LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Nato Enlargement: Alliances
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According to the Alliance's Study on NATO Enlargment, an enlarged NATO would "contribute to enhanced stability" and foster "democracy, individual liberty and the rule of law" in the new member states. However, the countries under consideration for early enlargement, the Visegrad countries, are already well on their way to liberal democracy and a market economy. If the need to bolster stability and democratization were in fact the main criteria for NATO enlargement, Russia and Ukraine would certainly be recognised as most suitable candidates.22
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For summation, the cost of NATO enlargement presents no major difficulty to either new or current members. There is time enough to invest in the future in order to build a new Alliance capable of facing the challenges of the 21st century. The present paper is subtitled: "A Contribution to the Debate". It contains the first Polish cost estimate for joining NATO. As an organization whose purpose is to study foreign policy and security matters, the Euro-Atlantic Association hopes the document will help to make the Polish voice heard in the on-going debate.
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Two years after the Washington Summit, enlargement has been demoted from NATO's agenda. Although the alliance remains officially committed to expansion, recent movements in this direction have been tentative. NATO peacekeeping operations in Bosnia and Kosovo clearly dominate the agenda. (In the Final Communique of NATO's May 2000 ministerial meeting in Florence, the commitment to enlarge was preceded by 33 other concerns.) While the official policy is clear, the next round of NATO expansion is developing into a contentious issue, with differing views among the allies. On May 18-19th, 2000 nine foreign ministers of MAP countries launched a political initiative in Vilnius, Lithuania, to remind NATO to invite their countries to join the alliance at the next NATO Summit in 2002, which will be held in Prague in late November 2002, and which is expected to produce a decision regarding the further enlargement of the alliance. In Bratislava May 10-12th, 2001, the Vilnius group was joined by Croatia in reconfirming their commitment to becoming NATO members at the earliest possible date.
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[A]s already noted, NATO enlargement after September 11 is no longer likely to be as damaging to relations with Russia as previously feared. In fact, even before September 11, Russia was beginning to realize that NATO was going to back away from its view that free democracies should be allowed to choose their own security alliances. The new coalition against terrorism further diminishes the relative importance of Baltic NATO membership in Russian eyes and makes it more likely that NATO can enlarge and build a positive relationship with Moscow at the same time.
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"There is a growing consensus on both sides of the Atlantic that enlargement is key to the Alliance's future," said NATO PA President Rafael ESTRELLA. "The whole security landscape has qualitatively changed, and NATO’s response to new challenges will be a central focus at the Prague Summit. The importance of some issues such as NATO enlargement, the fight against terrorism, the closer cooperation with Russia, and the need to maintain peace and security in the Balkans are central to security and stability in the Euro-Atlantic area. NATO must make further profound changes to ensure that it can meet the security challenges of the 21st century, in particular after 11 September”.
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* Critics of NATO enlargement claim that the fact that there is no need for NATO to expend massive amounts of money to meet some serious threat reveals the “internal contradiction” of the argument of those who favor expanding the alliance. (See, e.g., Amos Perlmutter and Ted Galen Carpenter, “NATO’s Expensive Trip East,” Foreign Affairs [Jan./Feb. 1998].) If there is no threat now, why expand what is ultimately a military alliance? By suggesting that expansion can be carried out with minimal cost, enlargement's proponents are supposedly confirming the critics’ view that NATO’s enlargement is being pushed for a host of reasons, but none strategic. This line of argument overlooks the broader and longer-term strategic benefits of NATO’s expansion, as well as, it might be added, the common sense point that “an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure.” For an explication of these and related points, see the Project’s memorandums of Oct. 8, 1997 (“Why NATO's Enlargement is in America's Strategic Interest”) and Oct. 13, 1997 (“NATO Enlargement: What is ‘the Threat?’”).
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