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81. The Myth of a No-NATO-Enlargement Pledge to Russia

Author:
Mark Kramer
Publication Date:
04-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Washington Quarterly
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:
In the latter half of the 1990s, as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was preparing to expand its membership for the first time since the admission of Spain in 1982, Russian officials claimed that the entry of former Warsaw Pact countries into NATO would violate a solemn ''pledge'' made by the governments of West Germany and the United States in 1990 not to bring any former Communist states into the alliance. Anatolii Adamishin, who was Soviet deputy foreign minister in 1990, claimed in 1997 that ''we were told during the German reunification process that NATO would not expand.'' Other former Soviet officials, including Mikhail Gorbachev, made similar assertions in 1996—1997. Some Western analysts and former officials, including Jack F. Matlock, who was the U.S. ambassador to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) in 1990, endorsed this view, arguing that Gorbachev received a ''clear commitment that if Germany united, and stayed in NATO, the borders of NATO would not move eastward.'' Pointing to comments recorded by the journalists Michael Beschloss and Strobe Talbott, former U.S. defense secretary Robert McNamara averred that ''the United States pledged never to expand NATO eastward if Moscow would agree to the unification of Germany.'' According to this view, ''the Clinton administration reneged on that commitment . . . when it decided to expand NATO to Eastern Europe.''
Topic:
NATO and Government
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, Europe, North Atlantic, Moscow, Germany, and Spain

82. Unity of Effort: Key to Success in Afghanistan

Author:
Christopher J. Lamb and Martin Cinnamond
Publication Date:
10-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Abstract:
The Barack Obama administration is debating alternatives to the population-centric counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan that it unveiled in March 2009. The reevaluation is prompted by the recent submission of supporting civil and military campaign plans that indicate substantial additional resources are required for success. The resource issue is important, but as General Stanley McChrystal, USA, the new commander of U.S. and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces in Afghanistan, argues, the need to pursue an “indirect” strategy that is sustainable for the Afghans and implemented with unified purpose is more important. Lack of progress in Afghanistan to date is due more to international donors and forces working at cross purposes, and unilaterally instead of with Afghans, than to insufficient resources.
Topic:
Defense Policy, NATO, and War
Political Geography:
Afghanistan and North Atlantic

83. Securing the Commons: Towards NATO's New Maritime Strategy

Author:
Brooke Smith-Windsor
Publication Date:
09-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
NATO Defense College
Abstract:
Reminiscent of the late Cold War period, in recent years debate in official circles surrounding the purpose of Allied naval forces in transatlantic security policy has increasingly come to the fore. While in the mid-1980s preparations for the land campaign on the European Central Front dominated NATO military planning, the Soviet Union's emergent interest in becoming a powerful ocean-going nation with global reach cast new attention on the importance of securing the Alliance's maritime flanks in the event of conflict - notable the North Atlantic and Mediterranean.
Topic:
NATO, International Security, Military Strategy, and Maritime Commerce
Political Geography:
North Atlantic and Soviet Union

84. Energy Security and NATO: Any Role for the Alliance?

Author:
Zurab Khamashuridze
Publication Date:
09-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Connections
Institution:
Partnership for Peace Consortium of Defense Academies and Security Studies Institutes
Abstract:
This paper is meant to address issues related to energy security in the twenty-first century, and to identify areas where NATO could add value to the world's overall energy security environment, and in particular how it can improve the security of critical energy infrastructures. Increased demand on energy resources, driven mainly by economic growth and demographic developments in Asian countries, particularly China and India, has removed spare capacity from the energy market, which has translated into price hikes for energy resources, thus causing immense economic damage to nations that are heavily dependent on energy imports.
Topic:
Security and NATO
Political Geography:
Russia, China, North Atlantic, India, and Istanbul

85. Partnership for Peace: Charting a Course for a New Era

Author:
Jeffrey Simon
Publication Date:
03-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Abstract:
After the collapse of the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) faced a strategic challenge: how to shape the post-Communist reform process in Central and Eastern Europe in ways that would foster stability and allow for cooperation on common security problems. NATO created the North Atlantic Cooperation Council (NACC) in December 1991 to promote dialogue on common security concerns with these countries and the former Soviet Union. The NACC dialogue bridged the former East-West divide and illuminated opportunities for practical cooperation. The council also helped Central and East European politicians understand that defense requirements are best rooted in democratic politics and that national security encompassed civil emergency planning and a broader range of concerns, not just the military.
Topic:
Security, NATO, and Peace Studies
Political Geography:
Europe, North Atlantic, Asia, and Soviet Union

86. NATO Transformation: Problems and Prospects

Author:
C. Richard Nelson, Arthur K. Cebrowski, Jacques Lanxade, Michel Maisonneuve, Montgomery C. Meigs, and Andrew J. Goodpaster
Publication Date:
04-2004
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Atlantic Council
Abstract:
The substantially changed world security environment of the 21st century demands comparably substantial changes within the North Atlantic Treaty Organization ( NATO ). These amount to a full-scale transformation to re-align the Alliance to meet new, more uncertain challenges. This transformation, however, is complicated by the lack of common purpose among member nations and deep fractures within NATO. Nevertheless, the continuing value of NATO is incontestable and I trust that sufficient common interests will be found for the members and partners to go forward with the transformation required to reshape the Alliance so that it may act in concert against new risks and dangers.
Topic:
Security, NATO, and International Cooperation
Political Geography:
United States and North Atlantic

87. NATO Decisionmaking: Au Revoir to the Consensus Rule?

Author:
Leo L Michel
Publication Date:
08-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Abstract:
It should come as no surprise that North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) officials are fond of citing Mark Twain's retort to doomsayers that reports of his death were greatly exaggerated. Having survived many rough tests since its birth, the 54-year-old alliance is still working to recover from a bruising disagreement among its members over the decision by some to oust Saddam Hussein's regime. Its services, however, are still very much in demand: About 37,000 NATO-led military personnel remain on crisis management duty in the Balkans. NATO recently launched its first out-of- Europe operation, taking command of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan. In July 2003, the Senate voted unanimously to encourage the Bush administration to seek help from NATO in Iraq. Several prominent Members of Congress and nongovernmental experts have called for a NATO peacekeeping mission between Israelis and Palestinians.
Topic:
Security, NATO, and International Organization
Political Geography:
Iraq, Europe, North Atlantic, Israel, and Balkans

88. The Politics of European Enlargement: NATO, the EU and the New U.S.-European Relationship

Author:
Howard J. Wiarda
Publication Date:
02-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Wilson Center
Abstract:
Since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the end of the Cold War, the main issues in Eastern and Central Europe, and in U.S. and European policy toward the area, have focused on achieving peace and stability, building democracy, accomplishing economic and institutional reform, accelerating growth and modernization, and anchoring and integrating the countries of the area into Europe and its two great “clubs”: the European Union (EU) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). It could be said that the last three goals listed–democracy, economic and institutional reform, and European integration–were all means to the end of achieving peace and stability in this critical area, not known historically for its stable, peaceful politics, as well as to the end of securing a buffer zone on Europe's eastern frontiers that would also function as a means to hem in and limit any future Russian resurgence. What may have begun in strategic planners' eyes as a means to an end, however, has since then taken on a life of its own.
Topic:
International Relations, NATO, Cold War, and International Organization
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, Europe, and North Atlantic

89. The New Security Dimensions: Europe after the NATO and EU Enlargements

Author:
Adam Daniel Rotfeld
Publication Date:
04-2001
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute
Abstract:
One decade after the end of the cold war and the fall of the bipolar system, the enlargements of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the European Union (EU) reflect the fundamental changes that have taken place in Europe's security environment. The processes of enlargement are of essential importance to the states which belong to the two organizations and the applicant states. It is also essential that the security interests of the states be yond the borders of the EU and NATO be taken into account. The European Union faces the challenge of determining its new role in the security dimension. This calls for both further institutionalization of its relationship with NATO and redefinition of its relations with the United States. The decisions adopted by the Nice European Council meeting represent a new stage in overcoming the political division of Europe that was established at Yalta in 1945. The reform launched by the December 2000 Inter- governmental Conference opened the way for further enlargement of the EU. It remains an open question whether and, if so, to what extent the new institutional solutions in the security dimension—the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) and the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP)—will shape the future political and military reality in the Union and outside it, in particular in transatlantic relations
Topic:
Security and NATO
Political Geography:
Europe and North Atlantic