We are about to enter upon the most important foreign policy debate this country has had since the Gulf War. One might say–given the near pathological indifference Americans have developed toward affairs foreign–the first foreign policy debate this country has had since the Gulf War. No matter. We had better get used to thinking of something other than ourselves.
The issue is NATO expansion. It ought to be an easy call. After all, we won the Cold War, and the Cold War was largely about control of Central Europe.And the Poles, the Czechs and the Hungarians, allowed finally to express themselves, have declared loudly their unequivocal desire to join the West.
So what is the problem? Russia. Even pro-Western Russians warn that NATO expansion is an act of encroachment, a threat to a Russia that thought it had finally become a partner of the West. Alexei Arbatov, a pro-democracy Duma member, writes plaintively that while he and his colleagues have cooperated with the West, “nobody took the trouble to warn Russians that NATO, the most powerful military alliance in the world, would start moving toward Russian borders.”
There is irony in this Russian complaint. In May, Russia signed a treaty that effectively absorbs its western neighbor, Belarus. I do not recall Russia consulting with the West about thus moving the Russian defense frontier 350 miles west, indeed, to within 80 miles of Warsaw. Yet that same Russia is now objecting bitterly about the alliance–with popular consent and without annexation–expanding east.
But more important than the chutzpah is the illogic of the Russian position. It rests on the assumption that NATO expansion into Poland (and the others) is a threat to Russia.
Ask yourself this: Is Poland a threat to Russia, or is Russia a threat to Poland? The Poles want to be in NATO because they have a centuries-old history of being trampled underfoot by their various Germanic and Slavic neighbors. In the 18th Century alone, Russia participated in three partitions of Poland that finally caused it to disappear from the map. Poland then came back to independent life in the 20th Century, only to be overrun again, first by Germany, then by Russia.
Disputes over the status and stability of Central Europe have been at the heart of the three world wars of this century. (The Cold War was World War III.) As Peter Rodman of the Nixon Center for Peace and Freedom points out, NATO expansion will once and for all remove the ambiguity surrounding the status of Central Europe.
Stability through finality. NATO expansion defines the place of Central Europe. It is no longer to be a buffer between Russia and the West. It will be part of the West–where it wants to be.
As for the threat to Russia, this is sheer nonsense. Neither Poland, nor NATO through Poland, has any designs on Russia proper. Russia lost its empire, but its homeland is secure. Russia’s concern is, in fact, not about its homeland but about its vanished empire. NATO expansion means the definitive end to the Soviet imperium’s westernmost domain.
This upsets the Russians. Well, the British were upset when they lost the American colonies, and, in this century, everything else. But that gave the British no claim on their former dominions nor trumps their former colonies’ wish to follow their own destinies.
Hence the final argument of expansion opponents: They concede that Russian fears are either irrational (if sincerely felt) or disingenuous (if merely a nostalgia for empire)–and then capitulate to them. To trample Russian desires and ignore her claims, they say, is to jeopardize democracy in Russia and, in particular, to undermine those democrats in Russia who have been advocating closer ties with the West.
More nonsense. Democracy will rise or fall in Russia the way it does in other countries. The outcome will depend on whether its economic system (presently bandit capitalism) and political structure (presently authoritarian democracy) satisfy the material and social needs of the people. Foreign policy comes–there, as here–very low on the list.
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NATO expansion will have only the most marginal effect on the evolution of Russian democracy. But it will have a decisive effect on European stability. We mustn’t pass up this chance to achieve it.