The world is poised to enter the 21st century in a "cold peace"
> atmosphere in which the CTBT will go unratified by some of the
> required states and the NPT may begin to unravel.
>     The continued retention of nuclear weapons by the five
> permanent members of the UN Security Council who insist that
> they are essential to their security and that of their allies, while
> denying the same right to others, is inherently unstable.  This is an
> essential point made by the International Court of Justice (ICJ)
> whose unanimous call for the conclusion of nuclear weapons
> negotiations continues to be rejected by the Western NWS and the
> bulk of NATO.
>     NATO’s continued deployment of nuclear weapons in Europe,
> even at reduced levels, along with a refusal to respect the ICJ and
> enter into comprehensive negotiations, is in direct violation of the
> pledge made by the Nuclear Weapons States at the time of the
> indefinite extension of the Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1995: to
> pursue with determination "systematic and progressive efforts to
> reduce nuclear weapons globally, with the ultimate goal of
> eliminating those weapons."
>     To lessen fears of the growth of a nuclear-armed Alliance,
> NATO insists that it has "no plan, no need and no intention" to
> station nuclear weapons on the territory of new members.  That is
> not the point.  Not stationing nuclear weapons in Poland, Hungary
> and the Czech Republic does nothing to get them out of Western
> European countries.  Nothing less than the removal of all of
> NATO’s nuclear weapons from all of Europe will suffice to
> demonstrate NATO’s sincerity.
>     Though NATO operates in great secrecy, it is clear that the
> Alliance has no intention of renouncing nuclear weapons, is
> determined to maintain a nuclear war-fighting capability, and is
> prepared to use low-yield nuclear warheads first.  It is unacceptable
> that NATO even refuses to release the Terms of Reference used for
> its current review of the Strategic Concept.
>     The expansion of such a nuclear-armed Alliance is not an aid but
> a challenge to the development of peaceful relations with Russia.  A
> nuclear NATO sets back peace.
>
> Undermining the United Nations
>
>     The evolution of a world system is imperative if civilized life is to
> continue in the coming millennium.  The United Nations is the
> essential centre-piece of that system.  Its over-arching purpose is to
> maintain international peace and security.  For this reason, the
> Security Council is given strong powers to enforce its decisions.
>     But the UN is undermined by military alliances that threaten
> force as a standing policy.  The long years of East-West animosity
> during the Cold War virtually immobilized the UN’s efforts to
> maintain peace.  In despair during one of the worst moments of the
> Cold War, former UN Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar
> castigated the nuclear superpowers for their militarism, contrasting
> it to world poverty of vast proportions—"a deprivation inexplicable
> in terms either of available resources or the money and ingenuity
> spent on armaments and war."  He criticized governments for
> ignoring their own signatures on the UN Charter: "We are
> perilously near to a new international anarchy."
>     Despite the end of the Cold War, the world still spends $800
> billion a year on the military, most of this amount is spent by the
> U.S. and its NATO allies.  NATO expansion will send arms
> expenditures even higher.  NATO has already said that new
> members will have to make a "military contribution."
>     Estimates of the cost of NATO expansion vary from $27 billion
> to several hundred billion dollars over the next decade, though the
> U.S. Administration, fearful of a taxpayers’ backlash, has been
> playing down the U.S. share of the bill.  Whatever the final cost, the
> many billions of dollars to be devoted to new military hardware,
> thus enriching the leading arms merchants of the world, is a direct
> theft from the fifth of humanity that is poor and marginalized and
> that needs but modest investment in their economic and social
> development to stabilize regional conditions.  This is the old
> anarchy writ new.
>     The UN has shown time and again that promoting disarmament
> and development at the same time enhances security.  In the post-
> Cold War era, human security does not come from the barrel of a
> gun but from the quality of life that economic and social
> development underpins.
>     Sustainable development needs huge amounts of investment in
> scientific research, technological development, education and
> training, infrastructure development and the transfer of technology.
> Investment in these structural advances is urgently needed to stop
> carbon dioxide poisoning of the atmosphere and the depletion of
> the earth’s biological resources such as the forest, wetlands and
> animal species now under attack.  But the goals for sustainable
> development set out in the 1992 Earth Summit’s major document,
> Agenda 21, are blocked by political inertia, which countenances
> continued high military spending.
>     It is clear, as the Director-General of UNESCO put it, that "we
> cannot simultaneously pay the price of war and the price of peace."
> Budgetary priorities need to be realigned in order to direct financial
> resources of enhancing life, not producing death.  A transformation
> of political attitudes is needed to build a "culture of peace."  A new
> political attitude would say No to investment in arms and
> destruction and Yes to investment in the construction of peace.
>     A nuclear-armed NATO stronger than the United Nations is an
> intolerable prospect.  Yet the residual militarist mentality in the
> world continues to sideline the UN and even force it into penury.
> The lavishness of NATO contrasted to the poverty of the UN
> mocks the most ardent aspirations of the peoples of the world.
>
> The Role of Civil Society
>
>     Put in strategic terms, the risks of NATO expansion far outweigh
> any possible contribution to security.  The issues are complex and
> need careful examination and extended public debate.  A headlong
> rush into this abyss could indeed be a "fateful error."  The U.S.
> Senate needs to hear from informed citizens before giving its advice
> and consent to such an ill-considered policy.
>     Is it too late to stop NATO expansion?  Has the U.S.
> Administration gone too far to pull back?  Could a five-year waiting
> period be invoked for time for sober reflection?  What is so sacred
> about getting expansion done in time for NATO’s 50th anniversary
> in 1999?
>     If NATO expansion is to be stopped by the U.S. Senate, civil
> society will have to mobilize as never before.  The enlightened
> elements of the public will have to lead the way.  Much of
> government seems mesmerized by the superficial appeal of the
> politics of an enlarged NATO.
>     It was once said of King Philip of Spain:  "No experience of the
> failure of his policy could shake his belief in its essential
> excellence."  The stakes are too high today for trial-and-error.  We
> must shake the Government and Congress of the United States of
> the belief that NATO expansion serves the people’s interest.  It
> does not.  It serves only the interests of the producers of arms.
> NATO expansion is folly.  We must proclaim this from the roof-
> tops and help both government and public recover the vision of a
> de-militarized world.
>
> ======================================
>
> Douglas Roche, O.C.
>
> Former Diplomat and Parliamentarian
>
>     Author, parliamentarian and diplomat, Mr. Roche was Canada's
> Ambassador for Disarmament to the United Nations from 1984 to
> 1989.  He was elected Chairman of the U.N. Disarmament
> Committee at the 43rd General Assembly in 1988.  Prior to his
> work with the U.N., Mr. Roche served as a Member of the
> Canadian Parliament from 1972 to 1984, specializing in
> development and disarmament issues.  Mr. Roche also serves as
> Special Advisor on disarmament and security matters on the Holy
> See's delegation to the U.N. General Assembly.  He is currently a
> Visiting Professor at the University of Alberta, President of Global
> Security Consultants, and serves as Chairman of Canadian Pugwash
> and the Millennium Council of Canada.
>     Douglas Roche is an outstanding leader in the movement for a
> world free of nuclear weapons.  He is the author of fifteen books,
> one of which was co-published by the Nuclear Age Peace
> Foundation, An Unacceptable Risk, Nuclear Weapons in a Volatile
> World.