Will expansion ruin NATO?

Sciences politiques | 5 pages | 05-03-2006 | Format : | Note : Non noté

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Résumé

“NATO is a disappearing thing. It is a question of how long it is going to remain as a significant institution even though its name may linger on” , said such a prominent political scientist as Kenneth Waltz before the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee in November 1990. More than thirteen years later, NATO is still here and well alive: it took over the command of the ISAF force in Afghanistan in August 2003, is still engaged in peacekeeping operations in ex-Yugoslavia, and will welcome ten new members in May 2004. Even if this enlargement has been less heralded than that of the European Union, it still has very far-reaching symbolic implications, since the seven newcomers (Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia), once belonged to the USSR or were Soviet satellites, and now join an Alliance once directed against Moscow.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, it soon became clear that leaders in Central and Eastern European countries were very keen to join NATO, and various procedures and bodies, such as the Partnership for Peace, were set up to enhance consultation and cooperation with those countries. When, in April 1993, Clinton met with Walesa and Havel, they insisted that their top priority was NATO membership . Four years later, at the July 1997 Madrid summit, the Czech Republic and Poland, along with Hungary, were invited to begin accession talks and formally joined the Alliance in March 1999. In April of the same year, the Membership Action Plan was ...

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