NATO weal: even before NATO officially spreads eastward, it is already producing positive effects.

Mr. Karatnycky is President of Freedom House and co-editor of a new study, Nations in Transit 1997: Democracy, Civil Society and Economic Change in East Central Europe and the New Independent States (Transaction Books: 1997).

ON July 8 the leaders of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization met in Madrid to announce that Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic had been invited to begin a process leading to membership in the alliance. Commenting on the decision to enlarge, NATO's Secretary General, Javier Solana, pronounced these "fantastic times," a period of "profound transformation" of the "whole security environment of Europe."

While we expect hyperbole from political leaders, there already is significant evidence that Mr. Solana is not exaggerating: the decision by the Atlantic Alliance to expand is a landmark development in European history. Indeed, the very expectation that NATO would move eastward has contributed to dramatic improvements in the security of Central and Eastern Europe.

For the past year, there has been a flurry of diplomatic activity among the countries of East-Central Europe, driven by their desire to join the Alliance and other Western institutions. This diplomacy has resulted in treaties that have resolved longstanding border issues and ethnic disputes that were the source of instability and tension, and that could have led to armed conflict.

In the hope of strengthening their case for entry into the Atlantic Alliance, Hungary and Slovakia have signed and ratified a comprehensive treaty. The treaty establishes mechanisms for dealing with the half-million-strong Hungarian minority in Slovakia, and it allows for limited local self-government in southern Slovakia, the area where most of the ethnic Hungarian minority lives. Hungary also has settled its border issues with Rumania through a far-reaching Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation signed in 1996 and ratified by both parliaments by May of 1997.

Meanwhile, under President Emil Constantinescu, Rumania has worked with Ukraine to resolve some potentially destabilizing border and minority issues. Despite opposition from the ex-Communists who ruled Rumania until this year, the two countries initialed a basic treaty May 3 confirming the inviolability of existing borders and renouncing the threat or use of force. The document also provides for measures to protect the culture and preserve the rights of Ukrainian minorities in Rumania and Rumanian minorities in Ukraine. While improved relations between the two states reflect propitious internal developments -- including the growing influence of reform-oriented forces -- they were also influenced by the process of NATO enlargement. As the Rumanian Foreign Ministry's Dumitru Ceausu noted, the settlement with Ukraine was achieved quickly "to demonstrate that Rumania has no problems with its neighbors" -- a precondition for NATO membership.

Poland, meanwhile, has signed a document on Ukrainian - Polish reconciliation that addresses the mutual recriminations stemming from the 1930s and 1940s. In May, the legislatures of Poland and Lithuania deepened cooperation by creating an Inter-Parliamentary Assembly designed to strengthen cultural relations and protect minority rights.

ACCOMPANYING these important treaties, which have resolved decades-old disputes, there also has been a spate of agreements designed to deepen trade and economic cooperation in the region.

As some of these examples indicate, in the course of serving their own interests vis-a-vis NATO, Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic are playing a critical role in promoting security in the countries to their East that are not in the first wave of NATO enlargement. The three new prospective members of NATO understand that although the Alliance is the cornerstone of regional security, it cannot solve all the region's problems. Poland, in particular, has taken the lead in promoting regional cooperation through a process known as the meetings of "the Five Presidents." The Five Presidents are those of Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia; they will meet regularly to discuss economic cooperation, cultural exchange, and regional security. The Five Presidents represent a population of over 97 million, nearly four-fifths the population of European Russia.

IN A part of Europe that has seen bitter inter-ethnic enmities and border claims exploited by Nazi and Soviet totalitarianism, the new cooperation represents a dramatic change for the better in the political climate. And while the deepening of democratic and free-market transformations is a major factor, there is no doubt that it was helped greatly by the understanding that NATO, anchored by the U.S., is the predominant economic and military presence in the region, a force that can intercede when ethnic tension or border disputes threaten peace.

Nor has this positive trend been limited to Central Europe. While Russia remains cool toward NATO expansion, its conduct toward its neighbors is improving. This suggests that as NATO enlargement moves forward, Moscow is awakening to the reality that Russia's diminished economic and military power means it will perforce play a more limited role in the region. And so Russia is participating in the NATO peacekeeping mission in Bosnia and has signed a basic document outlining cooperation and consultation with the Alliance. And in recent months, Russia has sought to improve relations with states it has threatened and bullied in the past.

Nearly six years have passed since the collapse of the USSR, but it was only on May 30, a month before NATO's Madrid summit, that Ukraine and Russia agreed to a treaty of friendship that confirmed their borders and resolved the potentially incendiary issue of the division of the Black Sea Fleet. The agreement signed by President Yeltsin and President Leonid Kuchma of Ukraine is expected to be ratified this fall. President Kuchma, who has strongly supported NATO enlargement, declared that the treaty with Russia had been influenced by the climate of "favorable changes under way in Europe."

Similar progress has occurred in Russia's relations with other neighbors. In late May, Russian Foreign Minister Yevgeny Primakov sent a letter to his Latvian counterpart, Valdis Berkavs, expressing hope that a border agreement between the two countries could be signed in the fall. And on July 3, Russia signed a Treaty on Friendship, Cooperation, and Security with Azerbaijan that provides protections for the territorial integrity of both countries.

Nor are the Russians backsliding on the issue of nuclear proliferation within the former Soviet Union. On June 30, Russia's Foreign Ministry reported that the last Russian strategic forces had left Belarus, the final stage of removing all nuclear arsenals and infrastructure from that country. Similarly, NATO's enlargement has not led to the radicalization of moderate forces within the Russian establishment -- vide the recent 2 to 1 vote in the Federation Council (Russia's upper legislative house) lifting embargoes against Iraq and Libya. Nor has NATO enlargement caused Russian leaders to abandon their plans to radically scale back the size of their armed forces.

Despite claims by U.S. opponents of NATO enlargement that it would undermine pro-Western reformers, in fact, advocates of free-market ideas and democratic change are gaining in strength within the upper reaches of the Russian government, as demonstrated by the growing power of the reformist First Deputy Prime Ministers Boris Nemtsov and Anatoly Chubais. Hardliners, meanwhile, are being driven out of office. In recent months, the hawkish and anti-reform Defense Minister Igor Rodionov has been dismissed and Russia's Justice Minister and its Minister of Relations with the Commonwealth of Independent States (both of whom had come into government service from the hardline Communist Party) were removed from their posts.

To see how the new balance of power in Europe has contributed to Russia's new realism, under the Treaty on Conventional Forces in Europe, NATO together with Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic commands a total of 80,000 tanks, army field vehicles, and artillery pieces, compared to 24,000 for Russia. Adding the 10,000 heavy weapons of NATO aspirants Bulgaria and Rumania and the 13,000-strong arsenal of pro-NATO Ukraine makes the conventional balance even clearer. Furthermore, Russia's GDP is roughly 6 per cent that of the enlarged NATO.

But strong though the West is, it is crucial to bear in mind that there is no single European country that has sufficient conventional military power to deter an aggressive Russia. That role can only be played by a cohesive alliance backed by the conventional and nuclear deterrent of the United States.

The trends of recent months make it difficult to overstate the importance NATO enlargement already has had on the region's security climate. But can this momentum be sustained?

Clearly, setbacks cannot be ruled out. No one can guarantee that Russia's democracy will not falter or that some reckless demagogue may not seize power in some East European country now on the path toward democracy and the free market. But most signs point to a continuation of the progress already witnessed in the region. NATO's new members must continue taking the economic, political, and security steps needed to link Eastern Europe to the West.