Neocon NATO Delusions

At the recently completed NATO summit in Bucharest, the Bush Administration took another step in its seven-year effort to transform the transatlantic alliance into an organization with a more global mission supportive of Washington's broader foreign policy goals. The Administration was able to win approval for an increase in NATO forces in Afghanistan, for its plan to deploy a missile defense system in Central Europe ostensibly aimed at a future Iranian nuclear threat, and for further enlarging NATO membership with the admission of Albania and Croatia and with promises of future membership for Georgia and Ukraine. In Bucharest Bush described his vision for the alliance in terms that should worry everyone familiar with the neoconservative agenda. "NATO," he said, "is no longer a static alliance focused on defending Europe from a Soviet tank invasion. It is now an expeditionary alliance that is sending its forces across the world to help secure a future of freedom and peace for millions."

In fact, the Administration's mission to transform NATO promises to do great damage to international peace and cooperation. If the true purpose of the old NATO was to "keep the Americans in, the Soviets out and the Germans down," as the saying went, the Bush Administration's goal for the alliance is to provide multilateral cover and support for its unilateral crusade while encircling Russia and sidelining the United Nations (a programmatic extension of the Clinton Administration's use of NATO to sideline the UN during the 1999 Kosovo war). This is a prescription for an even colder peace, if not an outright new cold war, with Russia; continued contentious relations with America's oldest allies in Europe, who do not share Washington's global mission; and an even weaker UN at a time when it is needed more urgently than ever.

The main vehicle for transforming NATO into an alliance with a global mission controlled by Washington has been expansion. The Administration pushed for a large NATO expansion in 2001 that incorporated the Baltic states as well as the Central and Eastern European countries not included in the first round of enlargement. It did so in part to dilute (old) European influence within the alliance, since the new members, especially the Baltic and Balkan states, like Poland before them, tend to be more subservient to Washington on military matters.

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