Follow-up to my Chechnya/Kosovo analysis --a thought-provoking Navy paper:
From Leadership to Partnership: A New American Security Strategy for Europe
nwc.navy.mil
Excerpt:
From a Western European standpoint, the dilemma is how to avoid the dilution of purpose that would result from uncontrolled expansion of a collective security-type organization without also resurrecting the Cold War division. From the other side of the Atlantic, the preservation of recent achievements in Western Europe does not have the same significance, and the risks of destabilization entailed by expansion (of the EU or Nato) are less threatening.
Regarding potential new dividing lines, the main concern is Russia. Nato's expansion worries only Russia--and in truth, affirmation of goodwill from Nato's members cannot be sufficient to answer Russia's concern. Collective defense met the challenge of the Cold War; the threat has now changed in nature, but the possibility of a resurgent aggressive Russia cannot be disregarded.12 Russia emphasizes the importance of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE); yet it is widely recognized in the United States as well as in Western Europe, if with different rationales, that the OSCE "cannot form the foundation of a new European order."13
In the final analysis, the present European security landscape reflects three major and diverging trends: the "Russians" and the OSCE, the "Anglo-Saxons" and Nato, and the "Europeans," who want to preserve Nato's achievements while expanding their capabilities to act independently. For the Europeans, Nato does not hold all the answers. The future of one organization cannot be addressed independently from those of the others.
[snip] |
