[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 67 (Tuesday, May 20, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4763-S4765]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         ADDITIONAL STATEMENTS

                                 ______
                                 

                   NATO ENLARGEMENT AND U.S. SECURITY

 Mr. D'AMATO. Mr. President, I rise today to discuss the topic 
of North Atlantic Treaty Organization [NATO] enlargement and U.S. 
security. Now that there is agreement on the Founding Act on Mutual 
Relations, Cooperation and Security Between NATO and the Russian 
Federation, a significant obstacle to NATO enlargement has been 
removed. I have said before and say again that NATO enlargement is good 
for the United States, good for our NATO allies, good for the candidate 
states, and good for Russia.
  The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is scheduled to announce at 
its July 8 and 9 summit meeting in Madrid, Spain, which candidate 
states will be invited to engage in negotiations leading to accession 
of these states to the Washington Treaty by 1999. Each of the states 
that have expressed interest in consideration for accession are 
participating states in the Organization for Security and Cooperation 
in Europe [OSCE].
  As Chairman of the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, 
I have led the Commission through a series of hearings on NATO 
enlargement which we will complete with a final hearing next Tuesday. 
We have invited official representatives of states to present their own 
positions to the Commission at these hearings to help meet the 
Commission's responsibility to the Congress and the American people to 
oversee implementation of the Helsinki Accords and subsequent Helsinki 
process documents, with a particular emphasis on human rights and 
humanitarian affairs. Congress and NATO have both recognized the 
significance of candidate states' compliance with OSCE principles in 
various official documents.
  The Commission's approach to this series of hearings is focused on 
how well these candidate states have implemented OSCE agreements and 
complied with OSCE principles. Commissioners ask questions relating to 
other areas of candidate states' policies and conduct that have been 
identified as critical to acceptance into NATO, but we are not 
competing with the committees having legislative jurisdiction in these 
areas, who will examine those issues more thoroughly and with greater 
expertise.
  Let me make it very clear that I am a supporter of NATO enlargement. 
I think that, in principle, every candidate state should be included in 
NATO when they meet the standards for accession. I do not believe that 
NATO enlargement should end with the Madrid announcement of the states 
invited to participate in accession negotiations.
  I believe that it is very important that the United States, and our 
NATO allies, make very clear to those states

[[Page S4764]]

not invited to join in the first round that the door is not closed, 
that the process has not ended, and that we and our allies encourage 
them to press ahead to meet the standards so that they can join when 
they are ready.
  We must, with our allies, establish a clearly defined process for 
achieving membership. If we don't, we run the risk of cutting the legs 
out from under the reform movements just now taking control of some of 
the Eastern European countries that have failed to reform their 
political, military, and economic systems fast enough to meet NATO 
member country standards. These reform governments must be given a 
clear, strong signal that when they meet the standards, they will be 
allowed to join.
  We must not create in Eastern Europe a gray zone between NATO and 
Russia where the old spheres of influence and balance of power politics 
could give rise to lasting political instability, poverty, and 
isolation. While I have not yet seen the text of the new Founding Act, 
according to news reports it does not create a group of second class 
NATO members whose security guarantees are diluted and undermined. NATO 
enlargement does not threaten Russia's security.
  An Eastern Europe without NATO could become a black hole of unrest, 
poverty, ethnic conflict, and extremism of the worst kinds. This would 
likely attract overt and covert Russian intervention in the affairs of 
the states in this area, pulling Russia into rebuilding its military 
machine and deploying it westward, and triggering United States and 
allied reaction. Neither the United States nor Russia want that to 
happen.

  An eastern Europe without NATO would threaten Russia's security by 
preventing Russia from changing its thinking about NATO and about 
European political and economic relations, preventing constructive 
changes in Russian policy, and delaying or blocking Russia's full 
integration into the community of nations.
  NATO enlargement is good for Russia. Russian agreement to the 
Founding Act signals that the Russian foreign policy elite recognizes 
that fact. Now, Russian energies can focus on driving political and 
economic reform to a successful conclusion instead of battling NATO 
enlargement. Russia should be pleased that one of its strategic flanks 
will be secured by a strong, friendly defensive alliance.
  Russia should take note that the political, economic, military, and 
foreign policy changes NATO is insisting upon in successful candidate 
states will build stable, democratic, free market countries that will 
not themselves engage in aggression against Russia and that will not 
allow themselves to become participants in some other state's 
aggressive designs. Russia should want states with these 
characteristics on its borders.
  The Russian foreign policy elites should climb up in the Kremlin's 
towers and look hard at the situations on Russia's other borders. 
Agreement with the Final Act signals some understanding that it is not 
in Russia's best long term interests to keep eastern Europe unstable 
and economically backward. After Russia's experiences in Afghanistan 
and Chechnya, does Russia really think that any threat, much less the 
main threat, to its independence and territorial integrity comes from 
NATO?
  Russia's leaders have a question to which they need an answer--when 
Russia gets into trouble, who can Russia call upon for help? Recent 
reports of closer relations between Russia and China should not lead to 
the conclusion that Russia has a friend or an ally in China.
  The only nations Russia can count on for help are the nations with 
the capacity to help. The only nations with that capacity are the 
developed nations of the West, the most powerful of whom are NATO 
members, and Japan.
  For that help to be available, Russia now needs to press ahead with 
the same agenda of reforms that the NATO candidate states are 
implementing. It would be far easier to convince the western republics 
that Russia deserves help when it needs it if Russia is a democratic, 
rule-of-law state with a free market economy.
  Reportedly under the new Founding Act, Russia does not have a veto 
over NATO enlargement and no state's candidacy is foreclosed. Russia 
needs leaders who can discard cold war thinking and stop seeing NATO 
enlargement as a victory for the West and a defeat for Russia. Boris 
Yeltsin is such a leader.
  NATO enlargement is good for the United States, good for NATO's 
current member states, good for the candidate states, and, finally, 
good for Russia.
  Wednesday's agreement on the Founding Act on Mutual Relations, 
Cooperation and Security Between NATO and the Russian Federation 
between NATO Secretary General Solana and Russian Foreign Minister 
Primakov proves that Russia's current leaders are not as opposed in 
fact as they sounded in rhetoric to NATO enlargement. The agreement 
reportedly was put before the North Atlantic Council, NATO's highest 
body, earlier today, and was approved.
  Among other things, it draws Russia into closer collaboration with 
NATO on matters of mutual concern. The new NATO-Russia Council will 
give Russia insight into NATO processes and input into NATO 
consideration of issues without allowing Russia to block measures the 
alliance agrees must be taken for our mutual security.
  Perhaps the best part of this enlargement process is not the military 
security guarantees that go with it to successful candidate states, but 
the leverage that the enlargement process exerts for basic change in 
each candidate state that will result in better, safer, and more 
prosperous lives for each of their citizens. The impact of that 
leverage has been on view during the course of the Commission's hearing 
process, as ambassadors of candidate states discuss their progress in 
meeting the standards for membership.
  Even better, there may be the beginning of a halo effect on the 
surrounding countries. As they see their neighbors moving into closer 
integration with the West, they are becoming concerned about their own 
futures. They can see NATO membership being followed by European Union 
membership for these successful neighbors. They can see them pulling 
ahead in the competition for foreign investment, trade, and market 
access, growing in prosperity and stability behind NATO's shield. And 
they understand that there is no alternate path that they can follow 
that will get them to the same place any time soon.
  Thus, even those states that are not now candidates for NATO 
membership are influenced in the direction of political and economic 
reform by the process of NATO enlargement. This will have a very 
positive and long-lasting impact on Europe's political stability, 
prosperity, and freedom, and decrease the chances that the security 
guarantees we solemnly extend to new NATO members will ever have to be 
invoked in crisis or in conflict. This, in the end, is a tremendous 
benefit for the security of the United States.
  I believe that we must be resolute in pursuing our aim of expanding 
NATO to encompass all candidate states that meet the standards for 
membership. We must make it clear that the enlargement is a continuing 
process that will not end with the first group announced at Madrid, and 
that NATO membership remains open to states as they improve conditions 
for their people. In the end, this effort will move European security, 
prosperity, freedom, and human rights ahead more rapidly than any other 
course of action.
  In closing, I want to briefly say something to those Americans who 
can trace their roots to those countries now being considered for NATO 
membership. Thanks in part to the hopes and beliefs that you would not 
let die even when times were very bad, and to your hard work in the 
American political system, these countries are free and independent 
again, something the realists of 10 years ago would have said couldn't 
happen, and would never happen. Keeping the faith, making sure that the 
United States never recognized the incorporation of the Baltic States 
into the Soviet Union, making sure that we supported Solidarity, 
sustaining support for Charter 77, keeping the life lines open to the 
many struggling Helsinki groups, making your voices heard here in 
Washington, those were key events that helped pave the way to where we 
are today. Thank you for your efforts and know that the futures of 
these countries could have been much worse but for your active support 
for their sovereign independence, and for freedom and human rights for 
their citizens.

[[Page S4765]]



                          ____________________