NATO and the EU:
The Risks of the "Double Enlargement"

by Hall Gardner
Professor and Chair
International Affairs Department
American University of Paris
January 10, 2001

Introduction (and abstract):
NATO and the EU have not yet formulated a coherent and concerted political-military strategy that thoroughly takes into consideration the rapidly changing parameters of post-Cold war European security. Taking advantage of Soviet collapse, the expansion of NATO and EU membership has not been coordinated and has not taken into consideration the potentially dangerous geo-strategic and political-economic ramifications of that "double enlargement." It shall be argued that the only way that NATO and EU can expand its membership without resulting in the potential alienation of non-NATO non-EU members, including Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine, is for NATO, the EU, and Russia to work in concert through the auspices already established by the Partnership for Peace and Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council Military Committee and to create a militarily-integrated Central and Eastern European Defense and Security Community that is backed by overlapping NATO, EU, and Russian security guarantees, and that ultimately works to bring Russia into both NATO and the EU as a "full" member.

Dilemmas of the Uncoordinated NATO-EU Double Enlargement
The war "over" Kosovo starkly revealed EU dependence upon conventional U.S. military assets and intelligence in terms of satellite, airlift, and other C4 high-tech military capabilities; yet the war also revealed the extent to which the EU did not possess the means to even threaten the use of force, and thus utilize that threat as a tool to enforce its diplomacy during the Rambouillet summit, for example. Meeting in Brussels on 20 November 2000 in order to address the political-military inadequacies of the EU, European Defense and Foreign Ministers vowed to strengthen EU defense capabilities and to enhance the collection of information and intelligence through the implementation of a Common European Security and Defense Policy (CESDP).

At the Nice summit in December 2000, the EU opted to pool more than 100,000 men, 400 hundred combat planes and 100 ships for a planned reaction force to be joined by force commitments from 15 other non-EU countries including the nine EU candidates (Bulgaria, Cyprus, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia) and the six European NATO members (Turkey, Norway, Iceland, Poland, the Czech republic and Hungary) as a "first stage". The EU intends to be able to deploy 60,000 men within 60 days and sustain these forces for over a year, for potential use for non-Article 5 missions, as defined by the 1948 Brussels treaty. Ultimately (but still unclear exactly when) the EU will be in a position to intervene with or without recourse to NATO assets, so that "It won't be NATO or nothing."

New EU defense proposals have been accompanied by a number of institutional reforms including the formation of a Policy Planning and Early Warning Unit (PPEWU), a Political and Security Committee, a European Military Committee, a European Military Staff, not the overlook the formation of a new post of High Representative for CFSP, a position presently held by former NATO Secretary-General Javier Solana. The EU, however, has not yet formulated or distinctly designated the appropriate roles for the High Representative in regard to foreign policy and for the EU Commissioner for External Relations. This factor appears to represent an additional internal institutional cleavage within the EU--in addition to distinct national differences in regard to foreign policy formulation.

Most crucially, in addition to the cleavage between the High Commissioner and the High Rep, there is a need to clarify the principles and legal basis for decisions to intervene on the territory of a third country. As the WEU is to be adapted and changed into an all-EU force, the question as to whether Article 5 of the Brussels treaty (which represents a stronger security guarantee than that provided by the North Atlantic treaty) should be extended to all EU members has not yet been resolved. Concurrently, the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP)--according to Article 11.2 of the EU treaty--guarantees the frontiers of the Member States as external borders of the European Union. This is likewise problematic as it implies that EU is responsible for the defense and security of all of its members and potential members. Many of the latter possess historically contested borders with a number of non-EU non-NATO members (and not just Russia alone).

In contrast to the more limited conception of an European Security and Defense Identity (ESDI) within NATO, the CESDP was conceived to be relatively more autonomous in relationship to NATO. It has consequently been feared that the EU could act under the CESDP without the advice and consent of the United States and other non-EU states. This issue is all the more problematic because the interests and policy options of EU members may clash with the interests and policy options of NATO members. (The differing interests of EU members could also clash in case of crisis.) Should a significant crisis erupt within, or contiguous to, a EU state that is not a NATO member or in other areas that are not part of an integrated system of defense, the results could be disastrous, assuming Article 5 of the Brussels treaty goes into affect without the EU having developed the necessary defense capabilities. Concurrently, Article V of the North American Treaty might remain legally non-applicable, at the same time that conflicting partisan political pressures call for NATO to either act or stay out.

Neither NATO nor EU enlargement into central and eastern Europe has necessarily helped to ameliorate tensions among present members of the Alliance or the EU despite their claims. A number of disputes continue to divide American and EU perceptions that could prove problematic in the not so long run. Among these include Turkish-Greek tensions over Cyprus, which have been complicated by steps taken by Cyprus to enter the EU. There has additionally been little incentive for Turkey to support new NATO members in central and eastern Europe unless Ankara is granted closer ties with the EU, and unless the significant internal and external security concerns facing Turkey are adequately addressed by the United States and EU. Here Washington fears that Turkey may turn toward radical pan-nationalism or pan-Islam (a movement in part enflamed by Turkish military ties to Israel) if it is not soon brought closer to the new Europe. The EU, on the other hand, does not regard Turkey as strategically important following the break-up of the Soviet Union and has demanded that Turkey begin to engage in significant political, economic, and legal reforms (affecting its treatment of minorities, civil-military relations and human rights) if it is to enter the EU.

Respective roles and issues of "burden" versus "power" sharing continue to plague the EU and NATO in regard to the Euro-Mediterranean, including the issue of shared NATO-EU control of Allied Forces Southern Europe. NATO's Mediterranean initiative has attempted to address some of the latter concerns but has not yet formulated a satisfactory U.S.-European power-sharing arrangement. Likewise, U.S. Congressional threats to pull out of Bosnia and then Kosovo have threatened to undermine peacekeeping efforts in the region and could work to create a rift between the United States and European states.

The key issue remains the balance between US support for ESDI (within NATO) versus European support for greater "autonomy" (under CESDP). From the EU perspective, power and burden sharing go hand in hand; if the EU is to develop its own military capability, it wants the power to decide when and where to use it. Washington, on the other hand, has put its emphasis on "burden" without "power" sharing. American concerns stem from the 1956 Suez crisis in which President Eisenhower was taken by surprise during an election year by British-French-Israeli military actions taken against Egypt. The present fear is that the EU could, once again, act on its on without American knowledge or permission.

Additional, perhaps more feasible, concerns have been raised that more an "autonomous" EU could cut the interests of non-EU member state interests, such as Turkey, out of the decision-making process. The EU could also utilize NATO assets of non-EU members in addition to common pools--a prospect most opposed by Ankara. (Washington has pressured the EU to accept the Turkish application to join the EU while Turkey has threatened to veto any "autonomous" European actions in which Turkey has not been properly consulted.)

At the same time, however, since at least eleven of the EU members are also NATO members, it is dubious that these states will stray too far from American interests--despite the apparent inability to define exactly when the EU can act independently of NATO and with what assets. The EU does not plan its own European army (but may still end up duplicating a significant number of American assets); NATO still represents the basis of the collective defense of its members but has indirectly become the basis for the guarantee of the entire EU as well. Moreover, both NATO and EU enlargement is problematic (and may be creating a sense of false expectations) in part due to the fact that the uncoordinated double enlargement is taking place at a time when the economies of new NATO (and EU) members can hardly afford defense modernization--given the need to develop their relatively less advanced economies, and when most NATO and EU members states (except perhaps for the UK) have been decreasing their defense expenditures since 1989.

Overall, the formation of a CESDP should, in principle, permit the Europeans to play on more equal ground with the Americans and the Russians; failure to forge a CESDP, however, will permit the Americans, and to a certain extent, the Russians, to divide European interests. Ironically, both NATO and the EU have been focusing largely on crisis management rather than on implementing a militarily integrated system of crisis prevention for the entire Euro-Atlantic region.

The Question of Russia
The double, yet largely uncoordinated, expansion of NATO and the EU risks the formation of exclusive geostrategic and political economic blocs that are potentially capable of diverting trade away from non-EU non-NATO members resulting in the potential isolation and alienation of the latter. Moreover, much as proved the case in regard to Bosnia, Albania, and Kosovo, NATO or EU members could easily be drawn into a number of potential crises throughout central and eastern Europe if the double enlargement alienates Russia and other non-NATO non-EU members and if each regime expands without coordination into regions with significant irredentist claims and counter-claims. Here, U.S. and European elites are split as to whether to proceed with enlargement at this time; or, if NATO and the EU should continue to enlarge, which states should enter and when--and whether Russia, in particular, should be included or excluded in either regime.

Having previously expanded its membership in 1997 to Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic, NATO is expected to debate whether to engage in a second wave of enlargement, and to possibly announce which states should join by the year 2002; the EU may likewise expand again by the year 2003. While it has consistently warned against a NATO enlargement that does not take into account Russian interests (and it opposed NATO intervention in Kosovo, for example), Moscow at least initially appeared less concerned with EU enlargement. Yet the precise nature of the emerging EU defense policy and that of the CESDP have recently raised Russian concerns. As Russian Ambassador Vassily Likhachev put it: "there is still no clear EU response to how the EU sees Russia joining crisis management operations;" Russia does not oppose the formation of CESDP "as long as they do not create new dividing lines in Europe." Moreover, the EU has not yet explicated to Russia the exact nature of the ties between NATO and the EU.

The United States and EU have been focusing most of their attention on the Balkans, yet much less attention has been paid to the Baltic region. NATO enlargement to Poland has placed NATO-member territory directly against a centrally strategic Russian strategic military outpost at Kaliningrad. (Turkey and Norway's contact with Russian territory is more of a peripheral nature). Concurrently, EU enlargement to the Baltic states (Estonia) could likewise isolate Kaliningrad. Moreover, NATO enlargement significantly expands NATO's defense perimeter with a potentially hostile Belarus (perhaps unnecessarily forcing Belarus and Russia into an even closer Alliance).

NATO enlargement into Central Europe appears designed to satisfy German demands for a cordon sanitaire (to guard "against instability from the East"); yet that enlargement does little to protect Germany's northern flank from potential missile threats from the Kola peninsula or from an unstable Kaliningrad. As the art of warfare in the 21st century will most likely be characterized by increasing reliance on land and sea-based cruise and ballistic missiles, anti-missile systems and satellite communications, among other high tech not-so-conventional military capabilities, NATO enlargement to the Czech republic, Hungary, and Poland does not thoroughly address the key not-so-new strategic-nuclear threats to European security. At the same time, NATO may have a hard time balancing its resources in regard to its new-found interests in "peacekeeping" and its more original mission of "collective defense."

NATO enlargement thus appears to do little to protect ostensibly "neutral" EU members, Sweden and Finland, in addition to Estonia, and other states that may ultimately join the EU. Following the 1998 St. Malo summit, it is still not clear to what extent the UK (as member of NATO's integrated nuclear command) and France (whose nuclear forces are outside of NATO's integrated nuclear command) can, if necessary, coordinate their nuclear capabilities against potential conventional or nuclear missile threats affecting any new (or old) member of the EU.

Underlying tensions in the Baltic region have been rising due to Swedish, Danish (and previous Finnish) support for Baltic state membership in NATO (despite the historically "neutral" positions of both Sweden and Finland). Efforts of the "Vilnius Nine" to enter NATO through a "big bang" have also raised concerns. (In an effort intended to influence the American November 2000 elections and to gain support from Americans of eastern European origin, the Foreign Affairs ministers representing the "Vilnius Nine" [Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Slovenia, Slovakia, Romania, Bulgaria, Macedonia, and Albania] all urged NATO to open up membership to their states in the year 2002. )

In addition, Warsaw has likewise supported Lithuanian membership in NATO as a "buffer" to be in a better position to defend itself against a potential Russian seizure of Lithuania, as Poland would find itself "caught in an iron ring between (the Lithuanian port of) Klaipeda and (the Polish city of) Gdansk." And finally, following the victory of George Bush Jr., there has been a renewed push by Senator Jesse Helms in support of NATO membership for the Baltic states, particularly Lithuania and Estonia.

Russia has thus far stomached NATO enlargement into Central Europe, as well as the war "over" Kosovo, but it has warned that the full integration of the Baltic states into NATO's command would represent a casus belli. Of particular concern from the Russian perspective is the fact that NATO and EU membership for the Baltic states could eliminate its right of transit to Latvia and the other Baltic states (which are still to a large extent dependent upon Russian trade and oil) and to Russian Kaliningrad, and thus limit its window to the more advanced western world once established by Peter the Great. Russia has consequently threatened to counter NATO enlargement by strengthening its ballistic and cruise missile capabilities in the Kola peninsula and in Kaliningrad, at the evident risk of a new destabilizing arms race. Moscow has also threatened a counter-alliance with those eastern European states not entering NATO, in addition to an alliance with China and India. Russia and Belarus have consequently threatened to deploy up to 300,000 troops along the Latvian-Belarus border.

By staging military training sessions on the Lithuanian border, Belarus may be attempting to spoil relations with Lithuania in order to block NATO enlargement. The latter may be intended to prepare for the speedy transfer of a military corps to the Kaliningrad region. Minsk may concurrently be trying to exploit the situation to its advantage. The intent of such activities may be that of a double gambit: (1) to block the extension of NATO to the Baltic states but also (2) to draw Russia even closer to its support through political and economic "union."

Much as NATO was drawn into Kosovo, tensions in the Baltic region could consequently draw in NATO the EU, and Russia, even before formal NATO or EU membership is extended. Despite its designation as an "exceptional" humanitarian intervention, the war "over" Kosovo has raised the prospects that NATO could intervene unilaterally (without a UN mandate as required by the North Atlantic Treaty itself) to defend the interests of even non-NATO member states and peoples. The statement by Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga in a BBC interview appears to indicate that some eastern European states may have taken a very different lesson from NATO's "exceptional" intervention in Kosovo than that intended by NATO: "Kosovo is not a member of the NATO alliance and yet the alliance was able to take action when it felt that, according to the principles on which it is founded, action and intervention (were) necessary.... I would expect it to do no less anywhere else in Europe." Here, it is not so subtly implied that NATO may be expected to intervene in defense of Baltic state sovereignty. It may consequently be expected that NATO act in accord with a post-Cold War "collective defense of interests" as opposed to its traditional Cold War conception of a "collective defense of territory."

By December 2000-January 2001, concerns were raised that Russia had begun to deploy nuclear capable tactical missiles in the Kaliningrad enclave--an action categorically denied by Moscow. If this "media alarm" is either mis- or dis- information, it could represent an attempt by pro-NATO political factions to speed the decision to enlarge NATO by magnifying the Russian "threat." Another theory holds that the purported deployment represents a secret American-Russian deal to check the EU's ability to forge a Common European Security and Defense Policy by revealing the latter's weakness in the face of such a threat!

If, on the other hand, the purported deployment is not a game played in "virtual reality," such a deployment (which may represent an on-going stock piling of such weapons) would not serve Russian interests. It would not be worth jeopardizing non-binding arms accords to limit the numbers of tactical weapons in Europe and to destabilize a declared non-nuclear zone. The only possible purpose such weaponry could serve would be to quietly reveal Russian resolve in opposing NATO and EU enlargement (and to show that any BMD system can be penetrated). The purported deployment may also serve to demonstrate that Russian threats should not be dismissed as mere bluff. In any case, whatever the truth, the issue points to the need for a joint NATO-EU-Russian conference on the regional security as soon as possible.

The key dilemma raised here is that any effort to unilaterally guarantee Baltic state security under the North Atlantic Treaty's Article V would require a substantial military build-up, and possibly the deployment of nuclear forces in the Baltic states, from NATO's perspective. From this perspective, the region should only be addressed through a concerted NATO, EU, and Russian policy that applies overlapping or conjoint NATO-EU-Russian security guarantees. At the same time, Kaliningrad should become a special economic zone of trans-frontier EU-Russian cooperation.

Toward a New Euro-Atlantic Community
Without the formulation of a Central and Eastern European Defense and Security Community backed by joint overlapping NATO-EU-Russian security guarantees, there is a real danger of continuing tensions and alienation among the states of Central and Eastern Europe that do not enter NATO or the EU. The potential failure of NATO, the EU, and Russia to thoroughly address the interrelated security issues of Kaliningrad, the Baltic states, Poland, and Belarus, will mean that the region will remain for quite awhile in a situation of uncertainty and instability.

Here, the development of close Polish security links to Lithuania and Ukraine may create an unexpected crisis, once NATO begins to build Poland's defense capabilities so as to be capable of engaging in Article V contingencies. As argued above, a crisis over the deployment of nuclear weapons in Kaliningrad, or over Russian assess to Kaliningrad through either Poland or Lithuania, or dispute caused by trade or border tensions, cannot be ruled out. A pivotal Ukraine, which in many ways plays a role as an intermediary "buffer" between NATO and Russia, may ultimately find itself pressed to join either an expanding NATO or a Russian alliance, or else break up--in any case, the result would most likely destabilize the post-Cold War European equilibrium.

Following years of Cold War suspicions, bringing NATO, the EU and Russia into close policy coordination remains a difficult, but not insurmountable, task. Steps toward a more concerted direction were ostensibly taken in March 2000, when the chief diplomats of the United States, Russia, and the European Union held a joint meeting in Lisbon for the first time in post-Cold War history. Depicted as a "troika" or "world politburo" in the Russian press, the event was viewed positively by the latter in that it appeared to promise that Russia would, from now on, be treated as an "equal" of the major powers.

In his Aachen address of 2 June 2000 (after receiving Germany's prestigious Charlemagne Prize), former American President Bill Clinton proposed a long-range plan for an expanded Euro-Atlantic community that would incorporate Russia as a member of both NATO and the European Union. The President argued: "Because the stakes are so high, we must do everything we can to encourage a Russia that is fully democratic and united its diversity... That means no doors can be sealed shut to Russia - not NATO's and not the E.U.'s. The alternative would be a future of harmful competition between Russia and the rest, and the end of our vision of an undivided continent." On the other hand, "If (Russia decides that it has no interest in formally joining European or transatlantic institutions), we must make sure that, as the EU and NATO expand, their eastern borders become gateways to Russia, not barriers to trade, travel, and security cooperation."

From this perspective, it is it is crucial that the EU keep an opening to the East as Polish officials have presently been urging. The Weimar triangle of France, Germany and Poland, for example, should work to support the Brest Triangle of Poland, Belarus and Ukraine, so as to help develop the economies of the latter states, and concurrently keep the door open to Russia as well, particularly through strengthening of traditional Franco-Russian cooperation (in part as a means to counterbalance German influence). Warsaw will also need to engage in a Polish-version of Ostpolitik, backed by NATO, but in the quest for overlapping NATO-EU-Russian security guarantees. Overlapping security guarantees that Russia will not assist Belarus against Poland and that Belarus will not assist Russia against Poland, for example, may help to prevent a closer Russian-Belarus alliance.

Most crucially, NATO and Russia will have difficulties in engaging in positive cooperation in Europe unless the U.S., Russia, Japan, and EU can ultimately forge a global entente, and, in particular, work to implement a common strategy in regard to China, India, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, among other regional powers. The problem is that both Washington and Moscow tend to link their policies and actions in Europe with their respective policies elsewhere in the world, and thus are often unable to reach an accord in Europe because of activities elsewhere. The continuing conflict in Afghanistan may provide an opportunity for NATO-Russian cooperation through the PFP (although there are some signs of U.S. Senatorial opposition to this policy). It is also possible that China may also cooperate with the U.S. and Russia against Uighur independence movements in Afghanistan.

Perhaps most importantly, the implementation of national system of Ballistic Missile Defense as promised to be a high priority by the incoming administration of George Bush, Jr (perhaps combined with another round of NATO enlargement) could jeopardize any positive progress in ameliorating Russian concerns. Neither the Europeans not the Russians are prepared to move beyond the ABM treaty based the concept of Mutual Assured Destruction; these states do not place much faith in military-technological panaceas to solve essentially political problems. From the EU perspective, the implementation of a nation-wide American BMD system is regarded as potentially decoupling the United States from European security. In regard to Russia, the implementation of a BMD system may artificially serve to prevent concerted U.S.-EU-Russian compromises over key geopolitical disputes.

It can also be argued that working closer with Russia to strengthen the mission and inspection capabilities of the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), coupled with a U.S. Senate decision to ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (after the U.S. Senate previously had failed to ratify it) could at least help mitigate the apparent need to deploy BMD systems.

On the other hand, if Russia and the EU were able to jointly participate in the development of limited regional BMD system as an equal partner with the United States, then a closer American-EU-Russian relationship could be established. The latter option has been proposed by Russian President Vladimir Putin; but has thus far been rejected by Washington on the grounds that significant BMD technological breakthroughs (to be shared by the EU and Russia) might be leaked to hostile third parties. It has been joked that it has been easier for U.S. to come to terms with Russia than with its European Allies, but Washington has thus far appeared to keep both Russia and Europe at arms length--in areas that involve both power and technology sharing.

Toward an Alternative Vision
The Clinton Administration was unable to convince the vast majority of the Russian elite that the enlargement of NATO's membership will not further humiliate a former great power--and that it will not directly or indirectly hasten the disaggregation of the Russian Federation itself. Yet it is not certain that the new administration of George Bush Jr. will bring any greater vision or foresight. (The administration of George Bush, Sr. had been deeply perplexed by the issues surrounding the "vision thing"). What is needed is not only a restrained prudence in regard to the decision for or against American military intervention; rather, what is most needed is proactive diplomatic engagement.

American (and increasingly EU) emphasis on force projection and crisis management, as opposed to preventive diplomacy and crisis prevention, has raised the concern that political crises will ultimately become military ones. This is true not because the new Bush administration necessarily plans to emphasize military responses to potential crises, but for the reason that foreseeable crises have not been addressed in a systemic and systematic framework earlier enough, or that other strategic plans (such as issue of BMD) may work to obstruct concerted diplomatic solutions. It seems to be forgotten that NATO was originally created to prevent conflict before it took place; the contemporary rush to develop crisis management capabilities indicates that NATO and the EU intend to enter crises only after they have exploded.

The call for eventual Russian membership in both NATO and EU in response to President Clinton's Aachen address has come from an unlikely source. Zbigniew Brzezinski has argued that "...it is crucial that the West signal clearly that the continued enlargement of the EU and of NATO does not exclude a priori the possibility of Russia's eventual participation. Although President Clinton gave such a signal in his Charlemagne speech in Aachen in June 2000, he does not speak for the EU or even for NATO. A formal statement to that effect should be made, perhaps jointly by both organizations."

While appearing to advocate Russian membership in NATO, Brzezinski, however, provided the caveat that: "President Clinton's initiative in inviting Russia to join both the EU and NATO has given greater urgency to the task of enlarging both. In fact, it is altogether unrealistic to contemplate Russia's inclusion in either structure without Central Europe's full and prior inclusion (emphasis mine). It is equally unrealistic, and even risky, to envisage delaying Central Europe's full membership until Russia either grants its permission or itself opts for Europe. That would be tantamount to granting Russia an indefinite veto, with the likely effect of stimulating the Kremlin's geopolitical aspirations regarding the Baltic states and Ukraine.... Indeed, Russia's willingness to acquiesce to the further eastward expansion of NATO, particularly regarding the Baltic states, is a litmus test of the sincerity of any declared choice by Moscow in favor of a European and a transatlantic connection."

Here, Brzezinski's argument rests primarily on the nature of the definition of "full" inclusion in both the EU and NATO. Both of these organizations that are in the process of changing the standards and rules of "full" membership. Both Russian and Baltic state membership in NATO and the EU can be accomplished once the Baltic states are granted conjoint or overlapping NATO-EU-Russian security guarantees under the auspices of the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council Military Committee, and Russia is brought into such a system of mutual and overlapping security accords. Moreover, Kaliningrad should be given more than a special EU status as correctly suggested by Brzezinski, ; it should also become a headquarters for the NATO-EU-Russian Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council. Both these steps would thus work to accept Russia as a new form of "full" member of both NATO and the EU.

In other words, Kaliningrad, as a significant meeting point between western and eastern Europe, should be given a fundamental geo-strategic and geo-economic role in helping to bind NATO, the EU, and Russia together in a concerted relationship that would, at a minimum, help stabilize Russia's European frontiers and thus provide a basis to indirectly continue the long and difficult process of democratization. Making Kaliningrad one of the headquarters of the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council Military Committee would accordingly represent a step toward strengthening Russia's relations with NATO and the EU, at the same time that NATO (of the original sixteen members) and the EU (as a coalition of the willing "core" members) would remain in the background capable of intervention to protect states in central and eastern Europe in case of conflict or civil war.

Rather than seeking to integrate all new members into a single command structure, as traditional "full" membership implies, NATO (working through the Partnership for Peace) should thus work to create a militarily-integrated Central and Eastern European Defense and Security Community under the command of the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council Military Committee. The creation of a Central and Eastern European Defense and Security Community would incorporate all EU members as well as non-NATO non-EU states as part of a multi-tiered system of security; new NATO members Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary could take the lead in forming such a community.. In essence, the United States, United Kingdom, and France would seek to coordinate their nuclear deterrent in the background--in strategic cooperation with Russia. NATO, the EU and Russia could then work together to develop a limited regional BMD system to defend this new security community.

A Central and Eastern European Defense and Security Community--involving the deployment of Euro-Atlantic war-preventive forces of differing nationalities acceptable to all parties--should also help to counterbalance both Russian and German pressures and influence in Central Europe. On the one hand, such an approach should work to bring France closer to NATO's integrated command; on the other, Russia can be brought into more active participation into the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council and into the EU decision-making process.

Conclusion
NATO regards itself as a purely defensive organization; yet its decision to enlarge can be best interpreted as a strategy of 'strategic denial' (as opposed to strategy intended to gain a potentially offensive advantage as critics contend). At the same time, however, despite the pseudo-Hegelian hype over the "end of history," NATO's decision to enlarge its full membership to the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland represents a profound plunge back into history; it is, unfortunately, most reminiscent Halford MacKinder's dubious dictum "Who rules East Europe commands the Heartland...".

Concurrently, the enlargement of the EU may no longer be perceived as a positive alternative by Moscow. On the one hand, the EU appears to be engaged in an uncoordinated, almost competitive, enlargement for influence in central and eastern Europe with NATO that could possibly serve Russian interests by permitting Russia to play European and American interests; on the other hand, the EU could, like NATO, become an exclusive club limited to only certain "European" members.

The irony raised here is that the EU is generally reluctant to include states that, for better or for worse, have had a historical relationship with Europe, i.e. Russia (plus Belarus and Ukraine) not to overlook Turkey (formerly the Ottoman empire). The contemporary EU is more tightly framed for purposes of political-economic integration than was the 19th Century Concert of Europe, which incorporated both Russia and Ottoman Empire as members (the latter after the Crimean War). Of the "core" EU states, French, British and German perspectives tend to diverge as to how to deal with Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Turkey, among other states, and whether not to include these states as "full" members. EU rules and the acquis communitaire accordingly should be flexible enough to cope with a new post-Cold War geo-economic situation, permitting special relations between new members, such as Poland with Russian Kaliningrad, Belarus, and the Ukraine, for example. If the EU's long term vision of the future is not coherent, and, at the same time, cannot remain flexible, it will prove impossible to formulate and sustain a concerted CESDP that can sustain European interests while working with both Washington and Moscow.

The key issue raised here is that both NATO and the EU may well need to reassess their goals and their criteria for membership; both may need to be more flexible in their trans-frontier and trade relations with these unevenly developed post-Communist states. The EU must soon find a way to coordinate its strategy of enlargement in relationship to Russia (and Turkey) in particular, as envisioned in former President Clinton's Aachen address. In addition to signaling the effort to establish a CESDP, the December 2000 Nice summit also forewarned of a crisis if the two "core" EU states of France and Germany cannot coordinate their vision of the future: Whereas Bonn has generally sought a European federation (based largely on the German "federal" model); France has generally sought a looser relationship, more of a "united Europe of states rather than a United States of Europe."

The latter French approach would be more in tune with permitting the "full" membership of Russia in the EU than the former. Following the first round of NATO enlargement and the war "over" Kosovo, NATO and the EU must now thoroughly engage Russia into a new Euro-Atlantic political economic and security community involving overlapping NATO, EU, and Russian security guarantees--if a potential backlash of Russia and other non-EU non-NATO states is to be avoided.