NATO expansion and the idea of the West - North Atlantic Treaty Organization

ORBIS, Fall, 1997 by James Kurth

The summer of 1997 saw a momentous event in the history of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and indeed of the West itself. This was NATO's formal invitation to three Central European countries - Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary - to become members of the alliance. The expansion of NATO has been the major foreign policy initiative of the second Clinton administration, and the entry of the three new members is expected to take effect in 1999. That year will be the fiftieth anniversary of the formation of NATO; it will also be the tenth anniversary of the collapse of NATO's historic and adversarial counterpart, the Warsaw Pact.

Three events, then, are linked in a narrative that is a grand and inspiring one. The first event, the formation of NATO, did much to bring about the second, the collapse of the Soviet bloc forty years later, and the second provided the opportunity for the third, the expansion of NATO to include the core members of the defunct Warsaw Pact (including Warsaw itself). This narrative culminates with the fulfillment, in our time and before our very eyes, of the inspiring vision and heroic determination of preceding generations of Western statesmen, especially those fabled American "Wise Men" who were "present at the creation." It is a fulfillment of two great historic ideas, the idea of Europe and the even broader idea of the West.

The cunning of history may be composing some ironic twists in this narrative, however. For the expansion of NATO may also bear some similarities with another great and even earlier event at the beginning of the cold war: the division of the Continent into Western and Eastern Europe at the Yalta Conference in 1945, which thereby submerged for more than forty years what had been Central Europe. If so, then the idea of Europe will not be reified, but abused. Further, the expansion of the Western project into Central Europe may be occurring at the very time that the concept of Western civilization itself has been discarded within NATO's central and essential power, the United States. If so, then the idea of the West will not be fulfilled, but abandoned.

The Idea of Europe and the Question of the Eastern Frontier

One of the themes of the proponents of NATO expansion is that it will bring the new members back into Europe. This is an especially important and explicit theme for the new members themselves.

From its beginning, NATO was seen as the defender of Europe against the Soviet Union, the great power of an alien Eurasia. But it was always understood that a part of Europe - referred to as Eastern Europe - had been captured (the captive nations) by the Soviet Union, and that this was a great and historic injustice. Although it seemed that little could be done about this injustice at the time, the statesmen of the West - as varied as Truman, Eisenhower, Churchill, and de Gaulle - continued to look for ways to bring about more freedom for the captive nations and to return them to their rightful European home. Now, with the admission of Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary into NATO (and eventually also into the European Union), these nations will have at last come home.

But, of course, there are several other nations that are indisputably European but that will still remain homeless, at least for a while. In particular, most European members of NATO wanted to add Romania (a favorite candidate of France) and Slovenia (a favorite candidate of Italy) to the list of three new members, but these two additions were opposed by the United States. Other nations, also European but lying further to the east (especially the Baltic states), also wish to join the alliance, but NATO has been vague about how, when, and even if they will be allowed to do so. It has become dear that the eastern boundary of NATO's Europe is itself very unclear.

The question of where the eastern boundary of Europe lies and what it means has been a perennial and disputed one, not just for today but for generations. It raises issues not only of diplomacy and strategy, but of culture and identity. At what point on an eastward journey does Europe fade away and Eurasia (or even Asia) loom ahead?

Metternich famously said, "Europe ends at the Landstrasse," i.e., at the road leading eastward out of Vienna. In saying so, he left out of his definition of Europe all of the Hungarian domains of the Habsburg empire, of which he was the chancellor. Conversely, de Gaulle spoke of "Europe from the Atlantic to the Urals." Interpreted literally, his definition of Europe let Russia in but left America (and perhaps even Britain) out. The eastern boundary of Europe, then, may be found someplace between the definitions of Metternich (Vienna) and de Gaulle (the Urals). Between these two definitions is a vast region that has given rise to vast disputes. It is the region now comprising such varied countries as Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, the Balkan countries, the Baltic countries, Belarus, Ukraine, Moldavia, and, most controversial and consequential, Russia.