WEB EDITION No. 5 - Oct. 1991 Vol. 39 p. 17-22

NATO AND CENTRAL EUROPE Trevor Taylor, Head of the International Security Programme at the Royal Institute of International Affairs, London Following the unsuccessful Moscow coup last August, the debate on NATO's relationship with the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, has intensified. The following article, which expresses the personal views of the author, contributes to that debate by arguing that while NATO membership for these countries may not be the answer, there are other steps which the Alliance can and should take. The changes of the past two years have presented NATO with problems derived directly from its own success. A new strategic concept has been required to reflect the Soviet retreat from Eastern Europe, and the Alliance has even had to justify its own future existence given that the Soviet threat could be seen as rapidly disappearing. But, acknowledged as a highly successful organization, NATO has also needed to respond to interest in membership from new parties. All the former Warsaw Treaty countries have expressed some informal interest in becoming associated with NATO, with the three states of Central Europe - Poland, the Czech and Slovak Federal Republic (CSFR) and Hungary - having been the most seriously involved. Freed from Soviet domination, they have felt themselves in a kind of international security vacuum, lacking protection from any wider body. NATO's members have given little encouragement to Central European ideas for NATO membership and by last summer the three informal 'candidate members' of NATO had accepted that they would not be able to join, at least for the foreseeable future. Then the short-lived Soviet coup of August 1991 alarmed the states of Central Europe that a government might come to power in Moscow which would seek once more to dominate the region. There was renewed pressure for Poland, the CSFR and Hungary to become political members of NATO in a similar position to that of France. (1) Although Central European fears eased with the collapse of the coup and the consequent disintegration of the USSR, closer links with NATO remain appealing for them. It is therefore sensible to spell out some fundamental points why a larger NATO membership would create more problems than it would solve, before going on to point out what NATO can still do to promote the security of Central European countries. NATO membership is not an answer First, extending NATO eastward could cause future governments of Russia to fear that the West sought domination over them. It would then make Moscow reluctant to embark on the defence spending cuts which are needed for Russia to achieve economic advance, and it could contribute to the establishment of a strong military influence on the government of the new independent Russia. Further nuclear disarmament would become more difficult and needed partnership between Russia and the West on issues including the proliferation of nuclear and conventional arms would become more elusive. Second, admitting Central European states as NATO members would be very disruptive of the Alliance's arrangements and machinery. Since 1950, NATO has operated on the basis that there should be an equal commitment to the defence of all the territory of allies and even though from 1991 NATO could afford a different pattern of force structure and deployment, that commitment remains. Since 1950, it has also been recognized that a commitment to come to the aid of an attacked ally should be given credibility and effectiveness by other actions. Command structures have been put in place, infrastructure elements such as pipelines and airfield shave been built, forces from a range of allies have been deployed forward, multinational exercises have been held, and guiding strategy has been laid down. In short, NATO has felt it valuable to be an integrated alliance, in some elements of which France has continued to play a full part. Even in the light of the more distant, reduced Soviet threat, NATO has resisted the urge to be less integrated. Making Poland, the CSFR and Hungary credible NATO members would thus involve the forward stationing of at least nominal US and West European forces in Poland, the CSFR and Hungary and the preparation and maintenance of plans for their rapid reinforcement, the construction of infrastructure arrangements and so on. Apart from any political problems, this could be interpreted as illegal under the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty. (2) NATO has no provision for associate membership which might not involve a military guarantee (which Joris Voorhoeve has suggested). (3) In the longer term, having two classes of member in NATO could well lead to resentment both by Russians and Central Europeans, the latter because they would feel excluded from the most important discussions. Third, NATO countries lack the resources to extend their defence commitments. Their publics want to spend less on defence and taking formal responsibility for the security of Central Europe would be an additional burden which falling Western defence budgets could not bear. Fourth, a serious debate about membership could well split the Alliance. Some members would be extremely wary of making a new commitment in which they felt there was even a remote chance that they could get involved in a nuclear war for the defence of Central Europe. Since NATO decisions require consensus, a proposal for new members, or for new sorts of member, could generate a politically damaging debate and yet not lead to membership suggestions being accepted. Fifth, if three countries could become formally associated with NATO, others (for instance Bulgaria (4) or at some later stage Latvia or the Ukraine) would want the same status. Already the political liaison dialogue with Romania and Bulgaria is of a similar degree of intensity as it is with Central European states. It would not be easy in political terms to hold the line at just three new members. Sixth, should NATO acquire Poland, the CSFR and Hungary as members, it might at some future point find itself being drawn into ethnic disputes crossing state borders in Central Europe. Finally, there is the significant consideration that Poland, the CSFR and Hungary are in no apparent danger. Even the Soviet coup leaders in their brief period in power were anxious to stress that they would abide by existing international commitments. The last Soviet forces have left the CSFR and Hungary. There are still 40,000 or so in Poland but their withdrawal may be speeded with the new regime in Moscow. Also, with Byelorussia and the Ukraine seemingly on the road to full sovereign statehood (to go with their extant UN membership) the three countries of Central Europe will no longer have a military superpower on their immediate borders. What NATO can do All these points stress that NATO should not be thinking of expanding its membership. Yet, as NATO ministers recognized in Copenhagen, (5) NATO can contribute in other ways to the security needs of Central European states bearing in mind that what they need as a minimum is reassurance of Western interest. While logically it can be argued that Moscow is no longer a political-military danger to them, they will not easily give up worrying about a country which has dominated them for so long. Concern about Moscow is a habit of centuries in Warsaw. What then should NATO do? First it should carry on and reinforce doing what it is doing already in the political liaison process set up after the London Declaration. This process established political dialogue with all the former members of the Warsaw Treaty Organization so that Western thinking could be explained. Looking forward, with experience having been gained of how political liaison has been developed on an ad hoc basis, it could be put on a more formal footing. The allies should be ready to use the liaison process more as a consultation exercise, as a way of eliciting the fears, priorities and preferences of the former Warsaw Treaty Organization countries. Visits by leading Central European politicians to NATO, such as those earlier this year of Presidents Havel and Walesa, have a particular significance. NATO states, with reduced direct security problems of their own, should be ready to become excellent listeners to the concerns of others. Next, NATO can use its best efforts to keep the arms control process going despite the changes in Europe's political geography. It is of particular importance to see the CFE Treaty through to ratification since, most strikingly, the Treaty, as well as laying down military ceilings within the former Warsaw Treaty states as a whole, can be viewed as a legal guarantee, with NATO states as parties, for the territorial inviolability of Central Europe. Referring to Article IV, Paragraph 5 of the Treaty, US Secretary of State Baker has testified that the Treaty 'provides that no state party to CFE may station forces on the territory of another without the express consent of that state. Reinforcing the bilateral accords that call for the elimination of all stationed Soviet troops, the Treaty assures that any Soviet military deployments in Europe without the express consent of the host country would also violate the Treaty ... CFE helps to safeguard the independence, security and political development of the new democracies in Central and Eastern Europe'. (6) Although it is hard to see the form which future quantitative conventional force cuts could take, it remains likely that the pluralistic security community which operates in the North Atlantic area (where the threat and use of force play no part in inter-state relations) will not for some time cover the whole of Europe. Therefore some European states will need to be reassured about the military activities of their neighbours, and arms control discussions, which may not necessarily lead to any legal agreement, are one method of achieving this. Confidence building measures (which would, for instance, restrict force deployments and exercises in specified regions) could clearly play a useful role. In adopting arms control positions, NATO should bear in mind the interests of the Central Europeans. One especially relevant field concerns short-range nuclear forces (SNF) where the West is already rethinking its traditional preference form deploying such forces. Had the West insisted on keeping some SNF, their role from a Polish perspective could appear to be to induce Polish forces to fight harder in the unlikely event of an invasion from the Union of Sovereign States (USS) (as the successor entity to the Soviet Union may come to be called). After all, with NATO SNF, should Poland fall to the USS, the likely consequence would be that Polish territory would then be devastated with Western troops using tactical nuclear weapons to halt the invader before it could get far into NATO territory. In the new political geography, it is hard to envisage a satisfactory and credible role for any SNF. Third, NATO can continue to argue in such a way that any potential aggressor against Central Europe could not be certain as to how NATO states would respond. Assertions such as that by US Defense Under Secretary Paul Wolfowitz that 'European security is indivisible. The United States is committed to supporting the process of democracy, as well as the independence and sovereignty of the Central East European states', (7) can have this effect, as can statements that the NATO allies are convinced 'that our own security is inseparably linked to that of all other states in Europe, particularly to that of the emerging democracies.' (8) Prior to August 1991, the USSR was pressuring Poland, the CSFR and Hungary to sign agreements like that accepted by Romania, under which they would abandon their right, laid down in CSCE documents, to join alliances. Western support for the principles of CSCE will help Central Europeans to resist any such pressure which might be forthcoming from the new government in Moscow. Fourth, NATO states can expand their existing efforts to encourage Poland, the CSFR and Hungary to build up their own defence capabilities in postures which are effective without being provocative to their neighbours, and which involve useful cooperation between the three countries, for instance in the field of procurement. The West must be ready to transfer technology, including arms, to Central Europe and the US has already lifted its ban on arms supplies to the region (an official noted that, if anything, the US would favour only requests for 'legitimate self-defence, non-offensive items'). (9) Through the efforts of the North Atlantic Assembly in its work with Eastern European parliamentarians, through training programmes such as the US International Military Education Programme, and through general dialogue by means of conferences and other meetings, NATO can promote the democratic, civilian control of cost-effective, non-provocative defence policies in Central Europe. Through such policies, Poland, the CSFR and Hungary can be helped to build the self-confidence which comes from having a prudent capacity for national defence. But NATO cannot deal with the security of Central Europe single-handedly. A major contribution must also be made by the European Community (EC) which can offer associate membership without encountering hostile reactions from Moscow. As Polish Prime Minister Bielecki put it when speaking on 16 April at the Royal Institute of International Affairs in Chatham House, London: 'There is, though, one sure way of achieving political and economic stability, of anchoring the commitment to democracy and the market on to solid bedrock. It is simple EC membership. We in Poland, Hungary and the Czech-Slovak Republic will work together and work hard to solve the region's problems. But if Western Europe is serious about wanting stability in Central and Eastern Europe, it has the power to achieve it. It has to simply open its doors.' In the middle of 1991, there were worrying signs that some economic interests in the EC, relating especially to steel, textiles and agriculture, were preventing a speedy, closer relationship of Central Europeans with the Community. (10) Put crudely, EC countries wanted protection in these sectors from competition while Central European states desperately needed the foreign exchange they could earn from exports. The needs of Central Europe will be a test of EC states' ability to place their collective strategic interests above more parochial concerns. In the longer terms, association and perhaps full membership of the EC will do more for Central Europe than boost their prosperity and political stability, important though these considerations are. Although the EC is not and should not be a formal alliance, any potential aggressor is likely to feel that an aggression against one of its members could well generate a military response from all of them. The EC's economic role could thus in time throw an increasingly strong security shadow over its members, especially as EC concerns in defence-related business grow. (11) Conclusion There are no easy answers or quick fixes to security issues in Central Europe. The West should be aiming to diminish steadily rather than abolish overnight the security concerns of Poland, the CSFR and Hungary. As these countries increasingly appreciate, the Soviet Union is a declining problem at the moment, not least because it is distracted and weakened by domestic issues. The main source of tension, perhaps for the next three or four years, will be the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Poland and Germany. A fundamental factor is that NATO's very existence, while directly protecting and coordinating the states of Western Europe, is also a security force for Central Europe. NATO is 'an essential underpinning' (12) for European security, 'A central element of common security and solidarity which generates stability that can spread beyond its own area'. (13) The US Ambassador to NATO, William H. Taft IV, has observed that NATO is a security anchor in Western Europe 'so that Eastern Europe can develop its potential with the least possible threat of instability, disorder and intimidation. NATO cannot guarantee Eastern European stability, but its absence would be destabilizing in the extreme'.(14) While NATO is in being, even the most aggressively ambitious government in the USSR (and the present government does not have such characteristics) would know that it had no hope of dominating the whole of Europe. The benefit, then, of seeking to restore control over Central Europe would be at best marginal and, most likely, negative given the sanctions which the West would impose. When President Havel visited NATO headquarters in Brussels, one prominent British newspaper observed in a headline 'Havel secures little but fine words from NATO'. (15) The present article argues that, had he received anything more, Czech and even European security would have been damaged rather than strengthened. NATO cannot give a formal guarantee to Central Europe but there are a range of lesser measures which the West can take, and in some cases is taking, to strengthen the economies, confidence and defensive capabilities of the countries of Central Europe. Together, they would do much over time for the security of the region, but it is vital that Western policy be expressed in such a way as not to alarm the Soviet Union and that everything possible is done, within the limits of conditions there, to integrate that union with the Western way of life. As President Havel stressed last March, the Soviet Union cannot be excluded from European security arrangements which are more broadly based than military structures: 'A future security structure of a democratic Europe is unthinkable without the participation of a democratic community of the peoples of today's Soviet Union. When supporting their endeavours to exercise self-determination and to pursue democracy and prosperity, we are doing so among other things because of our wish to live and work together with those peoples and to develop good-neighbourly relations with them within the same democratic space. Their isolation from Europe and from the world is in fact sought by those who are desirous of restoring the old order of things in the Soviet Union...'(16) Notes: (1) 'East Europeans seek stronger ties to NATO' Defense News, 26 August 1991; 'Moscow coup concentrates Central European minds on links with the West' The Independent, London, 3 September 1991. (2) Article IV, Paragraph 5 of the CFE Treaty would seem to allow the states to deploy their forces only on the territories of states within their own pre- 1991 alliance. The paragraph reads:'state forces belonging to the same group of state parties may locate battle tanks, armoured combat vehicles and artillery in active units in each of the areas described in this article...' (author's emphasis). (3) Presentation at the NATO-Netherlands Institute of International Affairs Conference, at Clingendael, The Hague, 21 June 1991, Jonathan Eyal had argued for the three Central European states initially to be given 'observer status' at NATO prior to becoming full members, see 'Between the devil and the EEC: Eastern Europe's security dilemma, European Security Analyst, April 1991. (4) In which Bulgaria was also interested, see 'Bulgaria urges associate status in NATO for Eastern European states', The Guardian, london, 12 march 1991. (5) Text of statements and communique published in NATO Review, No.3, June 1991, p.28-33. (6) Testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on 11 July 1991, text available from US Information Service European Wireless File, London, 12 July 1991. (7) Speech released by United States Information Service, London, 26 April 1991. (8) 'The situation in the Soviet Union', Statement issued by the North Atlantic Council meeting in ministerial session in Brussels on 21 August 1991. Reproduced in NATO Review, No.4, August 1991, p.8-9. (9) 'West Mulls Eastern Defense Sales', Defence News 13 May 1991; 'WP nations off ITAR list', Jane's Defence Weekly, 3 August 1991, p.187. (10) See 'French veto threatens move to give Baltic states EC links', The Guardian, London, 7 September 1991. (11) See Trevor Taylor, 'Procurement in European Defence', Utilities Policy, Volume 1, No.2, January 1991, pp.144-149. (12) Manfred Wörner, statement on the accession of President Havel's visit to NATO Headquarters on 21 March 1991. Reproduced in NATO Review, No.2, April 1991, p.29. see also the first of NATO's Core Security Functions in the New Europe issued by the NATO Council meeting in Copenhagen on 6 and 7 June 1991 - 'To provide one of the indispensable foundations for a stable security environment in Europe, based on the growth of democratic institutions and commitment to the peaceful resolution of disputes, in which no country would be able to intimidate or coerce any European nation or to impose hegemony through the threat or use of force'. text in NATO Review, June 1991, p.30. (13) Jo o de Deus Pinheiro, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Portugal, the President d'Honneur of the North Atlantic Council; speech on the occasion of President Havel's NATO visit on 21 March 1991. (14) Text of speech of 19 July 1991 from USIS European Wireless File, 22 July 1991. See also the testimony of Defense Secretary Cheney to Senate Foreign Relations Committee on 16 July 1991, text from USIS European Wireless File 17 July 1991. (15) The Financial Times, London, 22 March 1991. (16) Speech at NATO Headquarters, 21 March 1991, text in NATO Review, No.2 April 1991, p.31-5. © Copyright by North Atlantic Treaty Organisation 1991.