October
3, 2002, 9:00 a.m. A
Proper Reckoning
NATO expansion.
By Nikolas
K. Gvosdev
n Iraq Action,
U. S. is Keeping NATO Sidelined" reads a headline in the Washington
Post. As in Afghanistan, the relevance of the alliance — as an
alliance — is being called into question on both sides of the Atlantic.
This debate, however, seems to have little impact on the related question
of enlargement. In recent weeks, Senators Joseph Biden and John McCain
have both strongly endorsed expanding NATO, and recent reports from alliance
headquarters indicate that all "seven sisters" (Estonia, Latvia,
Lithuania, Slovenia, Slovakia, Bulgaria, and Romania) will in fact be
issued invitations at the Prague Summit in November.
Proponents of expansion,
however, should carefully ponder an article that appeared in the Hungarian
newspaper Nepszabadsag last month. Now readers of National Review
Online might be inclined at first to distrust a report that appeared in
Nepszabadsag, an independent center-left daily newspaper (with
a strong preference for the Hungarian Socialist party), but the provenance
of the messenger should not distract from the message. The article (published
August 9, 2002) raises serious questions about the impact of the last
round of expansion that affect the future of NATO — especially on
the questions of combat readiness and the growing "capabilities"
gap between the United States and Europe. Entitled "NATO: Hungary
Took Up Excessive Commitments," this report concludes: "Hungary's
contribution to joint efforts can mostly be described as symbolic."
When the last round
of NATO expansion was being debated, Senator Biden endorsed a "distribution
of direct costs of enlargement whereby 15 percent would be assumed by
the United States, 35 percent by the new members, and 50 percent by the
other current members of NATO." He went on to say, "The candidate
countries must make the financial means available to modernize their forces
and achieve interoperability with NATO."
Only months after
formally being accepted into the alliance, Hungary's ambassador to NATO
Andra Simonyi warned in November 1999 that Hungary could not afford to
modernize its fleet of fighters to meet the alliance's requirements for
interoperability, maintenance and logistical support. Simonyi said that
Hungary needed to meet its own defense obligations before it would be
prepared to adapt its military to fulfill more specialized roles required
by the alliance. The Nepszabadsag article indicates that the situation
has not improved over the last three years. Jozsef Bali, the deputy state
secretary for policy of the Ministry of Defense, admits that Hungary made
"excessive" commitments when it entered NATO, and that sufficient
funds have not been budgeted to fulfill these obligations. Indeed, less
than ten percent of the Hungarian defense budget was spent on modernization
in the last several years.
This means that Hungary's
armed forces have a long way to go before functioning at NATO standards.
Hungarian pilots' flying hours are nowhere near the NATO average, the
report notes, and NATO-operable equipment, much of it provided by the
United States, is "obtained for each foreign mission separately."
In fact, rather than distributing upgraded equipment throughout all units
in the armed forces, Bali believes it may be more practical to "systematically
equip selected units." Much will depend, however, on whether the
government can sustain increases in defense spending (Hungary has vowed
to increase defense spending to two percent of GDP).
To be fair, the article
notes that "Hungarian soldiers usually get excellent qualifications
in peacekeeping missions and exercises." Building on this, Bali said
that the Ministry of Defense, which has begun to review Hungary's defense
posture, will encourage Hungary to only undertake commitments it is capable
of performing. Hungary may also seek to develop specific technical units
that can be deployed alongside combat forces of other alliance members
(for example, in the areas of army health care or defense against weapons
of mass destruction).
However, this approach
is dangerously reminiscent of the "two-tiered" conception of
NATO that the United States says, in principle, it opposes. A division
of labor that assigns first-strike, combat missions principally to the
United States and Britain, while the Central and East Europeans cover
the peacekeeping and humanitarian fronts, is a guaranteed way of ensuring
NATO's irrelevancy as an effective collective-security organization. It
also lays the seeds for widening, not narrowing, the capabilities gap
between the United States and Europe.
Does this mean, therefore,
that NATO should not expand? As I have observed in a previous
essay, a strong case for expansion can be made on political and strategic
considerations, notably in the Balkans. The process of expansion, however,
must be realistic. The members admitted in 1999 are still years away,
however, from having militaries that will be largely inter-operable with
other NATO members, with sufficient training and up-to-date equipment.
Even before the last round has been fully integrated into the alliance,
NATO is considering bringing in seven additional states. As a result,
no one in Washington should be deceived. Either the United States (and
some of the more affluent West European states) must spend much more than
has been budgeted if the members of NATO's eastern flank are to shoulder
a greater share of the burden, or the United States should accept that
these states are likely to be net "consumers" rather than "producers"
of security for the foreseeable future.
Congress, however,
shouldn't take a page from the ENRON accounting playbook when considering
the costs of NATO expansion. Honesty remains the best policy.
n Iraq Action,
U. S. is Keeping NATO Sidelined" reads a headline in the Washington
Post. As in Afghanistan, the relevance of the alliance — as an
alliance — is being called into question on both sides of the Atlantic.
This debate, however, seems to have little impact on the related question
of enlargement. In recent weeks, Senators Joseph Biden and John McCain
have both strongly endorsed expanding NATO, and recent reports from alliance
headquarters indicate that all "seven sisters" (Estonia, Latvia,
Lithuania, Slovenia, Slovakia, Bulgaria, and Romania) will in fact be
issued invitations at the Prague Summit in November.
