Europe's Eastern Promise

Rethinking NATO and EU Enlargement

Ronald D. Asmus

From Foreign Affairs, January/February 2008

Summary:  After the Cold War, NATO and the EU opened their doors to central and eastern Europe, making the continent safer and freer than ever before. Today, NATO and the EU must articulate a new rationale for enlarging still further, once again extending democracy and prosperity to the East, this time in the face of a more powerful and defiant Russia.

RONALD D. ASMUS is Executive Director of the Transatlantic Center at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, in Brussels. From 1997 to 2000, he served as U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs.

That argument is straightforward. The challenge of securing Europe's eastern border from the Baltics to the Black Sea has been replaced by the need to extend peace and stability along the southern rim of the Euro-Atlantic community -- from the Balkans across the Black Sea and further into Eurasia, a region that connects Europe, Russia, and the Middle East and involves core security interests, including a critical energy corridor. Working to consolidate democratic change and build stability in this area is as important for Western security today as consolidating democracy in central and eastern Europe was in the 1990s. It is not only critical to expanding the democratic peace in Europe but also vital to repositioning the West vis-à-vis both Central Asia and the Middle East. This strategy presents an opportunity to redraw the strategic map of Europe and Eurasia in a way that enhances the security of countries on Europe's periphery as well as that of the United States and Europe.

The United States and Europe also need to rethink what anchoring means in practice. In the 1990s, it meant pursuing membership in NATO and the EU roughly in parallel. Now the West needs to be more flexible and take a long-term view. The goal is to tie these countries as closely to the West as politics and interests on both sides allow. For some countries, this may mean eventual membership in both NATO and the EU; for others, it may mean membership only in NATO; and for the rest, it may mean membership in neither but simply much closer relations. Policy will have to be much more à la carte than prix fixe.

The link between NATO membership and EU membership should be relaxed, if not dropped. The EU has enough on its plate sustaining its commitments to the western Balkans and Turkey; anything beyond that is probably a nonstarter for the time being. NATO will once again have to take the lead in anchoring countries such as Georgia and others in the wider Black Sea region. The West must also rethink how it should engage and reach out to these countries. If membership is less plausible as a short-term option, then the quality of ties short of membership must be improved to compensate. Outreach must grow in importance and may increasingly become the centerpiece of U.S. and European strategy. At the moment, the fear of future enlargement is one factor actually holding allies back, with institutions afraid of taking even small steps down what some fear could be a slippery slope. Yet precisely because the countries in question are weaker and more endangered, NATO and the EU should actually be reaching out and engaging them earlier. They need the security umbrella and engagement of the West as much, if not more, than the countries of central and eastern Europe did.

The way out of this dilemma is to consider membership a long-term goal and focus in the mean time on strengthening Western outreach and engagement. This means recasting policy tools to address the different needs of the countries that are less developed politically and economically. Tools such as NATO's "membership action plan" should be extended earlier and tied less closely to actual membership commitments, thus allowing these countries to benefit from guidance and engagement while downplaying the question of the end goal. At the same time, the EU needs to enhance its own tools, such as the Common Foreign and Security Policy and the European Neighborhood Policy, as well as reach out to these countries more directly by offering them political and economic support. When communism collapsed, NATO and the EU had little idea how to reach out to postcommunist countries and anchor them to the West. Bureaucrats in both institutions said it could not be done. But political will and strategic imagination prevailed, and fresh approaches were developed. Political will can do the same today.

As for Russia, neither Washington nor Brussels wants a confrontation with Moscow at a time when they face daunting challenges beyond Europe. But this does not mean the West should abandon its belief that the spread of democracy along Russia's borders contributes to peace and stability just because the current authoritarian rulers in Moscow disagree. Nor should the West abandon its principles and succumb to the sphere-of-influence thinking currently emanating from Moscow. If the United States and Europe still hope that democracy will eventually take root in Russia, they must recognize that consolidating a pro-Western, democratic Ukraine would indirectly encourage democratization in Russia. Of course, antidemocratic forces in Russia will oppose such a move. After all, Moscow only acquiesced in previous rounds of NATO and EU enlargement because it concluded that the United States and Europe were determined to carry them out and that its efforts to oppose the West would be futile. Western unity on issues such as the future of Ukraine is therefore of the utmost importance.

Still, holding true to NATO's and the EU's core principles and expanding these organizations' reach does not mean starting a new Cold War. The West and Moscow should look for other areas in which their interests are more aligned, such as expanding trade and investment or controlling nuclear proliferation and building a new arms control regime. The key question is whether Russia -- when faced with a unified West -- will start to look for common ground. As strong as Russia may appear at the moment, it remains a country with real long-term structural weaknesses and problems. It, too, needs friends and allies, and the United States and Europe should be among them.

UNCERTAIN FUTURES

Three very different scenarios for the future of Western policy toward Europe's periphery reveal just how high the stakes are in this region. In the best-case scenario, the United States and Europe would regroup under the next U.S. president and launch a new era of transatlantic cooperation by overcoming differences on Iraq, avoiding disagreements over Iran, and stabilizing Afghanistan. This renaissance would include a new and ambitious democratic-enlargement strategy, and the results would be significant. Securing independence for Kosovo without turning Serbia against the West would facilitate the successful integration of the western Balkans into NATO and the EU. In Turkey, the AKP-led government would continue democratic reforms, bringing the country closer to EU accession. Georgia and Ukraine would continue to move closer to the West as well. That prospect would help create positive pressure for democratic change in Azerbaijan and encourage Armenia's reorientation toward the West. By 2012, a reunified West would have begun to build an arc of democratic stability eastward into Eurasia and especially the wider Black Sea region. Realizing that its real adversaries lie elsewhere, Russia would eventually have no choice but to reassess its policy and seek a new rapprochement with the West.

A less optimistic scenario is stagnation. In this case, the United States and Europe would regain some political momentum after 2008 but fail to achieve any significant democratic breakthroughs. A new U.S. administration would manage to stabilize and then extricate itself from Iraq, but transatlantic tensions over Iran and other Middle Eastern issues would persist. Kosovo would achieve independence, but in a manner that leaves Serbia alienated and unable to find its way back onto the path toward EU accession. In the western Balkans, only Croatia would remain on track for both EU and NATO membership. Turkey's prospects for joining the EU would fade, and reforms in Georgia and Ukraine would stall. Azerbaijan would remain an autocratic pro-Western ally increasingly vulnerable to growing radicalization from within. By 2012, the West would have patched up relations across the Atlantic but without breakthroughs in the Balkans or Turkey -- let alone in Ukraine or the wider Black Sea region. All of this would lead to a more competitive relationship with Russia, resulting in stalemate and a new chill in relations with Moscow.