Now that the Senate has approved the expansion of NATO, we may ask: What sort of NATO is expanding?
NATO was founded as a military alliance to cope with the Soviet threat to Western Europe after World War II, and it grew into the most highly organized and successful multilateral alliance in history. The Soviet Union collapsed seven years ago, and Russia does not currently constitute a serious threat to Europe. Why expand an alliance whose threat has disappeared? Indeed, many experts expected early in this decade that NATO would decline or even dissolve.
If NATO were simply a military alliance, the most plausible interpretation of its expansion would be aggressive: that NATO members were taking advantage of Russian weakness to expand NATO's sphere of influence at Russia's expense. No wonder Russian politicians and generals have been vehemently opposed to NATO's plans.
NATO expansion makes more sense if we see NATO as in the process of being transformed from a military alliance to a "security management institution."
Security management institutions develop procedures that facilitate joint operations and promote trust among the bureaucracies of the countries involved. But they differ from alliances in two crucial ways.
First, security management institutions respond to risk rather than threat. That is, they are not oriented toward a specific country that might launch or threaten an attack, but toward the possibility that disputes, in a context of mutual suspicion, could lead to war. The risks facing NATO include the possibility of conflict between Hungary and Romania over Romanian treatment of Hungarians, civil wars in Eastern Europe and, of course, the possibility of war between NATO members Greece and Turkey. Security management institutions do not deter attacks; instead, they foster transparency and create structures for negotiation and cooperation.
Second, security management institutions are inclusive rather than exclusive. Rather than being focused against sources of threat, they are designed to include sources of risk. The idea is that risks can be managed better if the potential troublemakers are within the institution rather than outside of it.
After major wars in Europe, the victors attempted to develop security management institutions to reduce the risks of repetition: the Concert of Europe in 1815, the League of Nations in 1919, the United Nations in 1945. NATO's expansion constitutes a fourth try at implementing this historic ideal.
