3
Russia. Pacific multilateralists opposed expansion on the grounds that NATO would
attempt to modernize the Central European armed forces, harming these states
economies. Moreover, it would divert them from participation in other multilateral
institutions. The effects would be mutually reinforcing. Expansion would be costly, and
those costs would impede economic reforms necessary for entry into the European
Union. Movement away from the European Union would leave the economies less
productive than they would otherwise be. The proper path for these states was toward
greater cooperative security institutions like the OSCE or the EU. Integration into NATO
would create a new, militarized “dividing line” in Europe. If the states were to join an
formal international organization in Europe, it should be the EU, not NATO.
4
The critics shared a belief that NATO expansion would exacerbate the security dilemma
between Russia and NATO. Rather than improving security in Central Europe, NATO
expansion would worsen it. Russian officials might reduce their security cooperation with
Europe and the United States and might take more defensive-oriented but nevertheless
interventionist behavior in non-NATO members. Indeed, NATO expansion could create a
self-fulfilling prophecy: Russian responses to expansion could generate the security
problems expansion was intended to forestall.
Backers of NATO expansion were rare among the ranks of career academics in
international security. Support came mostly from politicians, non-academic policy
analysts, and academics with extensive government service. This group split into two
factions as well. Retro-Atlanticists feared a resurgence of Russia and saw NATO
expansion as a consolidation of western victory in the Cold War. Leaving Central Europe
4
John Gerard Ruggie, Winning the Peace (New York, 1996); Michael Mandelbaum, The Dawn
of Peace in Europe (New York, 1996).
Convention