[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 58 (Wednesday, May 1, 1996)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E674-E675]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




            CLINTON PUTS FRUITS OF COLD WAR VICTORY AT RISK

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                        HON. GERALD B.H. SOLOMON

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                        Tuesday, April 30, 1996

  Mr. SOLOMON. Mr. Speaker, I submit for the Record an excellent 
analysis of the failures of the Clinton administration in Europe by 
retired Gen. William Odom.
  For over 3 years, I and other Republicans have been warning of the 
dangers inherent in appeasement, the preferred policy of this 
administration. As General Odom notes, Clinton's appeasement of Russia 
on the question of NATO expansion puts at risk the fruits of our 
victory in the cold war.
  What is so astonishing, Mr. Speaker, is the Clinton administration's 
stubborn refusal to adapt its NATO or Russia policies to the changing 
realities in the region. Four years ago, Russia was led by a team of 
young reformers determined to set Russia on a path toward democratic, 
free market modernity. It is these reformers whom the Clinton 
administration ostensibly wanted to help when it announced its massive 
and poorly thought out aid proposals in 1993. It is these reformers 
whom the Clinton administration ostensibly wanted to help when it began 
appeasing Russia at every turn in 1993, clamining that confronting 
Russia would embolden the hardliners.
  Well today, not one of these reformers from 1992 and 1993, not one, 
remains in power. The hardliners we tried to discourage a few years ago 
are in control and are very much emboldened. Yet despite the fact that 
the resurgence of these hardliners has occurred in an atmosphere of 
unmitigated appeasement, the response of the Clinton administration has 
been, well, more appeasement.
  Where does this leave us? With our NATO alliance adrift. With our 
friends in Central Europe in limbo. With a dangerous strategic vacuum 
in a historically unstable region. With a Russian Government peopled 
entirely by ex-Communist apparatchiks whose commitment to democracy and 
the free market was unknown until the Clinton administration said it 
was so. With the U.S. taxpayer on the hook for billions of dollars 
which have disappeared into a black hole. And with a Russia whose 
foreign and military policies become more reactionary and anti-Western 
by the day.
  In sum, Mr. Speaker, it leaves us, as General Odom puts it, with the 
fruits of victory in the cold war at risk.

               [From the Washington Post, Apr. 28, 1996]

                         We're Right To Be Wary

                          (By William E. Odom)

       Europe, from the Oder River to the Ural Mountains, may 
     appear placid, but it is fast becoming a strategic vacuum, 
     conducive to violence and competitive diplomacy that could 
     eventually cause major instabilities. Only U.S. leadership 
     can reverse this trend. But on the two central issues in the 
     region--Bosnia and the expansion of NATO--the Clinton 
     administration dallies and speaks in contradictory language.
       The proper U.S. strategy to cope with the challenge of 
     peaceful European realignment is simple. It consists of 
     keeping the NATO peacekeeping forces in Bosnia long after 
     their scheduled withdrawal in December, and of a limited 
     expansion of NATO into central Europe. As Clausewitz 
     observed, everything in strategy is simple but very 
     difficult. The longer the United States hesitates in central 
     Europe, the more difficult the challenge.
       At risk are the fruits of victory in the Cold War. During 
     the years 1989-91; Europe experienced its largest strategic 
     realignment in history. Not only was Germany reunified and 
     kept in NATO, but Soviet military forces completely withdrew 
     from eastern Europe. All such earlier realignments involved 
     wars. Thus far, this one has only catalyzed small military 
     conflicts in the Balkans--and in the Caucaus not 
     traditionally considered part of Europe. The key was the U.S. 
     presence in Europe. Without aggressive U.S. diplomacy, 
     Germany might never have been reunified, much less kept in 
     NATO.
       But this achievement, while difficult to exaggerate, is 
     still incomplete. The West must now contain and resolve the 
     Balkan wars and consolidate the new democratic states of 
     central Europe against resurgent Russian ambitions. The 
     Clinton administration's approach to these two issues is not 
     reassuring.
       Rhetorically, Clinton has defined the Bosnian issue well. 
     He told the American people that the establishment of a 
     stable Bosnian government is the primary goal of the NATO 
     deployment and a critical U.S. strategic interest. The 
     architect of the Bosnian peace agreement, Richard Holbrooke, 
     added the logical corollary: ``We cannot afford to fail.'' 
     But Clinton remains committed to withdrawing the NATO 
     peacekeeping forces by December (even if U.S. officials now 
     acknowledge that some troops will stay longer). After that, 
     the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency has warned, 
     the opposing forces are likely to partition

[[Page E675]]

     the country and then resume fighting. If withdrawal may well 
     lead to another war, why does the Clinton administration 
     remain committed to it.
       Similarly, Secretary of State Warren Christopher has 
     recently told Russian leaders that NATO expansion will go 
     forward but was ambigious about the timing. Such hesitation 
     gives Russian hard-liners time to whip up domestic public 
     fears and to pursue a diplomacy aimed at defeating the 
     expansion.
       Moscow has already succeeded in prodding German chancellor 
     Helmut Kohl to retreat on the issue. He had been for it but 
     recently called for taking it off the current agenda in light 
     of Moscow's attitude. To be sure, the impact of Russian 
     policy in Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia 
     has been largely negative. When Russian Foreign Minister 
     Yvegeny Primakov visited Hungary last month, he demanded that 
     Hungary desist from joining NATO; Hungarian Foreign Minister 
     Laszlo Kovacs refused, reiterating Hungary's desire to 
     enter the western alliance. Primakov was sufficiently 
     jolted, to leave the door slightly ajar for a 
     ``compromise,'' ``taking into account the concerns of all 
     sides.'' But how long can these governments withstand 
     Russian pressure? What alternatives will they be forced to 
     seek?
       Opponents of NATO's expansion say that the central European 
     states should be satisfied with membership in the European 
     Union and its security sub-group, the Western European Union. 
     As these countries are beginning to realize, the European 
     Union is setting economic criteria for admission that they 
     cannot meet in this decade, and perhaps not in the next. They 
     are likely to react by pushing much harder for early 
     admission to NATO. If they don't get it, the only alternative 
     for central European countries would be accommodation to 
     Russian demands.
       The hesitant U.S. policy on NATO expansion reflects 
     anything but strong U.S. leadership. Why the delay? Several 
     technical reasons have been advanced. The armies of these 
     countries are insufficiently modernized to meet NATO 
     standards. The military costs to their weak economies are too 
     high at present. The cost to the United States of accepting 
     the defense of these countries is too high. These arguments 
     are mostly spurious
       The external military threat to the region is so small that 
     it imposes virtually no risk to the United States and its 
     NATO allies for years to come. Moreover, the cost of 
     defending the eastern border of Poland is far less than the 
     cost of defending the inter-German border during the Cold 
     War. And what about the more distant eastern border of Turkey 
     we are now committed to defend? Nor is there good reason to 
     demand that the Polish, Czech, and Hungarian armies meet NATO 
     standards in the short term. Spain joined NATO without being 
     able to meet them. And some countries already in NATO hardly 
     meet them.
       The real reason for hesitating on NATO expansion is fear of 
     Russia's reaction. Admitting even three, maybe four central 
     European countries, some administration officials believe, 
     will strengthen Russian hard-liners, divide Europe, and 
     provoke a milder version of the Cold War. This fear should be 
     taken seriously--but only because the administration's policy 
     of forbearance on NATO expansion is encouraging Russian 
     belligerence.
       In the summer of 1993, Russian President Boris Yeltsin told 
     the Polish and Czech governments that they could join NATO if 
     they desired. He returned home and reversed his position 
     under pressure from hard-liners in his military and in the 
     parliament. This apparently convinced the administration that 
     postponing NATO expansion would strengthen Yeltsin and his 
     liberal advisers. During the subsequent two and a half years, 
     those advisers have been replaced by hard-liners, and Yeltsin 
     now sounds like the Russian defense minister, Gen. Pavel 
     Grachev, the ultranationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky and the 
     Communist leader, Gennady Zyuganov, all of whose bash NATO 
     expansion. In other words, hesitation has strengthened 
     precisely those Russian leaders it was intended to weaken. If 
     Russia's intentions beyond its current borders are in doubt, 
     the Duma's non-binding rejection in March of the treaty 
     ending the Soviet Union should clarify Moscow's aims; today 
     the restoration of the Soviet Union, tomorrow Russian 
     hegemony over central Europe.
       Most American opponents of NATO expansion insist that no 
     Russian, now favors NATO expansion. This, of course, is true. 
     The climate of intimidation that delaying expansion has 
     allowed to develop in Moscow makes it unsafe to express 
     honest views on the matter. In a recent visit to Moscow, I 
     was told by two former government officials that the 
     United States should expand NATO quickly right after the 
     June presidential elections. That would take the air out 
     of the balloons of the Russian hard-liners, and they would 
     soon come to accept it. My interlocutors also confirmed my 
     suspicions about the climate of intimidation that prevents 
     them and others from speaking out in favor of NATO 
     expansion.
       All this is not to say that NATO expansion is simple. 
     Legitimate questions can be raised about the security of 
     countries not included, particularly Ukraine and the Baltic 
     states. Still, leaders in all of these countries privately 
     concede that a limited NATO expansion is better for them than 
     none, especially if additional future expansion is not ruled 
     out in principle.
       The main purpose of NATO expansion is not primarily 
     military protection for new members but to provide an 
     umbrella that engenders confidence among democratic and 
     market reformers and intimidates extreme nationalists who 
     might try to exploit ethnic minority sentiments in the way 
     former Yugoslav communists used them to create the war in 
     Slovenia, Croatia, and Bosnia.
       The opportunities for nationalist provocation are real. A 
     large number of Hungarians live uneasily in southern 
     Slovakia, in Romanian Transylvania and in northern Serbia. 
     Russia has been pressing Poland for a ground corridor to its 
     Kaliningrad enclave on the Baltic Sea (formerly East 
     Prussia). A Polish minority lives in Lithuania, while Latvia 
     and Estonia have large Russian minorities. Moldava formerly 
     part of Romania, faces an uncertain status. NATO expansion is 
     to preempt some of these problems and to give pause to those 
     who might exploit them.
       Indeed, we cannot afford to fall in Bosnia, even if it 
     takes more than a year to succeed, any more than we can 
     afford to encourage an irresponsible Russian foreign policy 
     by delaying a limited expansion of NATO. The two challenges 
     are a single piece of cloth. And they are the unfinished 
     business of the peaceful strategic transformation of Europe.

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