The Clinton Administration and NATO Expansion

Paper Summary:

This paper discusses the Clinton administration's political, strategic and ideological motivations for supporting NATO expansion and whether the future of NATO will be as a collective defense pact or as a vehicle for democratic expansion.

From the paper:

"On March 16, 1999, the flags of the first three ex-communist countries to gain admission to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization " Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic " were hoisted above NATO headquarters in Brussels, marking the final act in the first stage of NATO expansion. Fifty years after its creation, with former Warsaw Pact members joining what began as an anti-Soviet alliance, NATO's original purpose of keeping "the Americans in, the Russians out, and the Germans down" seems to no longer apply. The Russians no longer possess the ability (and some would argue the desire) to realistically threaten European security. With growing assertiveness in European affairs, the Germans are not "down," but their increased role in politics, economics, and security of Europe does not inspire the panic it would have so soon after World War II when the alliance was formed."

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