No. 176, October 2000 Strategic Forum 

enlarging the Alliance.

The political argument for maintaining

enlargement momentum in order to demonstrate Alliance credibility and the geostrategic argument for a NATO land bridge gradually have become less persuasive as a result

of the Kosovo conflict.

Four policy options exist, each with a

different impact on the objective of enhancing stability and security beyond NATO and

building a Europe whole and undivided.

If NATO were to extend no invitation, the

credibility of Article 10 open door policy

would be called into question. If it were to

invite one or more countries for accession

negotiations, momentum would be maintained but perhaps not sufficient development

demonstrated to the excluded Membership

Action Plan countries. And, if it invited all

nine aspirants to join, it might temporarily

remove unpleasant political pressure but

incur substantial political and geostrategic

costs in the future.

Barring political or geostrategic upheavals, the United States should support a

2002 Summit announcement that NATO will

invite one or more new members at a future

summit, perhaps in 2005 or 2006.

diplomatic liaison with NATO, and at the

November 1991 Rome Summit, where it

launched the North Atlantic Cooperation Council (NACC) to include them. When the Soviet

Union disintegrated in January 1992, NATO

decided to include former Soviet republics in

the NACC, thus attempting to ensure a Europe

free and whole. The same strategy prevailed at

the Brussels Summit in January 1994, which

launched the Partnership for Peace (PFP)

comprising members of NACC and those members of the Conference (now Organization) on

Security and Cooperation in Europe that were

able and willing to contribute. The July 1997

Madrid Summit decision to invite the Czech

Republic, Hungary, and Poland to begin accession talks also was portrayed in terms of inclusion; the Alliance reaffirmed that it remained

open to new members under Article 10, adding

that “[N]o European democratic country. . .

would be excluded from consideration.”

The NATO Summit scheduled for 2002

will have enlargement on the agenda, not just

because the April 1999 Washington Summit

stated that the next summit would review the

enlargement process, but also because the nine

Membership Action Plan (MAP) foreign ministers launched a political initiative on May

18–19, 2000 in Vilnius, Lithuania, to remind

from the nine MAP aspirants, and a new U.S

administration will need to develop a policy 

this issue well before 2002.

Framing 

Enlargement Policy

Political Factors The guiding princ

ple behind all NATO activities with MAP partners is that all enlargement decisions remain

political. While this principle will remain a

cornerstone of policy, we need to recognize th

as NATO moves down the MAP road we are

slowly embedding ourselves in an implicit

contractual relationship with the nine aspiran

that will increasingly limit political choices. I

other words, as NATO encourages MAP govern

ments to implement political, economic, and

defense reforms, it is increasingly obliged to

choose new members based on these criteria 

justify their choices. NATO will find it difficul

decline a MAP partner that clearly has succeeded in implementing serious reforms or to

invite one that has not fulfilled them. If NATO

were to disregard these criteria, it would unde

mine the credibility and legitimacy of MAP fo

those partners (probably the majority) who d
ing under an Article 5 defense has shifted to the

more likely contingency of NATO’s participating in an Article 4 operation, which carries

different obligations for Alliance members. 

Geostrategic factors were dominant during

the Cold War, when execution of main defense

actions and support to reception and onward

movement of heavy defense forces were at the

forefront of membership criteria. The 1995

principles on enlargement made clear that

membership should be based on a number of

considerations, not just ability to contribute to

Alliance security.

Some have focused on geographic position as a key criterion. Yet, even during the

Cold War, when Article 5 operations were more

plausible and defense requirements were

greater, NATO lived with “islands”(Iceland,

Norway, the United Kingdom) that required

reinforcement. Today, many potential candidates are discussed in geostrategic terms with

Article 5 obligations in mind, for example,

Slovakia and Slovenia, which provide a land

bridge to the NATO island of Hungary, and

Romania and Bulgaria, which “contain”

Serbia and “stabilize” Macedonia while linking

Hungary to Greece (and Turkey).

by Belgrade in return for their wartime support

in Kosovo. (In paragraphs 13 and 14 of the

“Statement on Kosovo” issued by the North

Atlantic Council in Washington in 1999, the

council stated: “13. We will not tolerate threats

by the Belgrade regime to the security of its

neighbors. We will respond to such challenges

by Belgrade to its neighbors resulting from the

presence of NATO forces or their activities on

their territory during this crisis. 14. We reaffirm

our support for the territorial integrity and

sovereignty of all countries in the region.”)

Hence, formal accession was not necessary for

the Alliance to gain compliance of and access

to a MAP or PFP partner. Correspondingly,

formal membership does not necessarily guarantee the compliance of a new member nor

NATO access to its territory during a non-Article

5 contingency. In fact, it might actually diminish NATO leverage. (For example, during

the Kosovo conflict, NATO found it difficult to

public accountability. The PFP Planning and

Review Process (PARP) and PFP exercises wi

introduce partners to collective defense planning and pave the way for more detailed ope

tional planning.”

The December 1995 North Atlantic Coun

(NAC) ministerial launched enhanced dialogues with those partners interested in joinin

the Alliance. By early 1997, twelve partners ha

expressed such an interest. When the Madrid

Summit extended invitations to the Czech

Republic, Hungary, and Poland in July 1997,

NATO reiterated its open-door policy, created 

new Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council (EAPC

to strengthen the role of partners in PFP deci

sionmaking and planning, and adopted new

terms of reference under enhanced PFP to

broaden cooperation beyond peace enforceme

operations. The Political-Military Steering

Committee (PMSC) continued to manage PF

programs, the PARP became more significant

and NATO expanded the number of Standard

ization Agreements (STANAGs) made availab

2 Strategic Forum No. 176, October 2

Jeffrey Simon is a senior fellow in the Institute for National Strategic Studies at the National Defense

University. He is the author of numerous works on European security affairs, including NATO Enlargemen

and Central Europe: A Study in Civil-Military Relations. Dr. Simon can be reached at (202) 685–2367, by fax 

(202) 685–3972, or via e-mail at simonj@ndu.edu.
went further than the 1995 Study on NATO

Enlargement in defining what the aspirants

needed to accomplish on the path to membership. It was designed to incorporate lessons

learned in the accession discussions with the

Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland.

The MAP includes submission of a tailored Annual National Plan that covers political, economic, defense, resource, security, and

legal aspects of membership; a feedback mechanism through a NAC 19+1 partner progress

assessment; a clearinghouse for coordinating

security assistance; and enhanced defense

planning that reviews agreed planning targets.

The MAP process contains the same potential to

mature into a fundamental program not originally envisioned by its architects as the PFP. In

fact, one might argue that the comprehensive

MAP program has created the necessary NATO

acqui against which the Alliance can assess the

technical preparations and capacities of the

nine MAP partners and judge their readiness

for membership. At the same time, the process

is reinforcing and deepening the partners’

expectations of NATO reciprocation.

NATO credibility among the nine MAP partners

and to keep them engaged in the MAP process

to maintain its stabilizing role. While this

option has the advantages of not undermining

Alliance efforts to further develop cooperative

relations with Russia and Ukraine and of not

requiring justification of selective invitations,

MAP partners will expect more than this. Some

are likely to perceive this as an Alliance brushoff, make claims that NATO is pursuing a

“Yalta-2” policy, and argue that a divided

Europe is emerging. In sum, the Alliance will

probably find this option difficult to implement

and justify, particularly in the face of MAP

partner pressures and in light of the objective

of maintaining a Europe free and whole.

Option 2 Invite one or more aspirants to begin accession negotiations.

Inviting one or more aspirants to begin

accession negotiations maintains political

momentum and reinforces NATO credibility on

Article 10, but it raises the challenge of dealing

with the uninvited MAP partners. NATO would

need to persuade the excluded MAP partners

that the invited nations had actually achieved

reforms that justified inclusion. If the case

were not credible, it would be difficult to gain

changes in MAP since its launch. The net eff

is the slow shift of balance toward increasing

the weight of technical performance at the

expense of political and geostrategic factors.

Inviting a new member for accession

talks in 2002 presents more of a challenge to

NATO now, because the Alliance has acquire

additional (and less than exemplary) perfor

ance experience with the three new members

and has fine-tuned the MAP process. (Since

accession on March 12, 1999, all three new

NATO members have implemented so-called

strategic reviews and lowered their force goa

commitments over the next six years; the

Czech Republic will reduce its forces probab

to 40,000, Hungary to 37,500, and Poland to

150,000. One could argue that these reviews

are the result of defense planning failures in

all three countries.) Whereas previous summ

(Brussels in 1994, Madrid in 1997, and Wash

ington in 1999) were able to develop new

programs (such as PFP, then enhanced PFP

and EAPC, and later the MAP, respectively) to

maintain credibility, NATO’s future programmatic options are becoming more limited. W

have installed the MAP and need to use the

process and its technical criteria to justify an

No. 176, October 2000 Strategic Forum 
4 Strategic Forum No. 176, October 2

frustration, arguing that the EU is stalling or

delaying the date of accession. In addition, an

invitation to the nine would not necessarily

help them build social support for defense

programs or for NATO. On the contrary, the

three new NATO members have been unable to

generate additional social support for defense

budgets or for NATO. (For example, after becoming a member, Hungary revised downward

its pre-accession commitments to raise defense

expenditures 0.1 percent per year.)

Offsetting the benefits that the nine believe would accrue from an invitation are

potentially substantial political and geostrategic costs. First, this option would mark a distinct shift in NATO post-Cold War policy in that

the (unintended) result would be a perception

that NATO had drawn lines, that now Europe

was once again divided. It would signal to

countries like Croatia and Moldova (and perhaps Austria, Sweden, and Finland) that they

were outside the NATO membership circle,

stretching the credibility of Article 10. Second,

Ukraine, a fragile, non-MAP, PFP partner of 52

million is delicately balancing internal forces

pushing toward the West and pulling toward

Moscow and would find its strategic position

challenged. Inviting all nine could tilt that

balance, driving Ukraine outside the line.

“invite one or more” at the July 1997 Madrid

Summit. Politically, this differs from Option 1

in that it would demonstrate and reinforce

NATO credibility on enlargement while remaining consistent with the strategy of building an undivided Europe. Technically, the

option provides the (hopefully sufficient) 3–4

years necessary to permit germination and

maturation of some MAP partners’ technical

capacities in fulfilling NATO acqui. Geostrategically, it would provide necessary time to see

how Russia evolves under Vladimir Putin, as

well as to observe the reform efforts in

cross? The answer, of course, is yes, but these

limits are not yet perceptible, because the

geographic space of the common Euro-Atlan

values that define that area cannot yet be

drawn with clarity. While many PFP and MAP

partners espouse those values, their rhetoric

masks the difficulty of transforming stated

intentions into reality. With the MAP, NATO h

sketched the path and provided the tools. It

remains to be seen who among the PFP and

MAP partners has the will and capability to

travel that path.

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