Another chance for NATO?

THE SUCCESS of Vladimir Zhirinovsky in Russia's December 12 election sent shock waves through the the world and cast a shadow over NATO's Brussels Summit. The bad news from Russia extends far beyond the 23 per cent support garneded by the fascists. For Russians cast more than two-thirds of their votes for candidates who favor an expansionist foreign policy. They endorsed parties that favor the revival of the Russian empire (Zhirinovsky's Liberal Democrats), or that want to restore the Soviet Union (Geunady Zyuganov's Communists and Mikhail Lapshin's Agrarians, both of which nominated and saw elected candidates who had helped orchestrate the August 1991 coup in an effort to preserve the Soviet Union), or that seek to exert political and economic pressure to recreate a federal state made up of ex-Soviet republics (Nikolai Travkin's Democrats and Arkady Volsky% Civic Union), or that regret the collapse of the federated "Union" state (Grigory Yavlinsky's bloc), or that openly call for the redrawing of Russia's boundaries (former Ambassador to the U.S. Vladimir Lukin).

Almost the entire Russian political elite--reformers and hard-liners alike--today advocate expansionism or hegemonism for their economically troubled country. Yet with Russia's leaders turning toward a menacing foreign policy, the U.S. military presence in Europe is being drastically scaled back from a Cold War level of 300,000 to 100,000 or less.

NATO, the institution that for more than four decades contained Communist expansionism and kept the peace, is languishing. Four years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, NATO has failed to develop a compelling post-Cold War role. Reduced to a marginal role in the former Yugoslavia, the alliance today is an elaborate security structure for a part of the world whose security is not threatened.

The very NATO that took risks to consolidate and protect the community of democratic nations after World War II proved incapable at its January 12-13 Summit of summoning up the will to embrace those who had led the struggle against Communism and are shaping market democracies in Central and Eastern Europe today. Under Zhirinovsky's lengthening shadow, NATO ignored the entreaties of leaders like Poland's Lech Walesa, the Czech Republic's Vaclav Havel, and Bulgaria's Zhelyu Zhelev--even though polls conducted in the weeks before the summit show that a clear majority of French, British, West German, Italian, Belgian, Spanish, and Turkish citizens favor NATO security guarantees for Eastern Europe and support the use of their own country's troops to defend Eastern Europe.

And so, to the West's string of recent failures--Bosnia, Somalia, and Haiti-may well be added a fourth: the inability to develop a credible security structure for post-Cold War Europe while there is still a chance.

At the root of NATO's failure is not the absence of U.S. leadership, but U.S. leadership of the wrong kind. While doubts grow about President Yeltsin's capacity to build a democracy in his country, U.S. policy increasingly appears to be predicated on a partnership with Russia. By treating Russia as a reliable partner and encouraging Russia's view of itself as a major world power, U.S. policy has helped Russia reassert its hegemony in the near abroad. U.S. policy has also led to a sense of isolation and anxiety among the very Central and Eastern European democracies that should be the pillars of the new European order.

Russia Resurgent 

WHILE NATO drifts, Russia, under Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev, has pursued an imaginative foreign policy. Fending off internal disintegration, fighting a fierce political struggle at home, and facing near economic collapse, Russia--not the U.S.--has emerged as the first country with a coherent and comprehensive post-Cold War foreign policy. Russia has adroitly played to the West's human-rights concerns by exaggerating the "repression" of ethnic Russians in Estonia and Latvia. It has forced Georgia into its sphere of influence, first by aiding insurgent armies in Abkhazia and later by increasing its military presence in the republic to restore stability. By assisting armed insurgents  in Azerbaijan, Russia helped topple a democratically elected President, and led to his replacement with a pro-Russian Politiburo crony of Brezhnev's. In Tajikistan, Russia assisted a coup that felled a secular non-Communist government, replacing it with a Communist team that acknowledged Moscow's hegemony. Russian military support for the breakaway Transdniester republic has eroded Moldova's sovereignty. Russia has virtually annexed Belarus by integrating the republic's economy and military into its own. Russia also has wrested control of the Black Sea Fleet from Ukraine, and uses it for its own foreign-policy aims. And Russia has skillfully used the U.S. anti-proliferation establishment to isolate Ukraine internationally.

In Eastern Europe, Russia is to construct a gas pipeline through Poland, increasing its influence in Warsaw while exerting new pressure on Ukraine, through which all Russian natural gas to Europe now passes. By deftly employing the threat of veto at the UN Security Council, Russia has stymied an assertive anti-Serbian policy. Russia has also attempted to reduce U.S. influence in Europe. In mid December Foreign Minister Kozyrev declared Russia and Germany should create "an axis...to guarantee stability and the continuation of democratic processes in Europe, including its Central and Eastern part."

In the Far East, Russia has signed an agreement allowing it to maintain a naval presence in Vietnam. And it has taken a tough position on the occupied Kurile Islands, offering the Japanese no concessions, while extracting some aid.

NATO's eastward expansion gathered steam as a result of President Yeltsin's visit in August to Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia, where he affirmed that membership was a matter for each sovereign state. The green light for a fast track to NATO's enlargement raised high hopes in Eastern Europe.

Yeltsin reversed himself on September 30 in a letter to NATO leaders that warned against the alliance's extension. Instead of repudiating Russia's heavy-handed interference in the affairs of states outside its sphere of influence, the U.S. maintained a deliberate silence. Three weeks later, after Yeltsin defeated parliamentary hardliners occupying the Russian White House, the U.S. caved in and proposed a "Partnership for Peace" at a meeting of NATO defense ministers.

Partnership for Peace was more than a retreat from rapid extension of NATO into Central Europe. Far from offering inducements to countries that have made major strides toward political pluralism and market reform, Partnership for Peace appears to wipe the slate clean. Every country from Central and Eastern Europe and the ex-USSR is disingenuously invited to participate, including Central Asian states with no links to Europe or the Atlantic. The Partnership offers no clear road map or timetable for countries seeking to join NATO, and it extends the same hand of cooperation to countries with no interest in joining NATO as it does to new democracies pressing for early entry. As Zbigniew Brzezinski  put it, "The proposal equates the Czech Republic with Tajikistan. It treats emerging democracies and brutal tyrannies similarly."

The Spirit of Yalta

THE PROPOSAL, approved at NATO's Summit, has generated dismay and unease among East Europeans. In late October, Czech President Havel stated: "If the West refuses Central European states the right to become full-fledged members of the European integration structures, including NATO, it would mean a return to the spirit of Yalta." Such comments, joined by Lech Walesa's powerful calls for NATO's extension, have had only a small effect. Where first the U.S. spoke only of the "possibility" of eventual NATO expansion, the NATO Summit spoke of expansion, but far off in the future.

Ironically, while motivated by concern that enlarging NATO might weaken Yeltsin in his battle with hard-line opponents, Western dalliance and concessions have only increased the appetites of Russia's leaders. In November 1993, Russia unveiled its new military doctrine, which sounds aggressive notes. The doctrine defines "the introduction of foreign troops on the territory of neighboring states" as constituting "an immediate military threat to the Russian Federation." It asserts that Russia's nuclear arsenal can be used against any country allied with a nuclear state, rather than the previous Soviet practice of targeting countries which possess nuclear weapons or permit their stationing. According to Valery Manilev of Russia's National Security Council, the provision is intended "to keep the states of the CIS and East Central Europe outside the NATO orbit."

Foreign Minister Kozyrev also elaborated a tougher line, asserting Russia's responsibility "for stability in this part of the world" and warning that efforts to create a cordon sanitaire around Russia "could be crushed in any situation." To give teeth to this threat, Russian Defense Minister Pavel Grachev announced that Russia would field a military force of 2.1 million men--not 1.5 million as earlier announced. As the daily Nezavisimaya Gazeta put it recently: "Russian diplomats were mistakenly accused of not having a clearly thought out foreign-policy concept." Russia, indeed, did have a coherent policy aimed at enlarging its influence in the former Soviet bloc. However, this aim "couldn't be made public" because it would have alarmed the West.

The Clinton Administration's policy is not to react. As Secretary of State Christopher told the Washington Post's Jim Hoagland: "We cannot engage in a neo-containment of Russia." Such remarks underscore that the U.S. has, thus far, done nothing to limit Russia's insatiable appetite for hegemony. It will be interesting to see how these remarks will now be interpreted by Russia's new parliamentary majority, which supports the restoration of the old borders of the USSR.

In Central Europe, the West's--and especially the United States'--tilt toward Russia defies comprehension. As Hungarian Foreign Minister Geza Jeszenszky put it: "I cannot accept the idea of a new 'great alliance' this time between NATO and Russia, a new umbrella held over Hungary and its neighbors."

For Central Europe, Ukraine not Russia--is the key to a peaceful Europe. Ukraine has two-thirds the tanks, combat aircraft, and armored personnel carriers of European Russia. Its conventional military arsenal is more modern than that inherited by the Russian military. Ukraine, moreover, has shown a respect for the sovereignty of its neighbors and has made impressive efforts to protect the rights of ethnic minorities. This contrasts markedly with Russia's stated commitment to protect the rights not only of Russian citizens but also of ethnic Russians--even of "Russian speakers"--who live abroad.

The sovereignty won by Ukraine, Moldova, and the Baltic states will not be surrendered without struggle. Thus Russia's push toward hegemony carries within it the seeds of conflict. Moreover, a Russia preoccupied with the affairs of its neighbors will be a Russia that expends a higher proportion of its treasure on defense.

It is the West's policy of concessions that has helped put Russia back in the game in Central Europe. And the West's current mixed signals on NATO's enlargement, by styraying the creation of a security arrangement within Central and Eastern Europe, may leave a dangerous legacy--a lasting regional security vacuum. As a result, East European states will hold off on making cuts in military spending, causing strains on fragile economies in transition to a free market. Lost, too, will be the opportunity to create mechanisms for broader cooperation in a region beset by ethnic tensions and irredentist sentiments.

As Vaclav Havel has compellingly argued, "bringing NATO closer to Russian borders means bringing closer democracy and stabilization." NATO as currently configured is no longer up to the task for which it was created: to protect vulnerable free societies from the encroachment of aggressive states. Yet NATO's expansion must be thought through in a way that does not isolate Russia's neighbor, Ukraine. The best way to do this is to transform NATO into a military-political alliance that is the anchor of a Euro-Atlantic security system. That system should be open to the eventual incorporation of a democratic Ukraine, and of Russia, if it succeeds in its transformation from a tyranny to a free society.

At the NATO Summit, President Clinton and Secretary Christopher argued against drawing a new boundary in Europe. Unfortunately, that boundary has already been drawn--by Russia, through its relentless efforts to create a unified military bloc under the Commonwealth of Independent States. One of the conditions of a democratic Russia's eventual entry into a Euro-Atlantic security pact would be the dissolution of any CIS defense pact.

For Central and Eastern Europe and for those who believe in a strong alliance, NATO's Summit was a disappointment. But it was not a disaster. If the Partnership for Peace is the first step toward rapid expansion of NATO eastward, it may become a way station on the road to a new Euro-Atlantic security system. Clearly, that road has not yet closed. But with Russia's imperialists gathering strength, quick action and decisive U.S. leadership will be needed very soon.