Sagepaper

Following is an excerpt from:

Could NATO Expansion Lead to Nuclear War?
Address Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan
150th Anniversary Annual Meeting
The Associated Press

We continue to act as though the Cold War is still a central reality of foreign policy, withal there has been a turnover, and it is now our chance to move the ball downfield. How else to explain the astonishing decision to expand NATO to include three former members of the Warsaw Pact. And only the beginning. As Amos Perlmutter recently wrote in the Washington Times: "the second phase, sometime at the end of 1999, will usher the entry of Croatia, Slovenia, Romania, Bulgaria, and assorted new and old entities." Thereafter, the three Baltic nations and after that, who can say?

Moreover, the Resolution of Ratification now before the Senate providing for the Accession of the first three has this singular provision.
(ii) NATO may also, pursuant to Article 4 of the North Atlantic Treaty, on a case-by-case basis, engage in other missions when there is a consensus among its members and and there is a threat to the security and interests of NATO members.

Does this not read suspiciously like a license to get into a fight just about anywhere?

The expansion of NATO is something I have not studied. I have had misgivings about it. My first dissenting thoughts were more about the feasibility of integrating former Warsaw Pact forces with NATO forces. It's not just different materiel, it is entirely different military culture, and a need for retraining of the highest officers. Essentially, all we would be doing is going out on a limb to say we would come to their aid if they were attacked. We could not count on much contribution to NATO. In fact, they were poor contributors to the Warsaw Pact. I think they have a welfare-state mentality that their defense is someone else's problem. Russia is not the only potential aggressor. Every border in Eastern Europe is contested.

Regarding the new NATO language that would allow us to fight most anywhere on the globe seems to me a good thing. It could conceivably sink NATO, especially if we integrate new nations. I am, however, in favor of matching de facto with de jure. Laws should be enforced, and realities defined. We and our allies agree on a number of things that would be in our interest to jointly pursue outside of the European theater.

We could form another organization for that, and leave NATO as a strictly North Atlantic/European thing. There would then be tests of the resolve of the new organization. Troop commitments would have to be made to three, rather than two international organizations, the UN, NATO, and then something else.

NATO enjoys global name-recognition from the Cold War. That is one reason to use it, rather than something new. Unfortunately, there is a fairly broad consensus that the UN should remain fairly impotent. We don't want to work with them because there are so many members who are indifferent or hostile to us, either generally, or with respect to a given proposed mission.

Since the NATO members have extra-continental objectives, and are a cohesive military force, I think it makes sense to make this de facto situation de jure. The written commitment might help us in dealing with another country by making clear our intentions. I think it will also be better to have transnational military operations to clean up the mess of colonialism.

Remnant relationships with colonies are one reason for a desire to act off continent. Though we have been portrayed by communists as the greatest colonial oppressors of all, the truth is we were more a colony than a colonial power. Additionally, our geography is unique. With Manifest Destiny, we expanded over the continent filling it with our own citizens. We did not send small garrisons here and there to exploit the native people. We just killed them and took their land.

I think we could be a good moderating influence in actions in former colonies in the third world. Often, the former colonial power is in the best position to intervene. They know the history, language and customs better than just about any other capable outside force. Unfortunately, as seen in UNAMIR in Rwanda, the former colonial powers are not always welcome.

While it is a nasty task, I think a geopolitical theme that could/would/should emerge this century is the correction of colonial borders. I hope this can be vigorously pursued at the negotiating table. Some of it will, however, be pursued on the battlefield.

I think it will be especially important to address these issues as we are watching relatively swift, and accelerating weapons proliferation. We need to reduce the risk of international wars, and of civil wars. We need to draw the lines so that people who view themselves as one nation will be in one state. This could result in more and smaller states, but it could result in fewer and larger states, too. It's okay for one state to contain several nations. It's not okay for one nation to straddle multiple states.

Any actual commitment to preventing Genocide is going to have to be done by a swift and ready force. NATO has the best of that around. Genocidal activity will probably increase with the destabilization brought about by the end of the Cold War, and by the proliferation of WMD's. Preventing Genocide needs, in my opinion, the following elements (not in order):

1) Restructuring political geography to reduce tensions
2) Controlling the proliferation of weapons
3) Disarmament initiatives
4) Stop China's production of weapons and sales of technologies as a major
economic component
5) Swift and certain military intervention
6) Nasty consequences for leaders of Genocides
7) Serious consequences for rank-and-file perpetrators

Regarding the last point, we don't want to see other nations follow the Hutu reasoning that if everyone is guilty, then no one is guilty. That is a unique situation, however. Hopefully it will remain so. Other Genocides have been conducted by armed forces, not by every able-bodied man, woman, and even child in the population.

I think it might be possible for NATO cooperation in former colonies now that the European Economic Community is a reality. The former colonists have retained jealously guarded economic ties to their former colonies. With European free-trade, there is less cause for continued jealousy among the old great powers.

Hopefully, with advances in GATT and other international trade initiatives, we will get to a point where political independence is economically realistic. I have some ideas about how we could structure the economies in Third World areas in conjunction with redrawing the borders. My ideas are actually fairly communist. I think we could form three to five state cooperatives, which would function as one economy, but across state boundaries.