THE issue of NATO membership for the Central European countries, and especially Poland, is likely to heat up this summer, chiefly because of two presidential elections—-Russia’s in June, and America’s in November. There are over nine million people of Polish ancestry in the United States, and many of them are clustered in the six Great Lakes states, which have about one hundred electoral votes. Most political leaders in both the U.S. and Europe have already expressed sympathy for Polish membership in NATO, but they have not focused on the cost of providing Poland with a security guarantee or the complications that Polish membership could create for America’s relations with Russia. Both issues could become far more challenging if the Communist Party regains control of the Russian presidency from Boris Yeltsin.
It is doubtful that the Communist candidate, Gennady Zyuganov, or any other post-Yeltsin leader would pose an immediate threat to Central Europe. The Russian military is probably weaker today than at any other time since 1917, and the major foreign-policy focus of any Russian government will be the countries of the former Soviet Union, not the Warsaw Pact. But the election of a Communist or nationalist government in Moscow could have several adverse effects on Central Europe.
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