It should be added that all three arrangements--limited NATO expansion, an OSCE security committee, and a G-8--should also improve the security climate for Ukraine, Belarus, and the Baltic states. It would certainly be better than the situation today because it would give Russia stronger incentives to play by the collective security rules of the G-8 and OSCE.

When? Delay is not the answer, although some proponents argue for it. Including three, if not all four, of the Visegrad states should have been done at the NATO summit in 1993. Eduard Shevardnadze has said that it will be easier to expand NATO earlier than later. The Russian hardliners know this well, and that explains their tactic of threats, cries of alarm, and efforts to influence Western leaders and pundits. If they can delay the expansion long enough, not only do they hope to have recovered sufficiently to make it impossible for the Visegrad states to join NATO, but also to induce the old patterns of competitive diplomacy in Western Europe. Western hesitation based on fears of inciting political opposition to Yeltsin are actually strengthening that opposition. They, rather than Yeltsin, can already take credit for the delay, and they do.

What criteria? This question is tied to the "when?" question. Western military specialists tend to prefer more demanding criteria, but so do some political figures, including those in the Clinton administration who have helped move U.S. policy toward favoring expansion. By advocating criteria that include significant reform and upgrading of potential members' militaries so that they are near the level of NATO's, the day of expansion is delayed. Moreover, since potential new members in Central Europe are in poor economic shape, it detracts from their economic reforms to shoulder a larger military burden. There is no great urgency for the radical upgrading of Polish, Czech, and Hungarian military forces, certainly no more than for Spain when it joined NATO. If such military criteria had been invoked in 1949, NATO would still not be formed. The military criteria are a red herring.

Political and economic criteria are another matter. They must be a matter of judgment about the prospects for potential members to stay on the reform track. Again, if there were no risks in accepting a new member, the reason for admission would be weaker. Improving significantly the chances that a former dictatorship would grow deep democratic roots, rather than waiting until democracy was already deeply rooted, was the purpose in Western Europe in 1949 and should be the purpose in Central Europe today.

Putting emphasis on NATO's role in sponsoring internal reform does not mean that external security considerations should be forgotten. NATO could become too big to retain its internal military coherence. If it takes on too many difficult internal problems of the kind it has endured with the Greek-Turkish disputes, it could fracture. It should, therefore, expand first, and perhaps only, in Central Europe where the alliance has traditionally been the most vulnerable. No one can be sure that events in Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus will not eventually produce a new wall in Europe. Thus NATO should position itself to insure that a divided Europe does not exclude the central continental region that has the strongest historical connections to Western Europe.

Can NATO Survive as It Is?

Among all of these differing approaches to European security, one point of agreement seems to be shared. Senator Lugar put it most succinctly: "NATO must go out of area or out of business." The libertarians and the collective security proponents are explicitly prepared to accept that outcome. The "Russia first" proponents are not, and most of them may believe NATO can remain vital in its present boundaries. Fred Ikle is an exception in believing that it will go out of business if it does expand. Going "out of area," of course, is not merely a matter of expanding the membership. It also means being prepared to conduct military operations outside the traditional boundaries and for purposes other than defending against a Soviet attack.

Former Yugoslavia is the most conspicuous "out of area" challenge. The Bosnian crisis has not yet spilled outside of the former Yugoslav territorial boundaries, and Owen Harries may be right that it will not spread even if it festers for a long time. At the same time, it has spread in two other international dimensions. First, morally it has created an unhealthy climate in Western Europe and the United States as publics watch the slaughter on television and become accustomed to ignoring all responsibility for it, making a mockery of the idealist component in American and NATO foreign policy. Second, it has exacerbated diplomatic relations among Western European states, the United States, and Russia. For proponents of a new balance of power strategy, Bosnia can be dealt with by walling it off, and for the libertarians and those who would let Europe take care of itself, Bosnia can be ignored. For all other approaches, it presents an urgent problem.

Can NATO be expanded without dealing effectively with Bosnia? Some proponents of expansion appear to believe so, and the Clinton administration's new policy of advocating a gradual expansion has been launched as if the two issues can be separated. They probably cannot. Leaving the Bosnian affair to the Europeans has allowed U.S. leadership in NATO to decline and to suffer unprecedented criticism and scorn from European leaders. With such a mood inhabiting the alliance, Washington's capacity to convince all the European NATO capitals to support NATO expansion in Central Europe is sorely limited. In a real sense, therefore, the United States has to show effectiveness in dealing with Bosnia in order to restore European confidence that Washington knows what it is doing in pushing for NATO expansion.

Any solution to the Yugoslav disintegration must include at least the following elements: First, military balance on the ground must be changed, not just in Bosnia but in other parts of former Yugoslavia as well. That means introducing fairly large peacekeeping forces--150,000 to 200,000 troops, no more than one-third of which should be U.S. forces. Second, the new military balance will have to be maintained for a long time, a generation or more. Third, intervention forces will at times have to play a "peacemaking" as well as a "peacekeeping" role. Fourth, control of military operations there cannot remain in UN hands but must be placed entirely in NATO's hands. Fifth, Western leaders must build domestic political support for such a policy. Following public opinion polls is not leadership. Changing them is.

The issue of NATO "out of area" military operations, of course, is larger than Bosnia. They may be required elsewhere in the coming decade. In virtually all conceivable U.S. military involvement in Europe, the Mediterranean region, and the Middle East, operations will have to be multilateral, as in the Persian Gulf War. Modern coalition military operations are extremely complicated. They cannot be thrown together overnight. NATO provides the single institution where the tedious, difficult, and highly technical details have been worked out. Thus the NATO military structure in this role is critical to maintaining the kind of extraordinary military power advantage that U.S. and other Western leaders have come to take for granted. If NATO ceases to work hard at this technical military task, which is never complete and always changing in light of new military technologies, Western military power will decline significantly. The public and the media will not even notice the decline until a crisis arises and these military realities are forced into public view through feckless military responses.

Trying to maintain NATO more or less as it is seems doomed to failure. Its former strategic context has changed in fundamental ways that demand basic alterations in the Atlantic alliance. At the same time, political, strategic, and military-technical continuities demand that it not be altered too much. Some critics, calling for "new thinking," argue that the disappearance of the Soviet military renders NATO obsolete. But is that "new" or "old" thinking? Such a fixation on the Soviet threat was Cold War thinking. Truly new thinking requires looking for continuing and new purposes for NATO before dismissing it.

Is a Consensus Possible?

The range of views on a proper U.S. approach to Europe is so wide that no consensus seems possible. Their incompatibilities are numerous and in some cases fundamental. In particular, the "let Europe take care of itself" school of thought stands apart as a sure road to U.S. isolationism, whether its proponents admit it or not. A critical look at all of the other approaches will identify overlapping conceptions and capabilities, all of which envision a U.S. policy of engagement in Europe. The "Russia first" strategy identifies an important goal that must be supported. Some variant of a balance of power strategy is the only option at the all-Europe level. The "democratic peace" strategy is equally compelling for the NATO states and the other stable European democracies. The "expand NATO now" strategy may prove a better way to encourage democracy in Russia than the "Russia first" strategy, and it combines the idealism of the "democratic peace" with the realism of balance of power. In principle, therefore, a basis for consensus exists.

Getting recognition of this ground for building a consensus, however, will require compromises, some very difficult to achieve. Perhaps the most intractable issue is between those who insist that NATO need not expand and conduct out of area operations, particularly in former Yugoslavia, and those who insist that it must. Some will insist that NATO can be expanded in Central Europe while the Bosnia crisis is essentially ignored--but that belief is likely to founder on European disenchantment with U.S. policy toward Bosnia--making them reluctant to support the recent U.S. initiative to expand NATO. Still, consensus should be built where it can be, and the sooner that is done, the sooner the debate on NATO expansion and out of area operations can be put in a common strategic context and better understood.

The present challenge is remarkable for the degree to which leadership lies almost wholly with the United States. No single European leader can force the political integration of Europe; nor can a single European leader insure that progress toward that goal is not reversed. No single European leader can insure democratic and market transitions in all of Central Europe. It appears less likely that President Yeltsin can insure the transition in Russia. U.S. leadership, in contrast, can prevent the reversal of some of these processes, and lacking U.S. leadership, most of them will be reversed--not suddenly, but over time.

The debate over the role of what E.H. Carr called "vast impersonal forces" versus the role of leaders in history is an old one, and often a false one. Both play their part, and although leaders are frequently overwhelmed by vast impersonal forces, strong leaders occasionally have an opportunity to master events. At the end of World War II, both Stalin and Truman had such an opportunity in Europe. Today, only the president of the United States has it.

Essay Types: Essay