Secondly, an enlarged Europe will need ties provided by NATO to limit the proliferation of national interests. Finally, he suggested that Germany has a moral obligation to support enlargement. It was German aggression that caused Poland, Hungary, etc., to end up on the wrong side of the Iron Curtain in the first place. Dr. Leubkemeier cautioned that there are likely to be problems with Russia. The NATO-Russian agreement is not the end of the story.
Russian credibility is uncertain.
There will also be challenges associated with leaving countries desiring membership out of the first round of enlargement. Enlargement, he suggested, should not result in unnecessary security risks to non-NATO countries seeking membership. The Baltic states, for example, need NATO's security protection more than Poland, Hungary, and Slovakia. An economic alliance like the EU, with indirect commitments to military defence through investment etc., might offer some compensation to countries aspiring NATO membership but unlikely join in the near future. Russia's system has changed tremendously, but the transition from a totalitarian to a democratic state is not yet complete.