[Big A]

NATO's Future

Diplomatically, the second post-Cold War expansion was not as
loud an affair as the first. The 1999 expansion also occurred
during the run-up to the Kosovo war. Within a two-month period
Russia saw the three most militarily powerful of its former
satellites join an opposing alliance with a nuclear first-strike
policy, while its most loyal European ally suffered a bombing
campaign, courtesy of that same alliance. Russia fought tooth and
nail in diplomatic circles to prevent the expansion, and quite
rightly felt betrayed. One of the deals made by the
administration of former U.S. President George H.W. Bush in the
last days of the Cold War was that Moscow would allow Germany to
reunite and remain completely in NATO, so long as the alliance
did not expand eastward.

Stratfor does not expect NATO's next enlargement, likely within
the next five years, to be particularly troublesome. If Russia
had a red line, it drew it at the Baltics -- three of its own
former republics -- or Kaliningrad, a Russian Baltic enclave that
NATO's new borders seal off from direct resupply. The next
enlargement is likely to take in the Balkan states of Albania,
Croatia, Macedonia and perhaps Bosnia. All fall behind NATO's new
eastern "front line" and would not threaten Russia at all.

The only expansion in the near future that might elicit a rise
would be one that included Finland -- which considered submitting
an application in the late 1990s -- but even this would not be as
traumatic to the Russians as the now-official Baltic entries.
There is even the possibility that Austria, another of Europe's
traditional neutrals, might someday join NATO. Vienna is already
more active in NATO exercises than are several full members. Any
serious discussion of a second across-the-Russian-red-line
expansion will be put off until well after 2010, although by that
point Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine could shape up as
possibilities.

NATO certainly has challenges ahead of it. The strain and
political arm-twisting that are likely to precede the expected
Iraq deployment could well reopen wounds that only recently
closed, and competing visions of what NATO should be will
certainly hound it for years. Ironically, this divergence of
perception is part of what will keep NATO powerful, present and
relevant to U.S. policymakers.

While several Western states -- and Stratfor -- no longer view
NATO as a true military alliance, that view is not shared
uniformly. It is a simple fact that many European countries feel
threatened by the political or military strength of Germany or
Russia. The age-old adage of NATO that it existed "to keep the
Americans in, the Russians out and the Germans down" was always
far more than a clever turn of phrase. Many European states still
see this as a core NATO raison d'etre. Such belief is not an
issue of wealth -- Denmark, the Netherlands and Norway are just
as pro-NATO and pro-American as Latvia, Hungary and Bulgaria --
it is an issue of place. These countries, by virtue of their
proximity to large neighbors with a past predilection for
domination, want a counterbalance.

So long as that is the case, a majority of NATO's membership will
be enthusiastic about the alliance as an alliance. Even the
dullest of U.S. administrations will be able to translate that
energy into international influence in Europe -- and beyond.