Amid growing concerns about its relevancy and effectiveness, NATO convenes a summit in the Czech capital Thursday that will expand the alliance’s reach and responsibilities even deeper into what once was the domain of its former Soviet enemy.
President Bush, who arrived in Prague on Tuesday evening, is scheduled to deliver a “significant” speech to a student group Wednesday in which he will outline his vision of how NATO should reinvent itself to meet the new security threats of the 21st Century, White House officials said.
At the two-day summit, to be attended by at least 46 heads of state, formal invitations to join the alliance are expected to be extended to seven East European nations. They could become full members by spring 2004.
Small but significant
The smallest but perhaps the most significant of the new members will be Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, three Baltic states that were once part of the Soviet Union.
Romania and Bulgaria, former Warsaw Pact members, were bypassed in the first round of expansion in 1999 because their democratic institutions were shaky and their economies in shambles. They have been invited in this time, although both are still struggling with economic reform. Slovakia, which separated from the more prosperous Czech Republic in 1993, also was shunned in the initial expansion because of doubts about its autocratic leader, Vladimir Meciar. He is now gone.
Slovenia, another small country, is the first of the former Yugoslav republics to merit an invitation.
Although this enlargement is being hailed as a major step forward for NATO, extending its purview from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Black Sea on Europe’s southeastern flank, it is not as dramatic as the first eastward expansion when the alliance took in Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic.
To Russia’s doorstep
That expansion was the symbolic burial of the Cold War. It underscored the ideological, political and economic transformation of three of the old Soviet Union’s former satellites. It brought NATO to Russia’s doorstep and tears of joy to the eyes of many in Warsaw, Budapest and Prague who never believed they would live to see it.
But much has changed in the world in those three years. These days Russia is a virtual member of NATO and could one day be an actual member. Certainly it is no longer perceived as the enemy.
There are new enemies, and the real issue on this summit’s agenda is not enlargement but how to deal with weapons of mass destruction in the hands of rogue states and how to prosecute a “war on terror” against a nearly invisible enemy capable of striking a terrible blow at the heart of New York’s financial district one day and in the South Asian tourist paradise of Bali months later.
“This summit should represent a major step toward the transformation of NATO, toward defining its new identification in a wholly changed world,” Czech President Vaclav Havel told reporters Tuesday.
As a first step, NATO is expected to formulate plans to create a new 20,000-member rapid-reaction force that could be deployed anywhere in the world to meet these new threats. This would mark a significant strategic departure from NATO’s core strategy of defending Europe from within Europe.
The idea was first floated by the U.S. last spring. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld made it official at the NATO defense ministers’ meeting in Warsaw last September.
The proposal came partly in response to U.S. concerns about the European Union’s plans to develop its own 60,000-member rapid-reaction force. Washington has endorsed the European plan but it also has reservations about creating a potential competitor to NATO.
The main European allies have generally embraced the idea of a NATO rapid-reaction force — for quite different reasons. Britain sees it as a way to restore the relevance of the alliance’s Euro-Atlantic link, while France likes it as an antidote to the increasing tendency of the U.S. to go it alone in places such as Afghanistan and Iraq.
Another problem that will be addressed at this summit is the growing imbalance in defense spending and military capabilities between the United States and everyone else.
In the mid-1980s when the Cold War arms race was at its peak, the U.S. was spending 6.7 percent of its gross domestic product on defense, compared to 3.5 percent by the European allies. In recent years, that gap has narrowed to 3 percent and 2.3 percent respectively, but because the U.S. economy is so much larger, America still outspends its allies by a wide margin. Per capita, U.S. spending on defense is almost double that of its European allies.
Defense experts worry that the Europeans are not keeping up with the rapid but expensive technological advances the U.S. has made during the past decade. If the trend continues, none of the allies, with the exception of Britain and France, will have the technological capacity to fight alongside the U.S.
“If we don’t increase our capabilities and diminish this gap, we could actually be pushing the U.S. into more unilateralist policies,” said Stefan Fule, the Czech Republic’s deputy defense minister.
One idea that will be given attention at this summit is specialization, or “niche” contributions; that is, developing an overall strategy that plays to each member’s particular strengths and abilities.
The Czech Republic, for instance, is particularly strong among former East bloc members in its electronic intelligence systems. Instead of spending its defense dollars on extravagantly expensive jet fighters, it could focus on developing better electronic intelligence.
“It’s not really about size,” said one NATO official. “It’s about your commitment.”
Another issue that is expected to dominate the summit’s agenda is Iraq. White House officials have indicated that Bush will not ask directly for NATO military assistance against Iraq but that he will seek an endorsement from the alliance for a possible invasion of Iraq.
Europe is badly divided over the issue. Only Britain has offered unequivocal support. Most alliance members are uneasy with the idea of launching a pre-emptive war, and Germany is dead set against it, a position that has soured U.S.-German relations and is expected to earn Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder a chilly reception from Bush.
Bush’s participation in the NATO summit, coupled with brief appearances in Russia, Lithuania and Romania, marks his third trip to Europe in two years. Over that time, reaction to him has ranged from vilification as a treaty-shredding, go-it-alone cowboy to a post-Sept. 11 respect for him as a steady, patient world leader.
A Bush `victory lap’
“He’s able to arrive saying, `I went to the UN, that’s what you asked me to do. We got a consensus [on Iraq].’ The White House must be delighted with the timing of this,” said Philip Gordon of the Washington-based Brookings Institution. “It really is a victory lap.”
White House officials and Bush allies say other countries must accept that while they do not like all that Bush proposes, such as the abandonment of an international accord on global warming, he is entitled to at least a grudging respect.
“He’s not well-liked at all, but he is not running for student body president,” said John Hulsman of the Heritage Foundation in Washington.
The seven new members, with their low-tech armies, are not expected to contribute much military muscle to NATO.
“Romania’s role in NATO is to become a land of stability and prosperity,” one diplomat from an alliance state said.
