The North Atlantic Treaty was signed on April 4, 1949, by 12 European and North American countries to take measures against the emerging threat the Soviet Union posed to the democracies of Western Europe. Of indefinite duration, the treaty created a political framework for an international alliance obligating its members to prevent or repel aggression, should it occur against one or more treaty countries. Article 10 of the treaty provides for the possibility of accession by any other European state in a position to further the principles of the treaty upon the unanimous agreement of the current members; it contains no explicit criteria an aspiring member must meet to join NATO. The PfP program was a U.S. initiative launched at the January 1994 NATO summit in Brussels as a way for the alliance to engage the former members of the Warsaw Pact and other former communist states in Central and Eastern Europe. The objectives of the partnership, stated in NATO’s Partnership Framework Document, are to (1) facilitate transparency in national defense planning and budgeting processes; (2) ensure democratic control of defense forces; (3) maintain the capability and readiness to contribute to crisis response operations under the United Nations and other international organizations; (4) develop cooperative military relations with NATO for the purposes of joint planning, training, and exercises for peacekeeping; search and rescue; and humanitarian operations; and (5) develop forces that are better able to operate with NATO members. NATO also uses PfP to support countries interested in NATO membership. In July 1994, the United States launched the Warsaw Initiative to support the objectives of the Partnership. According to joint DOD and State Department guidance, the objectives of the Initiative are to (1) facilitate the participation of partner states in exercises and programs with NATO countries, (2) promote the ability of partner forces to operate with NATO, (3) support efforts to increase defense and military cooperation with Partnership partners, and (4) develop strong candidates for membership in NATO. The Initiative is jointly funded and administered by DOD and the State Department. A total of 29 nations have joined the Partnership, and 3 have since joined NATO. The partner states range from mature free market democracies in the European Union, such as Finland and Sweden, which have relatively advanced military technologies that do not receive and have no need for Warsaw Initiative assistance, to autocratic command economies with outdated military structures such as Uzbekistan, and others such as Georgia that are greatly dependent on Western security assistance for their reform efforts. (Fig. 1 shows the overlapping memberships of NATO, EU, MAP, and PfP members.) Each partner participates in activities to the extent it desires and assembles a unique annual work program by selecting from a variety of activities listed in NATO’s annual partnership work program, a compendium of activities offered by donor countries. For those states that have formally expressed their interest in joining the Alliance, NATO has developed a Membership Action Plan to help them become better candidates. (MAP countries are identified in figure 1.) The MAP builds upon Partnership activities, helps ready these states for the full range of NATO missions, and requires additional planning by the partner country and review by NATO. Countries provide assistance to partner states primarily through bilateral arrangements in order to meet the requirements identified in the work program. Since the beginning of the alliance in 1949, NATO has held out the prospect of membership to other nations as changing political and strategic circumstances warranted. NATO has expanded on four occasions since 1949, adding seven new European members. The first three expansions took place during times of confrontation with the Communist bloc, particularly the Soviet Union, and were undertaken to meet pressing strategic and security needs. A significantly different strategic environment marked the fourth and latest expansion, wherein NATO’s goal was to extend stability eastward into the political vacuum left after the collapse of the Soviet Union. (Fig. 2 shows the countries that have joined NATO since 1949, as well as MAP and PfP members.) In 1952, Turkey and Greece joined NATO for strategic reasons; the Korean War was at its height, and the United States wished to shore up NATO’s southern flank to forestall similar Communist military action in Europe. West Germany acceded in 1955, after it agreed to maintain large NATO forces on its territory and to place its national army within NATO’s integrated command structure. Spain joined the alliance in 1982 at NATO’s invitation. NATO wanted to gain better access to Spain’s air and naval bases, while the newly democratized Spain sought membership as a means to better its chances to join the European Economic Community. In 1991, NATO redefined its strategic concept to reflect the post-Cold War geopolitical landscape and to pursue greater cooperation with its former adversaries to the east. NATO committed itself in January 1994 to enlarging its membership to include the newly democratic states of the former Communist bloc. In 1999, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland joined NATO in fulfillment of this commitment. Between 1994 and 2000, the Warsaw Initiative provided assistance worth about $590 million to 22 partner states to support equipment grants, training, exercises, information technology, and other activities to make these countries’ militaries better able to operate with NATO and contribute to NATO’s missions. Moreover, a large portion of this funding was allocated to five programs, and about 70 percent has been devoted to the 12 partner nations that had formally declared an interest in joining NATO. In this same time period, the United States provided to the partner states additional security assistance totaling over $165 million outside the framework of the Warsaw Initiative but complementary to its objectives. About 90 percent of the approximately $590 million in Warsaw Initiative funds ($530 million) has funded five programs. The largest program provides nonlethal military equipment and training. The other programs support military exercises, information technology programs, a defense education institute, and a defense resource management system. See table 1 for the costs of these five programs. Appendix I contains details on other Warsaw Initiative interoperability programs. Funding for military equipment and training was used to provide communications, search and rescue, mountaineering, and mapping equipment, along with field gear, air defense radar systems, and computers; training for English language, noncommissioned officer development, vehicle maintenance and logistics, and other purposes. According to State Department documents and a DOD-sponsored study, this equipment and training have directly contributed to partner country participation in NATO-led peacekeeping operations in the Balkans. For example, this funding provided communication equipment to Romania for engineering units in the NATO-led Stabilization Force (SFOR) in Bosnia; air traffic management systems to Hungary, which supported Operation Allied Force; fuel, supplies, and construction assistance to Ukraine to support the initial deployment of a battalion for peacekeeping duties in the Kosovo Force/International Security Force (KFOR) in Kosovo; and an automated logistics system to Poland to help deploy its military units in peacekeeping operations. Of all the interoperability programs supported by the Warsaw Initiative, military exercises were typically cited in Defense-sponsored studies and by U.S. and international officials as the most useful of partnership activities. Exercises range from search and rescue simulations to joint multinational amphibious landing exercises. Exercises have grown in complexity and sophistication as the skills and experiences of partner participants have grown. For example, the United States annually conducts Exercise Combined Endeavor. In the 1995 exercise, 10 countries participated in a demonstration of the use of common communications equipment. In the 2000 exercise, 35 countries participated in the identification, testing, and documentation of communications interoperability between NATO and PfP communication networks. The Partnership Information Management System (PIMS) created an information management and communications system among Partnership members that stores and disseminates all types of data relevant to the PfP community. The system has been used to support military exercises, civil- military emergency planning, military medical education, environmental security activities, and provides e-mail capabilities and other basic information management capabilities. The system currently links 18 partner capitals and NATO and is augmented by networks that include ministries of defense, national defense academies, other international organizations, and U.S. and NATO military commands. The Marshall Center is a jointly funded U.S.-German defense educational institution that focuses on the resolution of security issues involving Atlantic, European, and Eurasian countries. The Center offers post- graduate studies, conferences, research programs, foreign area studies, and language courses to civilian and military professionals from more than 40 countries. Warsaw Initiative funding supports the Marshall Center’s annual conferences for PfP members on topics ranging from defense planning and management to civil oversight of the military. DOD’s Defense Resource Management program creates models for individual partner countries to help restructure their militaries. Initially, DOD conducts a 6-month study in the subject country to help it develop a rational defense program linked to strategic assessments and budget constraints. Thereafter, the Department conducts short follow-up visits to provide technical assistance and help implement a defense resource management system. The objectives of the program include exposure of partner countries to defense management systems similar to those of NATO members. The program also aims to help partner states’ civilian officials assert control over their military structures by making defense management more transparent. About 70 percent of the Warsaw Initiative’s approximately $590 million in assistance has been provided to the 12 partner states that have joined or declared their intention to join NATO. Approximately twenty-six percent of all Warsaw Initiative assistance between 1994 and 2000, or $153 million, went to Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic—the three former Warsaw Pact states that joined NATO in 1999. Almost 44 percent of that funding, or $258 million, has gone to the nine MAP states of Albania, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia.