July 29, 1997  
This Date's Issues: 1094 •1095  •1096  1098

Johnson's Russia List [list two
#1096
29 July 1997
djohnson@cdi.org

********

Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 
From: "Alex Shtromas" <shtro@ac.hillsdale.edu> 
Subject: Paper on NATO Expansion

Alexander Shtromas
Hillsdale College (Hillsdale, Michigan, U.S.A.)

To Expand Beside Enlargement: 
A Few Thoughts on Preserving NATO's
Original Identity Without Hindering Its Transformation into
a Euro-Atlantic Collective Security System


After Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic have received official
invitations to join the Alliance, NATO's enlargement has acquired an
irreversible momentum. The millions of words written in debating the wisdom
and utility of the enlargement policy have thus been rendered futile and
cleared the grounds for a new turn in the debate of Europe's and NATO's
future. Inevitably, this debate will have primarily to focus on the
ambivalence of the thus conceived process of NATO's enlargement, on its clumsy
and protracted character that by itself, instead of advancing European
security, may undermine its very foundations, together with the Alliance's
original effectiveness and clarity of purpose.

The real issue at stake is actually not NATO's enlargement as such but the
will of the U.S.A. and its NATO allies to commit themselves to the real
defense of the space between Germany and Russia proper that in 1989-1991 had
been freed from Soviet dominion or, as the saying goes, the will to have one's
soldiers die and risk the destruction of one's cities in defending remote
places, be it Gniezno or Szeged, of which, in the immortal words of Neville
Chamberlain, "we know nothing." The inclusion into NATO Alliance of only the
three countries mentioned above makes the presence of such a will doubtful
indeed, as these countries are geographically closest to NATO's own territory
and do not even have a common border with Russia (except for the
Polish-Russian border in the tiny Russian exclave of the
Konigsberg/Kaliningrad region). Even if Russia wanted to attack these three
countries, she would be unable to do so without first occupying Ukraine and
militarily taking over Belarus -- a formidable task that could not be
accomplished suddenly or easily enough for NATO to be caught unawares. Fareed
Zakaria recently reminded us (see, New York Times, March 26, 1997) that the
prominent British historian A. J. P. Taylor had remarked that the 1925 Treaty
of Locarno by which Britain and Italy promised to defend France and Belgium,
"rested on the assumption that the promises made in it would never have to be
made good -- otherwise the British Government would not have made them."
Zakaria then states that exactly the same situation repeats itself in the
extension, by the way of membership, of NATO's security guarantees foreseen
in Art. V of the Treaty only to the countries that are not exposed to a direct
threat and thus do not need them. "That is why," he concludes, "Deputy
Secretary of State Strobe Talbott can assert that the movement closer to
Russia's borders of the most powerful military alliance in the world does not
actually threaten Russia. As Tweedledee says, 'if it was so, it might be; and
if it were so, it would be: but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic'." 

On the other hand, a limitless enlargement of NATO, however protracted, would
no doubt weaken the Alliance which in its present shape has a well organized
and smoothly functioning infrastructure, adequate resources and unmatched
military potential. I find Edward Luttwak's formula: "Add Poland, and NATO is
no more" (see, Los Angeles Times, April 16, 1997) a bit extreme and
overalarmist -- it seems to me that adding the three designated countries to
NATO will not significantly dilute its present strength -- but if all the
former communist ruled European states were to join NATO at the level of
Hungary's or the Czech Republic's readiness to do so, the coherence and might
of the Alliance may suffer greatly indeed.

This obvious ambivalence of NATO's enlargement is, in my view, rooted in the
accidental origins of its adoption as American, and later NATO's as a whole,
official policy. Since the "end of Cold War," NATO, almost instinctively,
tried to solve its identity crisis not by the way of enlarging but by that of
engaging Russia, together with all the former Soviet satellites and
dependencies, into a cooperative relationship aimed at insuring together the
collective security in Europe. It was for this purpose that the Partnership
for Peace (later referred to as PfP) had been created. Consequently, at the
time of the initial planning for NATO's post-Cold War future the issue of
keeping the former Soviet dependencies in Central and East Europe secure from
a possible threat on the part of the "new Russia" was not even posited or
considered as a problem that needed to be specifically addressed. It was
assumed that Russia's and the other post-communist states' joint and
constructive involvement with NATO through PfP is to solve that problem
automatically and without any further ado.

This assumption has never been shared, however, by most of the post-communist
states which continued to consider Russia as, at least potentially, an
imminent threat to their newly acquired independence and freedom and which
therefore were resolutely determined to seek NATO's firm guarantees of their
security against possible Russian aggression that the PfP refused to provide
them with. Actually, the PfP, in which they found themselves banded together
with Russia and all other formerly Soviet ruled or dominated states (with the
notable exception of Tadjikistan), became for them in itself a source of
frustration, as Russia, by her sheer size and strength, as well as preeminent
significance in the eyes of the NATO's core, inevitably acquired in it the
position of the dominant actor. The countries of the former Soviet Bloc
suddenly started to feel in this Partnership as if they were back into Warsaw
Pact -- deprived of NATO's Art. V security guarantees and coalescing around
Russia, though this time not in the capacity of a declared foe of, but of an
entity ostensibly attached to, NATO. It was at the April 1993 official opening
of the US Holocaust Museum -- an occasion which the attending heads of East
European states, especially Lech Walesa and Vaclav Havel, used for actively
pressing the freshly elected President Clinton to get their respective
countries accepted as full members of NATO (that is, to get Art. V security
guarantees extended to them) -- that the present policy of NATO's enlargement
started taking shape. While the former President, George Bush, for better or
worse, firmly withstood such pressures, President Clinton willingly yielded to
them, although, in a typically inconsistent Clinton fashion, that is without
changing the main course of the previous administration's policy aiming in the
first place at the establishment, in cooperation with Russia, of a
pan-European collective security system and, through it, "the new world
order." 

Hence getting Russia to acquiesce to the thus conceived NATO's enlargement
plan became the main concern of the Clinton administration ever since that
plan was declared U.S. official policy in the President's October 13, 1993,
speech at the summit meeting of the Visegrad four in Prague. After many ups
and downs in a protracted and sometimes dramatic negotiation process, the 1997
Helsinki Summit between Clinton and Yeltsin, followed in May by the signing of
the Founding Act by all NATO's heads of state and Russia in Paris, have
finally settled the issue of Russia's (very grudgingly conceded)
reconciliation with a partially enlarged NATO in exchange for, among other
things (such as the membership of the Paris Club and the transformation of G-7
into the "Summit of the Eight"), the creation of the Permanent Joint Council
in which Russia was to acquire "a say" (though ostensibly "not a veto") in the
NATO's decision-making process. Then, and only then, did Madrid follow,
formalizing the "first stage of NATO's enlargement" to the apparent
satisfaction of both the Clinton and Yeltsin administrations but not to that
of too many other parties involved or having a vital interest in this process.


Let me make clear that I do not find anything wrong in the U.S. and her NATO
allies' attempts of tightening the cooperative links between NATO and Russia.
Nor, in contrast to Dr. Henry Kissinger (see, a number of his recent articles
in various media outlets, e.g., "The Dilution of NATO" in Washington Post,
June 8, 1997), do I abhor the idea of NATO becoming a pan-European collective
security system. On the contrary, I happen to believe that such an extension
of NATO's role is in the present circumstances not merely commendable but
vitally necessary. The assumption by NATO of this novel function would entail
its commitment to act not only in defense of the Alliance's member-states
which are virtually not anymore under the threat of a direct attack from any
quarters, but also in the capacity of a Euro-Atlantic peacekeeping and
peace-building force outside NATO's own main core. It is for these, and only
for these, peacekeeping and peace-building purposes outside of the area
protected by NATO's own defensive shield that Russia should, in my view, be
firmly enlisted as the Alliance's full-blooded partner via the organizational
forms of her close and permanent association with it foreseen by the PfP's and
the Founding Act's provisions. There is, I believe, no need whatsoever to
accord to Russia any voice at all in NATO's inner arrangements or its
obligations under the provisions of the articles IV and V of the Treaty. This
is to say that, at least to me, NATO's new identity as a collective security
system should not in any way undermine or dilute its old identity of a clearly
defined and coherent political-military alliance whose primary aim had always
been the containment of the U.S.S.R. and, in the post-Soviet context, should,
in my view, staunchly remain the deterrence of Russia from relapsing into her
traditional imperialist antics. I am convinced that, if NATO is to continue to
remain what it always used to be, these by now two identities of that Alliance
should be kept entirely separate and by no means interfere with one another.

It is true that if NATO is to retain in the new post-Cold War situation its
original identity of a proper political-military Alliance, it will have to
extend its defensive shield, in the strictest terms of Art. V guarantees, all
the way to the present western borders of Russia. For without such an
extension, without covering by it Ukraine and the Baltic States in the first
place, NATO's original determination to counter a possible Russian offensive
beyond her western frontier could not be realistically sustained. In other
words, in order for NATO to retain its original identity of an Alliance that
had been unequivocally determined to counter any kind of a Soviet attack
beyond the then East-West divide, it is absolutely necessary for it firmly to
place today its defensive perimeter onto the present western frontier of
Russia proper. The failure to do so would inevitably spell the end of the
Alliance that, at its inception in 1949, NATO was made to be and has always
been since. 

The expansion of NATO's protective shield to the western frontier of Russia
could have been, and still can be, achieved, it seems to me, without either
compromising its new role as a collective security system that would fully
include Russia or even without venturing for a formal enlargement of the
Alliance's membership. For the security guarantees provided by Art. V of the
Treaty may be extended to the states wishing to accept such guarantees also
through bilateral treaty arrangements between these states and NATO proper,
whether the latter is or is not going to be inclusive of Poland, Hungary and
the Czech Republic. These arrangements may vary from country to country. In
the case of Ukraine, for example, NATO can become, in concordance with such a
treaty, the (Art. V) guarantor of Ukraine's neutral status, while in the case
of the three Baltic States the arrangements may be of a full-fledged military
alliance, unless the Baltic States, reassured by NATO's security guarantees,
would, along with Ukraine and Finland, opt for neutrality, too. There is no
doubt that, perhaps with the exception of Lukashenka's Belarus, all states
that border Russia on her western frontier would be most eager to accept Art.
V security guarantees from NATO in any form NATO would be willing to offer
them. It is, after all, for receiving such guarantees that these states seek
NATO's membership in the first place, not for the mere prestige of being able
to boast equal membership of the world's most powerful Alliance. With such
guarantees in place, the process of NATO's enlargement could acquire a
normally steady course that would not be unduly hastened by the impatient urge
of the countries applying for NATO's membership to get their security
protected instantaneously. Indeed, with the borders of Ukraine, Poland and the
Baltic States thus rendered secure, all other countries in the territorial
space between Germany and Russia proper would be automatically protected
against any encroaching or directly expansionist move by Russia.

As a prerequisite for such an arrangement, NATO should be wise to demand that
Ukraine and the Baltic States conclude with Russia firm and unequivocal
non-aggression treaties pledging that no interventionist or any hostile act
aimed against Russia or any part of her territory will ever take place from
the territory of the co-signatory(ies) of such a treaty and, vice versa, that
Russia, recognizing the established borders between herself and the treaties'
co-signatories, is for ever to refrain from applying force or the threat of
force in her relationship with them. Negotiation, arbitration and adjudication
procedures for the authoritative peaceful resolution of disagreements and
disputes between Russia and her co-signatories in the non-aggression treaties
should be clearly established by these treaties, too. In addition, the
conclusion of some treaties on the enhancement of economic cooperation between
Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and the Baltic States should be strongly encouraged,
e.g., of treaties on conditions of unhindered access of Russian merchant and
fishing fleets to the port facilities in the Baltic and Black seas, as well as
on the regime of free transit of goods in international commercial exchanges
through the territories of all signatories. The recently signed
Russo-Ukrainian Treaty could serve as a model for the first step in developing
such arrangements. With treaties of this kind in place, the official Russia
would lose even the slightest justification for her capricious and totally
irrational pretenses of being mortally scared by the possibility of an attack
from NATO or any of her western neighbors acting as its proxies. Whether it
likes it or not, official Russia will have to acknowledge that all these
treaties provide a perfectly reliable infrastructure for developing steady,
peaceful and cooperative relations between Russia and her western neighbors as
well as the rest of Europe and the whole western world.

Let me conclude the above arguments by saying that the Madrid invitation for
the three designated countries to join NATO without the extension of Art. V
security guarantees to the countries that border Russia on her western
frontier and that thus most badly need them, smacks to me of no less than a
new edition of the infamous Yalta deal, whereby the Russian "sphere of
influence" is to be limited to the boundaries of the former Soviet Union,
while Russia is to concede the right for the former Warsaw Treaty states to be
basically free to act as they please, e.g., to join NATO whenever the latter
will deem them fit to do so. So, let us call the spade the spade -- what
happened in Madrid was not the abolishment of divisions in Europe making the
old continent one and indivisible sphere of cooperating democracies; it was a
mere move of the dividing line between Russia and the West from the borders of
the former Soviet Bloc to the frontiers of the former Soviet Union. As the
Yalta agreement led to the Cold War, the Madrid deal, in a very similar
fashion -- by tempting Russia to assert more completely its dominion over the
"sphere of influence" thus granted to her by the West -- could lead to a new
round of East-West confrontation the disastrous impact of which on the
security situation in Europe and the entire world could not be overestimated.

I fail to understand those political analysts and statesmen who seem to be
convinced that, after the fall of communism and the end of Soviet empire,
Russia stopped representing a threat to her neighbors and thus to world peace.
It is so damningly obvious that the Yeltsin administration since late 1992 did
everything in its power to bully the former Soviet republics and even Poland
back into submission to Russia's diktat that such views almost seem to come
from a different world, entirely isolated from information about what is going
on on this planet. And what is the whole Russian vehement opposition to NATO's
enlargement about, if it is not about resisting the definitive loss of
"natural" space for her eventual re-expansion? What other meaning could be
attached to Russia's persistent opposition to NATO, to her whole treatment of
the relationship with it as a zero sum game? Could any professional political
operator or analyst seriously believe that Russia may indeed feel in any way
threatened by NATO, whether expanding or not; or that Russian policy-makers
are really ignorant of the fact that NATO is a purely defensive alliance that
threatens no one and that only those who themselves plan to trespass against
NATO's defensive perimeter may justifiably feel threatened by it? And if this
is the case, then there should not be any doubt left in any professional's
mind about Russia's opposition to NATO's expansion being nurtured by Russia's
own expansionist intentions and plans. 

What surprises me even more is the apologetic attitude that the Western
statesmen always display when negotiating with Russia NATO's enlargement -- as
if indeed they are trying to take away from Russia what is legitimately hers.
Overwhelmed by an inexplicable guilt complex, they try in a meek voice of a
mischievous child to explain their behavior to the Russians as innocuous and
by no means attempting to do anything that could bode ill to Russia's
interests, as these are understood by the Russian leaders themselves. By
adamantly refusing to admit the obvious, namely that the Alliance is expanding
in order to restrain Russia, they find themselves drawn into bargaining with
Russia about what in the end boils down to the division of "spheres of
interest." When, for example, Yeltsin, in his typically non-diplomatic
language, declared that the addition to NATO of any members of the CIS or of
the former Soviet republics that are not currently members of CIS (that is of
the three Baltic States) would force him drastically to reconsider the whole
of the at present quite cooperative relationship between Russia and the West,
his western interlocutors not only did not rebuke him, but took his threat
very seriously 
and -- in order to avoid the risk of "unnecessarily" complicating relations
with Russia -- accepted Yeltsin's demand practically without reservations,
tacitly making it, at least for the time being, a done deal. In his meeting
with the Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, on July 12-13, 1997, in St.
Petersburg, Russian Foreign Minister Yevgeniy Primakov again stressed that
NATO should "not touch" the Baltic States because that area is of "special
interest" to Russia and Russia is ready to issue to these states her
unilateral guarantees of their sovereignty. Mrs. Albright responded to this
with the usual platitude about NATO membership being in principle open to all
"democratic market systems in Europe," but the same day, July 13, addressed
the meeting of Baltic foreign ministers in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius
telling them in no uncertain terms that the U.S.-Baltic Charter now in
preparation for signature in September "will not be a security guarantee but a
document enabling us to cooperate on the basis of common aims and qualities."
(See, RFE/RL Newsline, No. 72, Parts I & II, July 14, 1997.)

At least in my books, this "concessionary" attitude to Russia is wrong in
principle; moreover, it is counterproductive, because, instead of taming
Russia's inherent imperial instincts, it forges them into a presentable policy
line fully legitimized by the West. I will return below to some more
discussion of this crucially important point. Here, I think, it should be
enough just to say that by refusing radically to oppose Russia's delusions of
what constitutes the greatness of state power, by accepting from Russia, as a
normal expression of her "specific" national interests, what by any usual 
standards could not be seen as anything other than a severe case of political
pathology, the West acts against its own long term interests, as well as
against the best interests of Russia herself.

Most often, however, one hears arguments maintaining that Russia is now a
democracy which, as such, has stopped being aggressive and that, because of
this fact, there is no need anymore of deterring her from attempting forceful
expansion. Those who say such things usually add to these statements a
qualification: "as long as Yeltsin and the reformists stay in power." Then the
proponents of these arguments proceed to reason that NATO's expansion to
Russia's borders may somehow undermine Yeltsin's ability to retain the
helmsmanship of the Russian state, apparently suggesting that the public,
frustrated by his inability properly to protect Russia from the West's
domination, will vote the present administration out of office and elect into
government anti-westerners of the extreme communist and nationalist variety.
Hence, according to their logic, it is preferable to bargain with Yeltsin
than, by taking an intransigent stance, provoke his loss of power that would
certainly make come true the worst fears about the renewal of East-West
confrontation initiating the second edition of the Cold War. 

This logic is to me totally faulty for many reasons but mainly because nothing
could be farther removed from Russia's political reality than the arguments
the proponents of this logic are using. All the opinion polls conducted during
the last several years consistently suggest that the Russian electorate is
least of all concerned about NATO and that less than 30 percent of the
population consider the West generally, and NATO in particular, as forces
representing an external threat to Russia. Asked in two of the latest
representative country-wide opinion polls about NATO's enlargement, only 18.5
percent of those polled said that they believe that it could result in a
certain intensification of the military threat to Russia; another 10 percent
were concerned that NATO's expansion could lead to Russia's further political
isolation from Europe and the world; the rest either did not see anything
wrong or ominous about it at all or did not have an opinion. (See, Nezavisimoe
Voennoe Obozrenie, June 7-13, 1997, where the results of the two opinion polls
conducted by Gallop International and the Russian Public Opinion and Market
Research Institute were analyzed.) It is of special interest in this context
to stress that in an earlier representative country-wide opinion poll
conducted by Russia's International Center of Sociological Research, 70.4
percent of the polled said that Lithuania's entry into NATO is Lithuania's own
internal affair and should be of no concern to Russia, while 24.8 percent
disagreed and the rest did not have on this issue an opinion. (See, BNS
Report, "In Contrast With the Kremlin Leaders, the Russian Population Does Not
Object to Lithuania's Membership of NATO," published by Lietuvos Rytas, March
20, 1997.) Hence, if one bears in mind a process of democratic change of
government by fair elections, NATO's expansion even on the scale of embracing
the states formerly belonging to the U.S.S.R., could hardly cause the radical
communist-nationalist accession to power of which so many western analysts are
rightly afraid. If one, however, meant the change of government by a coup -- a
very unlikely possibility, but one never knows... -- it is absolutely certain
that no NATO action could either provoke it or even be used as an excuse for
having staged it. One could really rest assured that if a coup against Yeltsin
were ever to take place, it would be mounted for reasons and goals that have
nothing to do with NATO whatsoever.

Let us, however, look at the bottom of the problem and openly admit that as
yet Russia is not a democracy in the western sense of this concept. True,
during the last decade Russia became an open society with a free press and
free elections, but this fact so far failed to translate itself into the
transformation of Russia's Soviet-type master state into a servant-state
dependent from and accountable to the public. At the same time, the reality of
power of that master-state in the new conditions of relative freedom has
greatly diminished at home, to say nothing about the crumbling in the wake of
the demise of the "evil empire" of its international influence, restricting,
in the first place, Russia's freedom to act as it pleases in the "near
abroad." Facing this situation, the post-Soviet Russian state has, almost by
instinct, put itself to the task of restoring its former power and prestige.
Gradually, this task took priority over any other tasks that the Russian
polity was initially set to accomplish in its transition from communism, which
is to say that today the imperial syndrome again dictates Russia's state
policies, in spite of the citizenry's overwhelming indifference and, for the
large part's of them, explicit hostility to their polity's neo-imperial
designs. 

One could try to define the substance of the current Russian polity by using a
variety of concepts borrowed from the arsenal of comparative political theory.
To me, the closest such definition would be an elective oligarchy -- according
to Robert Dahl's well known scale of identification of political regimes (see,
his Polyarchy: Participation and Opposition, New Haven, CT, & London,UK: Yale
University Press, 1971, especially pp. 1-17 where the conceptual framework is
laid out), it would come closest to an odd combination of hegemonic political
institutions trying to assert themselves over an increasingly polyarchic
socio-political reality. Whatever theoretical definition one would, however,
care to apply, the basic fact behind any of them would be the plain fact that
the current Russian polity, despite of all changes which affected it during
the last decade, still remains the "clumsy, unintelligent monster called the
traditional Russian state." According to the author of these words, Sergei
Kovalev, who after Andrey Sakharov's death rightfully inherited the title of
the living conscience of Russia, this traditional Russian state "...is
inherently incapable of properly evaluating situations because it feeds off
myths alone and in some sense is a myth itself. It cannot live without using
force, because its essence is deified, impersonal power divorced from the
power of society. The Russian state does not know how to resolve problems
bloodlessly, for blood is its favorite food. Moreover, it does not really know
how to resolve problems at all. It only knows how to create them." (See,
Sergei Kovalev, "Russia After Chechnya," in The New York Review of Books, Vol.
XLIV, No. 12, July 17, 1997, p.28) 

Hence, according to Kovalev and other like-minded true Russian democrats, for
their country to turn into a fully trusted member of the international
political community and to being accepted as such, first and foremost, by her
immediate neighbors, Russia has finally to overcome the traditional
"mythological" essence of her statehood by establishing full-blooded
democratic rule. I would venture, in addition, that this task could only be
achieved if, at last, Russia also managed to assume the identity of a proper
nation-state, as opposed to that of an abstract geopolitical entity which does
not know any national boundaries and therefore seeks imperially to extend
itself to whatever borders its rulers deem to be consistent with their current
external goals. And the accomplishment of this task would also have to start
within the present Russian Federation which so far has been unable equitably
to sort out the relationship between the Russian nation and the non-Russian
nations banded into one "equally federal" Russian state.

NATO's extension to the western Russian borders, far from compromising these
tasks, would greatly -- and, I would even say, decisively -- assist Russia in
their achievement. The Russian leadership and every significant section of
Russia's present political elite, including even the Zyuganovites, is -- the
rhetoric to the contrary notwithstanding -- vitally interested in a
cooperative relationship with the West. They all are more than aware that if
Russia is to have a standing chance to recover from the devastation of seventy
odd years long communist plague, this chance could only be realized with the
West's assistance and through its good will. When Boris Yeltsin threatens
fundamentally to reconsider Russia's relationship with the West in the case of
Western non-compliance with some of his demands, he, of course, is simply
bluffing (though, as shown above, not only Clinton and his co-leaders in NATO
are prone to take his bait but even some respectable academic analysts are
susceptible to doing so, too). In fact, Yeltsin would have no choice but to
adjust to any conceivable western "affront," as he has adjusted to the present
enlargement of NATO, in spite of at the same time calling it the greatest
mistake the U.S. has made since the beginning of Cold War and, moreover -- a 
blunder that brought U.S.-Russian relations to the lowest point since the 1962
Cuban Missile Crisis. (What a perfectly unmistakable Soviet confrontational
logic!) This reality of official Russia's attitude to the West gives, by the
way, a lie to the prolific arguments about NATO's inability and unwillingness
to fight Russia for Riga or Kiev. As in the period of the Cold War NATO's
deterrent effect was strong enough to prevent the outbreak of open fighting
along the then East-West divide, so would it be equally effective now in
preventing the fight flaring up on Russia's western borders. The situation
may, however, become entirely different if Ukraine and the Baltic States were
left for a substantial period of time in the by now notorious "gray zone."

Thus, with NATO's defensive shield extended to Russia's western frontier,
Russia would, willy-nilly, have to accept the fact that there is no space
anymore left for her imperial expansion beyond that frontier and,
consequently, start seriously reconsidering the essence of Russia's statehood
itself. Being put in this way into NATO's strict corset, Russia's
traditionally minded, statist oriented political elites (e.g., Yeltsin and his
associates) may even arrive at the conclusion that it is, after all, necessary
for Russia to get into the gear of transforming herself into a proper
nation-state and to begin building into the Russian state system genuinely
democratic institutions. NATO's very proximity to Russia, having empirically
proved that it contains neither danger nor threat, could thus in itself become
a potent stimulus for Russia's democratic change. 

The above was also to say that I consider the extension of NATO's protective
shield to Russia's western frontier to be an act working not only in the
security interests of the post-communist states of Central and Eastern Europe,
but also one which in the long run would strongly enhance vital national
interests of Russia herself. There are many Russian politicians who are very
much aware of the positive impact NATO's expansion may have on Russia and who
do not shy away from publicly stating their position on that issue. Beside
Sergei Kovalev, Galina Starovoitova, Konstantin Borovoy, Irina Khakamada,
Valeriy Borshchov, Lev Ponomarev, Anatoliy Shabad, to name but a few, took
such a pro-NATO stance in an unhesitant and straightforward manner. Even the
avowedly nationalistic general-turned politician, Aleksandr Lebed, never fails
to state that he does not see any danger accumulating for Russia because of
NATO's eastward expansion. I know of many more prominent Russian political
figures who fully share this view, too, but because of their proximity to the
Yeltsin administration avoid expressing it publicly. Very typical in this
respect is the case of Yeltsin's former Foreign Minister Andrey Kozyrev. As
Minister, he strictly followed Yeltsin's line, threatening, together with his
boss, to bring about, in case of NATO's enlargement, the notorious Cold Peace
that was supposed to become the modern substitute for Cold War; he also
staunchly defended his government's actions in Chechnya and elsewhere in the
world. Even in private discussions with his friend, the quoted above Sergei
Kovalev, he would press on with the same officialdom supporting arguments.
Now, a mere deputy of the State Duma, Kozyrev is Russia's most outspoken
partisan of NATO's enlargement. Stating so openly their views, the pro-NATO
Russian politicians are obviously not afraid of provoking against themselves
the wrath of their electors which, bearing in mind the data of public opinion
polls cited above, is not at all surprising. This is to say that NATO's
expansion, if consistently pursued and properly explained, could eventually
win strong support among quite large sections of the Russian population which
would be able readily to find spokesmen and representatives among some
prominent members of Russia's extant political elite.

Among many other available arguments in favor of NATO's "expansion beside
enlargement," I would like to bring up, in conclusion, only one more. If
NATO's Art. V security guarantees were extended to Ukraine and the Baltic
States, their nervousness about Russia and her potential imperial intentions
would be effectively dissipated. Under NATO's protective umbrella, these
states would happily abandon the many reservations that now prevent them from
wholeheartedly engaging with Russia into a variety of mutually beneficial
joint ventures and start fast developing between themselves and Russia a
system of close cooperation based on mutual interests, respect and trust. In
due course, a reliable foundation for the establishment between Russia and her
immediate western neighbors of not merely a cooperative but of a truly
friendly relationship could thus be built-up. And what could be a better
guarantee of lasting peace in the area than such a voluntarily evolved
friendly cooperation between neighbor-states? At present, however, within the
context of the controversies about the extent and limits of NATO's
enlargement, an opposite tendency -- that of growing mutual suspicions,
tensions and recriminations -- is gathering momentum. 

Regional cooperation that the Baltic States, immediately after having become
independent, started fostering among themselves and with other newly
independent states on the former western rim of the Soviet Union is now
getting increasingly aimed at the creation of a defensive alliance stretching
all the way from the Baltic to the Black Sea. With Lukashenka's accession to
power, this endeavor, insofar as the participation in it of Belarus was
concerned, came, however, to naught and, for it to be rescued and proceeded
with further, Poland had to be actively involved into the process of its
gradual formation. In the fulfillment of this task Lithuania has taken upon
itself the role of the prime mover. During 1996-97, Poland and Lithuania have
started creating a series of joint state institutions that together are
supposed to bring about a close union of the two states. The first such
institution to have come into being was the Polish-Lithuanian Parliamentary
Assembly in which forty legislators -- twenty members delegated by the
parliament of each participant state -- took seats. The next to be instituted
was the Presidential Council, and the joint Polish-Lithuanian military unit,
the Litpolbat, followed suit. On July 16, 1997, the Lithuanian governmental
delegation in Warsaw started negotiations with its Polish counterparts on
realizing the agreement reached by the two prime-ministers, Wlodzimierz
Cimoszewicz and Gediminas Vagnorius, in the beginning of 1997 about
establishing a Polish-Lithuanian Governmental Council under the joint
chairmanship of the two heads of governments. The head start for Poland's
involvement into a wider, "Baltic-Black Sea," regional alliance was then given
by the first meeting of the five presidents -- those of the three Baltic
States, Poland's Alexander Kwasniewski and Ukraine's Leonid Kuchma -- which
took place in May 1997 in Estonia's capital, Tallinn. It was decided there
that all the parties should hold regular consultations, strengthen cooperation
between themselves in all spheres of mutual interest, and call another summit
meeting before the end of the year, inviting to it also the President of
Finland. 

Since Poland is soon to become a full-fledged member of NATO and in this
capacity, if attacked, would be able to bring to her defense the whole of the
Alliance's military force, her participation in such regional arrangements,
especially if they evolved into a formal defensive alliance, may prove to be
of enormous significance. After all, Yugoslavia formally has never been a
member of NATO, but because of her military cooperation treaties with NATO
members, Greece and Turkey, she was treated as a de facto member protected by
the Art. V guarantees. It may be that what Greece and Turkey did for
Yugoslavia, Poland could do for Ukraine and the Baltic States. 

Be that as it may, in the present situation Ukraine and the Baltic States are
bound to do everything in their power to strengthen their military cooperation
with the view of making themselves optimally able to withstand together
whatever steps Russia may take against them. These efforts would, no doubt,
displease Russia and make her to take certain counter-measures aimed at
undermining these cooperative efforts undertaken by her western neighbors. All
these inevitably unpleasant developments could, however, be effectively
avoided by taking Ukraine and the Baltic States directly under NATO's
protective umbrella. 

This is my case for suggesting that NATO's first priority is to be expansion
by way of extending, on the basis of bilateral arrangements, the Alliance's
security guarantees under the provisions of Art. V of the Treaty to any state
to the west of Russia wishing to accept them, and that this expansion is to be
put into motion separately from, and ahead of, the process of NATO's
enlargement. I also suggest that both these initiatives -- expansion and
enlargement -- are to proceed without seeking Russia's consent or
acquiescence, as there is nothing in them that may injure or otherwise
adversely affect Russia's legitimate interests. These legitimate interests,
far from being ignored or neglected by NATO, are, on the contrary, to be put
at the center of its attention -- in the process of expanding and enlarging
itself, NATO is to do everything in its power firmly and unequivocally to
defend and promote Russia's legitimate interests in the areas coming under
NATO's protection. The soothing manner NATO treats Russia today, by fortifying
her ostensible contentions about the hostility of NATO's very move eastward,
is in fact profoundly detrimental to Russia. Instead of helping Russia to
evolve into a civilized and cooperative political entity, ready to get
organically integrated with the western world, it actually freezes the
artificial confrontational stage Russia has set up for the purpose of
endlessly playing the zero-sum game between herself and the West, and by this
greatly obstructs Russia's ability to moving in the direction of getting
horoughly and irreversibly "europeanized."

Finally, I suggest that in following the line of honoring and promoting
Russia's legitimate interests, NATO is fully to include Russia into the
Euro-Atlantic collective security system which it is currently building up. In
this endeavor Russia is indeed to be treated as NATO's most important partner,
that is in the manner prescribed by the provisions establishing the PfP and
the Permanent Joint Council. By actively engaging Russia into cooperation
within that functional framework, NATO would be opening to her yet another
important channel for integration into Europe and the western world. One is
not to mix, however, apples with oranges -- Russia's major engagement into one
aspect of NATO's activities does not at all entail her inclusion into, or
getting any kind of say in, the spheres related to the rest of NATO's
functions, chiefly those concerned with security matters of its members and
partners. Russia's ill conceived contentions about NATO being a threat to her
interests could only be further boosted up by NATO's conceding to her demands
of having a voice in these matters, too.

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