We should unequivocally and actively support the goal of full integration of the new democracies in Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary into NATO. Concern that their joining NATO would be perceived as anti-Russia are unfounded. As President Václav Havel has observed, “Democratic forces in Russia understand that NATO is not Russia’s enemy but its partner. The expansion of NATO would not be a hostile move but would bring closer to Russia a region of democracy and prosperity.”
The success of the Russian reactionaries in the December 12 elections may be a blessing in disguise, to the extent that they advance the prospects of the Central European nations for full NATO membership. The United States can reasonably tell the Russian leadership that placing Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary in a category separate from that of Soviet successor states, should be interpreted not as a hostile gesture but as a minimal precaution in the event that neoimperialists come to power in Moscow.
The United States and our NATO allies are faced with two major security challenges in Europe. The first is to maintain the close strategic partnership between the United States and Europe; the second is to prevent the resurgence of Russian imperialism. The Partnership for Peace adopted at the NATO summit in January 1994 addresses the second of these challenges. Its formula for a gradual enhancement of ties between NATO and Russia is satisfactory; less so is the formula for security ties between NATO and the other Warsaw Pact countries. Its advocates’ excessive sensitivity about provoking nationalist elements in Russia caused them to neglect the legitimate security concerns of the former Warsaw Pact nations.
Unfortunately, the Partnership for Peace does not adequately address the first challenge—the need to maintain strong security links between the United States and Europe. NATO, the principal strand connecting the two sides of the Atlantic, is in search of a new mission. There is a serious danger that proceeding at full speed with the Partnership for Peace with Russia before determining NATO’s new character may irreparably damage the cohesion of the alliance. Like arms control in the 1970s, which was intended to serve national security interests but eventually became almost an end in itself, the Partnership for Peace has the potential to become NATO’s principal preoccupation for years to come. This process could well make NATO too amorphous to be effective in addressing the numerous challenges of the post–Cold War world.
It would be fundamentally unsound to put everyone and everything from the Atlantic to the Pacific—countries with completely different histories, traditions, levels of economic development, commitments to democracy, and security requirements—under the Partnership for Peace umbrella. One United Nations is enough.
Central European nations that were an integral part of Western civilization for centuries, whose occupation by Adolf Hitler led to World War II, whose brutal subjugation by Stalin triggered the Cold War, and that in 1989 were the first nations to overthrow their communist governments are entitled to expect treatment different from that given to Soviet successor states. These proud nations should not now be consigned to a diplomatic “halfway house” and compelled to prove they are worthy to be accepted as members of the European alliance, whose values they share.
Told by administration officials that the Partnership for Peace is the only game in town, the Central Europeans have decided to join. Their reluctant acceptance, however, should not blind us to the need to find a formula that would make those nations feel both secure and proud to be a part of the New Europe.
Full NATO membership for these countries should be announced as a definite goal. The timetable for full membership should depend on a number of factors, including the nature of the threat from Russia and the utility of NATO security guarantees in facing that threat. The West has to find the appropriate balance between taking reasonable precautions against the return of Russian imperialism and making that return a self-fulfilling prophecy as a result of hasty, provocative actions while relatively democratic and nonaggressive forces are still in control in Moscow.
Moscow will inevitably and understandably complain about any arrangements that move NATO closer to its borders, especially if they include measures to make it easier for Central European nations to join. Some Russians may resent any suggestion that NATO retains even a small element of its founding mission as an anti-Moscow alliance. Such concerns deserve to be addressed and should not be permitted to disrupt our relations with Moscow or our commitment to its former satellites. The Russian government should be assured that no nonindigenous forces will be stationed in any Central European nation unless it faces the threat of aggression. It should also be offered the same security benefits NATO’s new members will receive under the Partnership for Peace plan.
The administration should develop a formula that would protect NATO’s cohesion, be fair to Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia, and address Russia’s legitimate security concerns. It would recognize that the first priority must be the establishment of NATO’s new role. Only after that is done can the decision be made on full implementation of the Partnership for Peace, which entails so much potential for changing the very nature of the alliance. Such a formula should accept that Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary are in a special category and are entitled to full-scale NATO membership, but it should simultaneously make it clear that their inclusion in NATO will take place in the context of the evolving European economic and security environment. NATO should also make certain that every nation, including Russia, understands that the pace of Central Europe’s integration into NATO may be accelerated if the Russian threat once again becomes a reality. This understanding would encourage more responsible conduct on Moscow’s part.
Those who oppose admission to NATO of the nations of Eastern Europe for fear of Russian nationalism are indulging in excesses of caution that threaten to increase rather than lessen instability in Europe. During the Cold War, critics of the U.S. policy of containment frequently asserted that we had to prove to Soviet leaders that we were for peace. The Soviet leaders knew we were for peace then, just as most Russians know we are for peace today. NATO was never a threat to an aggressive Soviet Union during the Cold War. It is ludicrous to suggest that an expanded NATO that includes democratic Central European nations would be a threat to a peaceful democratic Russia. Zbig-niew Brzezinski is forceful on the point. “That the expansion of the zone of democratic Europe’s security would bring the West closer to Russia is no cause for an apology,” he wrote. “It is with a stable and secure Europe that an eventually truly democratic Russia should wish to link itself.”
Regardless of what NATO does, Russian demagogues will exploit for political gain the Russian people’s economic distress and frustration over the loss of the Soviet empire. Our policy should be aimed not at the margins of Russian political life but at the mainstream, and the Russian mainstream knows that NATO, whether supplemented by the nations of Eastern Europe or not, represents no threat to Russia. “No reasonable observer,” as Henry Kissinger has written, “can imagine that Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, or Slovakia could ever mount a military threat against Russia either singly or in combination.” Still, careful steps must be taken to ensure that efforts to strengthen and expand NATO are not misconstrued by some Russian leaders as threats to their nation’s security. We can increase Russia’s comfort level by consulting closely with its military every step of the way, and also by stressing to the Kremlin leaders that the principal reason for expanding NATO is to improve conditions for the development of democracy and free enterprise in Russia, which does not want instability along its borders any more than we do.
It is also essential that the United States continue to play a leadership role in NATO, since an alliance led by the United States is bound to be far less alarming to the Russians than one in which Germany played a more decisive role.
Some who argue against admission to NATO of the nations of Eastern Europe do so not because they fear such a move would further provoke nationalism in Russia but becau
se they believe these nations do not yet come up to our standards politically or economically. This attitude, although typical of some analysts’ perfectionist approach to foreign policy, is dangerously flawed. There should be no question about the sincerity of the leaders of nations such as Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic when they say that they want to transform their countries into free-market democracies. They suffered too long under statist tyranny to return to it voluntarily. Once they are brought under the protection of NATO’s umbrella, and thereby freed of the necessity of providing entirely for their own security, their economies and democracies will develop much more quickly—just as those in West Germany and Japan did when the United States and its allies assumed responsibility for their security after World War II.
Soviet successor nations are in a different category. The administration should be supported in its policy of offering Russia, Ukraine, and other newly independent states a variety of forms of security cooperation, ranging from joint maneuvers to access to NATO military schools. But there is no need to connect this cooperation to NATO membership, any more than there was in the case of American-Japanese security arrangements.
The last thing the United States should do is to allow the Partnership for Peace to create the impression in Tokyo, or for that matter in Beijing, of a U.S.-Russian condominium. Russia is too big and too important a power to be added to the NATO alliance without a fundamental reassessment of security in Japan, China, and other nations as well. This is obviously not what the architects of the Partnership for Peace have in mind. But statesmanship is about anticipating the unintentional consequences of well-intended actions.
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Eastern European nations should also be integrated into the European Economic Community. As British Prime Minister John Major has observed, “If we fail to bring the democratic nations of Eastern and Central Europe into our community, we risk re-creating divisions between the haves and the have-nots.” A new economic wall would divide Europe between the rich and the poor.
The West Germans have learned that the cost of bringing East Germany up to the economic standards of West Germany is incredibly high. The cost of bringing the rest of Eastern Europe up to the standards of Western Europe will be even higher. Arnaud de Borchgrave reports that the European Reconstruction and Development Bank has estimated that it will take thirty-five years for Eastern European incomes to reach a level one half that of Western incomes. It will be a long, expensive trip, but the price we would pay for not lending a hand would be infinitely higher.
Free trade is essential for the long-term growth of the nations of Eastern Europe. Senator Sam Nunn stressed the essential point: “Today’s Iron Curtain of Western European trade barriers is a greater threat to Eastern Europe’s democratic and free-market reforms than a distant, weak, and demoralized Russian army.” The United States and our European allies must knock down our trade barriers and provide these countries with access to our markets. During the Cold War, Eastern European trade was almost exclusively with the Soviet Union. That market has drastically declined. Trade with Western Europe should take up the slack. But only 1.4 percent of Western European trade in 1992 was with Eastern Europe. To give Eastern Europe a chance to stand on its own feet, the United States and our European allies should not just prop up the region with the financial crutch of aid but should open our markets to Eastern European nations so that they can eventually walk on their own.
Eastern Europe needs the antidote of Western investment to overcome the poisonous effects of forty-eight years of communism. There have already been some major success stories. Czechoslovakia had the highest per capita income in Europe before World War II. After the bloody Prague Spring of 1968, it had the most repressive communist government in Eastern Europe. Its free-market economic policies since 1989 have attracted such American companies as Westinghouse and General Electric. Czech exports to Western Europe and the United States rose 20 percent last year. With this year’s estimated growth rate at 6 percent, the Czech Republic’s GNP will have increased by 60 percent from 1991 to 1994.
Poland also has recovered remarkably well. It has liberalized prices, opened its borders to free trade, privatized state-run industry, cut deficit spending, and encouraged entrepreneurship. Unfortunately, the pain caused by free-market policies created a backlash that led to the victory of former communist forces in parliamentary elections. Poland has gone too far with its free-market reforms to turn back, but if the West does not continue to provide aid and to open up its markets, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and other Eastern European countries may turn away from the path to political and economic freedom.
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History has left a tragic legacy of conflict on the European continent. The scars of centuries of war mark the entire region. The Cold War at least established a cold peace in Europe. Our challenge is to see that the end of the Cold War does not open the door for future hot wars that would inevitably draw not only Eastern Europe but also Western Europe into their flame.
U.S. foreign policy in the past has often been criticized for tilting too much toward Europe at the expense of Asia. Today it is not surprising that the administration tilts toward Asia, in view of the fact that, except for a temporary slowdown in Japan, Asian nations have by far the highest economic growth rates in the world. But we must not allow our fascination with Asia to blind us to the enormous potential economic power of Europe.
Our goal should be a rich united Europe competing equally with a rich America and an Asia rapidly becoming rich. This will serve us all. Economic competition is not a zero-sum game. No rich nation gains in the long run because its competitors are poor. Now that we have succeeded in tearing down the ugly wall that divided free Europe from communist Europe, our goal beyond peace should be a united Europe in a world that is not divided into blocs by economic walls. We seek a world in which economic progress for one serves all.
Our occasional differences with our friends in Europe must never obscure our timeless common interests. We have been allies in war and should remain allies in peace. We are all democracies committed to respect for human rights. Some dabbled in socialism, but we are all now committed to free-market economic policies. Despite our current disputes over details, we are all trading nations committed to the principles of free trade.
We share an uncommon cultural heritage. Sixty years ago, Arnold Toynbee, in his Study of History, perceptively predicted Europe’s future: “Tomorrow we Europeans must look forward to seeing our little European world encircled by a dozen giants of the American calibre,” he wrote. “Whatever the process may have been, they have all been brought to life by being brought within the ambit of that Western civilization of which Europe has been the fountainhead.”
Many Americans and Europeans will remember President Kennedy’s eloquent declaration in Berlin in 1961: “I am a Berliner.” Americans, with our rich multiracial and multiethnic background, would not now say, “We are Europeans.” But there is no question that, in view of our history, our closest cultural ties are with Europeans. In seeking new friends in Asia, we should not forget our old friends in Europe.
Asia and the New American Century
In 1905, a twenty-five-year-old army first lieutenant named Douglas MacArthur embarked with his parents on a nine-month tour of Asia. Reflecting sixty years later upon the wonders he had seen, MacArthur wrote in his memoirs, “It was crystal clear to me that the future and, indeed, the very existence of America, were irrevocably entwined with Asia and its island outposts.”
Today, almost a century after he first visited Japan, China, Singapore, and five other Asian nations, MacArthur would be amazed at how slow his fellow Americans have been to grasp that the United States is destined to be a major Asian-Pacific power—not only in war, where MacArthur himself led so magnificently, but in peace. Some have said that if the twentieth century was the American century, the twenty-first will be the Asian century. The twenty-first can be a second American
century—but only if we understand that we must be as intimately involved politically, economically, diplomatically, and culturally in the Asian-Pacific region as we have been in Europe.
The United States has repeatedly been the dominant factor in Western Europe’s equation of freedom, by ensuring victory in both world wars and spearheading the NATO alliance. In the era beyond peace, the United States must play a comparable role in Asia.
The debate in the United States between Europe-firsters and Asia-firsters made little sense during the Cold War, and it makes no sense now. Both must come first. A U.S. role in Europe will remain indispensable. And yet those who doubt the importance of Asia to the United States or the necessity of our commitment to its future are oblivious to history. Over the last fifty years, the United States endured hundreds of thousands of casualties in the Pacific theater in World War II and in the Korean and Vietnam wars. Although the Cold War is over, rising tensions exist throughout the region that, if ignored, could involve the United States in future conflicts.
While the three major East Asian powers—Russia, China, and Japan—are not natural enemies, they are not natural friends. Since our diplomatic opening to China in 1972, the United States has had better relations with these three powers than they have had with one another. While we may be trusted by only some Asian nations, we are respected by all. As the only major Pacific power that is not viewed as a potential aggressor by these three major countries, we can play a unique role, for the benefit of all, in maintaining peace and stability.
Asia is by far the most dynamic economic region of the world. In coming decades, it is where the major action will be. The average growth rate in Asia in 1992 was 6.6 percent, compared with 1 percent in Western Europe and 2.1 percent in the United States. It has been estimated that at the end of the decade East Asia will account for 30 percent of the world’s GNP and that a billion Asians, virtually equal to the entire population of North America and Europe, will be living in middle-class households, creating a massive new market for trade with the West. Asia’s explosive growth will triple the number of its consumers who have incomes equal to the Western average.
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