Nato Expansion

No one mentions the true purposes of NATO: To sell arms to new NATO members; to increase dividends to stockholders of defense industries; to maintain our military-industrial complex. ALTON L. SAFFORD Wrightwood

President Bush is traveling roughly 100,000 miles on eight trips overseas this year, wrestling with the intractable issues of the Middle East and a relationship with China that has grown increasingly troubled at the end of his tenure. But perhaps none of the diplomatic meetings involving Bush will carry greater weight in setting a course lasting well beyond his presidency than when he sits this week with some of the United States' closest allies.

Henry Kissinger ("U.S. Must Embrace the Expansion of NATO," Opinion, Jan. 12) tells us that "our security is inextricably linked with Europe's" and "now that Soviet power has receded from the center of the Continent, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization needs to adapt itself to the consequences of its success." However, the current headlong rush to expand NATO has leaped over a long overdue critical evaluation by our Congress. Where are the public hearings? One question crying for an answer is: Why not Europeanize NATO?

The Ukrainian defense minister expressed confidence Sunday that Moscow would not try to block his country's effort to join the Atlantic alliance, but acknowledged the difficulty of selling NATO membership within his own nation. Russian officials have in the past expressed concern that NATO's push into former Soviet territories and satellite states was a strategy to isolate Russia.

WASHINGTON -- Underscoring the importance of the U.S. military alliance with Europe, Congress sent President Bush a bill he wanted Friday that endorses an expansion of NATO and authorizes security assistance for seven nations that hope to join. "The Cold War may be over, but the security and welfare of America and Europe are very closely linked," said Sen. Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.), a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The Senate approved the bill Friday, 85 to 6.

Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic will formally join NATO on March 12 at a ceremony in Independence, Mo., the U.S. Embassy in Budapest said. The three Central European countries will be the first former members of the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The ceremony will be held in the Harry S. Truman Library, where President Truman announced the creation of NATO in 1949.

President Clinton declared Thursday that the United States will support the inclusion of only three countries--Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic--in plans to expand NATO. In making the announcement, the president was rejecting the wishes of several European allies who strongly support the bids of Slovenia and Romania to become members of the alliance.

Slovenians are stunned. They simply can't understand why one day they were flying high on the way to NATO membership, and the next day the biggest gun in the alliance has shot them down. President Clinton fired the potentially fatal shot Thursday, saying he will support only the candidacies of Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic when the 16-nation North Atlantic Treaty Organization opens its doors to new members at a July 8-9 summit in Madrid.

NATO has all but committed itself to enlarging its membership, and given Europe's geography, the only direction expansion can take is to the east, to embrace at least some of those states that until recently belonged to the anti-NATO and Soviet-led Warsaw Pact. Just when the selected countries would be invited to join the alliance remains unclear, for the good reason that NATO's 16 members, no doubt with some apprehension, are still trying to work out the timetable and conditions for growth.

Russian Defense Minister Sergei B. Ivanov warned Thursday that American development of new types of nuclear weapons, armed actions that bypass the U.N. Security Council and anti-Russian attitudes inside NATO could force his nation to adopt tougher defense measures.

NATO leaders approved a historic expansion Thursday that will take the alliance beyond the borders of the former Soviet Union and, moving even further from the old Cold War posture, endorsed a shift in emphasis toward fighting terrorism.

The chief object of suspense as NATO countries gather to formally accept seven new members is whether President Bush and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder can make nice. Looming over the North Atlantic Treaty Organization summit is a possible showdown with Baghdad -- an issue that is not expected to take center stage but nevertheless will assume a prominent role in private discussions. Whether to take military action against Iraq is just the latest weight to burden the U.S.

It has been 11 years since the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization continues to fumble toward a mission beyond protecting Europe from Soviet invasion. The new threat, terrorism, is obvious. The trick is in moving from a line of armored defense to a few thousand fast-response troops -- even as NATO expansions threaten to overwhelm nimbleness. Leaders of the 19 NATO nations meet in Prague, Czech Republic, on Thursday and Friday.

NATO leaders will declare at a summit here this week a new focus on the global fight against terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, edging the Western alliance further away from its roots as an anti-Soviet defense group. The shift grows out of the global response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and a warming of the West's relations with Moscow, as the former enemies seek to cooperate against a shared threat.

Five years ago in Paris, NATO's leaders and Russia's president ratified an agreement in which Russia was to have a role in consultations, cooperation and even, on some issues, common action as an equal with the allies. But that new relationship foundered during the Kosovo conflict. Next week, allied leaders meet outside Rome with a new Russian president to try again. Is there a difference this time?

WASHINGTON -- Underscoring the importance of the U.S. military alliance with Europe, Congress sent President Bush a bill he wanted Friday that endorses an expansion of NATO and authorizes security assistance for seven nations that hope to join. "The Cold War may be over, but the security and welfare of America and Europe are very closely linked," said Sen. Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.), a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The Senate approved the bill Friday, 85 to 6.

NATO took another important step closer to Russia on Tuesday with an agreement that will give the West's former Cold War foe a new consultative role and greater influence within the alliance. Ministers from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and Russia completed final details of a deal that will bring the two sides together to work on such issues as counter-terrorism, arms control, regional crises and natural catastrophes.