[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 13 (Monday, February 23, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S850-S852]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
ADDITIONAL STATEMENTS
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NATO EXPANSION
Mr. D'AMATO. Mr. President, I rise today to urge my colleagues
to leave the door to NATO open. Others, whose wisdom I respect, have
come before the Senate to urge that we legislatively adopt a policy
that would close the door to NATO membership to candidate countries,
regardless of their qualifications. While the reasons advanced in
support of that view carry weight, I do not believe that they outweigh
the reasons for leaving the door open.
Last year, as Chairman of the Commission on Security and Cooperation
in Europe, I chaired a series of hearings at which ambassadors of
candidate countries appeared and testified concerning their respective
countries' reasons and qualifications for joining NATO. At the end of
that series of hearings, we issued a report urging that Poland, the
Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, and Slovenia be included in the first
round of NATO expansion. Since that time, ten months ago, I believe
that subsequent developments have supported strongly the conclusion
that we drew in favor of NATO expansion.
Now, the Senate is close to voting on the admission of Poland,
Hungary, and the Czech Republic. I intend to vote for expansion. These
countries have each proven that they share our democratic and free
enterprise values, that they want to be members of NATO, and that they
are willing to join us in bearing the burdens that Alliance membership
imposes.
Mr. President, I want to take particular note that each of these
countries, contrary to the positions taken by some of our allies of
longer standing, have not hesitated to publicly state their support for
our effort to persuade, and if necessary, compel Saddam Hussein to
comply with the United Nations Security Council resolutions adopted
after Iraq's unprovoked military aggression against Kuwait. One of the
tests of alliance is the political will to take risks for the common
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good of the group. Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary have met
this test.
As I stated earlier, our recommendation ten months ago was that
Slovenia and Romania be included in the first group of countries
considered for NATO membership. That did not happen. But neither
Slovenia nor Romania recoiled from their rejection by NATO. In fact,
both have persisted in policies readying their countries and their
militaries for NATO membership, and have been vocally enthusiastic
about the prospect.
On July 8th, 1997, the ``Madrid Declaration on Euro-Atlantic Security
and Cooperation'' was issued by the Heads of State and Government of
NATO. Paragraph 8 of the Madrid Declaration stated that, and I quote:
We reaffirm that NATO remains open to new members under
Article 10 of the North Atlantic Treaty. The Alliance will
continue to welcome new members in a position to further
principles of the Treaty and contribute to security in the
Euro-Atlantic area. The Alliance expects to extend further
invitations in coming years to nations willing and able to
assume the responsibilities and obligations of membership,
and as NATO determines that the inclusion of these nations
would serve the overall political and strategic interests of
the Alliance and that the inclusion would enhance overall
European security and stability. To give substance to this
commitment, NATO will maintain an active relationship with
those nations that have expressed an interest in NATO
membership as well as those who may wish to seek membership
in the future. Those nations that have previously expressed
an interest in becoming NATO members but that were not
invited to begin accession talks today will remain under
consideration for future membership. The considerations set
forth in our 1995 Study on NATO Enlargement will continue to
apply with regard to future aspirants, regardless of their
geographic location. No European democratic country whose
admission would fulfill the objectives of the Treaty will be
excluded from consideration. Furthermore, in order to enhance
overall security and stability in Europe, further steps in
the ongoing enlargement process of the Alliance should
balance the security concerns of all Allies.
Mr. President, those words sound like a promise to me. Perhaps more
importantly, they recognized a central fact. That fact is that by
setting an artificial limit to NATO enlargement, we are drawing a new
dividing line across Europe. Whether that line is geographic or
temporal does not matter. When such a line is drawn, in the present
environment it creates a gray area. History teaches us that gray areas
are not solutions, they are problems waiting to happen.
Other candidate NATO members do not want to be consigned to gray
areas. They know that bad things happen to small countries left alone
in gray areas. We know that we do not want to create situations that
invite anti-democratic forces to grow and plan and act.
At the Commission, we pay very close attention to human rights
concerns in Europe. Our experience with NATO enlargement has been that
the requirements countries must meet for consideration for NATO
membership have very strongly influenced their domestic politics. While
all human rights problems are not resolved, most of them are. Also,
disputes between ethnic majority and minority groups are given
prominence and progress is made toward solutions. Some of these
problems have existed for centuries and, in my view, would have
continued unaddressed but for the necessity each country has seen to
``put its house in order'' before applying for NATO membership.
Moreover, international cross-border disputes that in the past have
triggered at least hostility if not military conflict have been
formally resolved, with the support of democratic majorities in the
countries involved. This is not a trivial development in a part of the
world where such disputes have given repeated rise to brutal conflicts
that are incomprehensible to most Americans.
For these reasons, it is vitally important that the door to NATO
membership not be closed, especially not by the United States.
Proponents argue that a ``delay'' is necessary as a period of
consolidation of the Alliance, and for the Russians to accommodate
themselves to the changed European landscape.
I believe that ``delay'' in this case could become denial, with very
grave consequences to those nations shut out by such a decision.
Moreover, Russia is one of the nations I have in mind when I make this
statement. Regardless of rhetoric by Russian Communists like
Zhirinovsky, and others of the so-called ``red-brown'' extreme
nationalist fringe, Russia itself has a very real interest in NATO
expansion. And that interest is not in blocking, delaying, or limiting
it.
In fact, to the extent that NATO expansion is delayed or limited, the
radical forces in Russia's political equation will be strengthened. For
the United States to provide them with a victory they could not have
secured by any other means would be a terrible mistake. Radical forces
in Russia cannot be appeased by throwing them a bone. All it does is
embolden them and add to their power, allowing them to say to Russian
voters, ``See what we can do, and we are not yet in charge of the
government.'' Our policy should be to do what is best for us, and that
means to give hope, support and security to small states trying to
become democratic capitalist members of the Western community, and
treat anti-democratic forces with implacable opposition.
Mr. President, the citizens of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia were
given hope when we refused for the duration of the Cold War to
recognize their forcible and illegal incorporation into the Soviet
Union. Ukraine is now a NATO ``Partner for Peace.'' The President of
Bulgaria, Petar Stoyanov, was here recently, seeing President Clinton
to make the case that Bulgaria is a credible candidate for NATO
membership. The people of these countries do not deserve to have the
door to NATO slammed shut on their fingers.
While some states with serious human rights and democratization
problems do not look like possible NATO members at any time in the near
future, as states around them make major efforts to put their domestic
and international affairs in order to quality for membership, this has
an influence and an impact. If we do as we have pledged, and allow
candidate countries to join when they demonstrate that they meet
the qualifications, those who choose not to make the effort will be
more and more isolated. This process will undermine and weaken anti-
democratic forces that have stirred back to life in some former Warsaw
Pact states after the fall of Communism.
I want to make one other point. When the Commission issued its
report, I reminded the Senate that NATO is a military alliance. A look
at the map will refresh my colleagues' understanding of the need to
include Romania and Slovenia in the next round of expansion. After
Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic are admitted, we will have an
Alliance with a member, Hungary, which lacks a land corridor connecting
it with other Alliance members. This is a weakness of major importance,
one whose significance can only be magnified if we artificially
``delay'' accession of other qualified candidates. This point also
focuses attention on Bulgaria's desire to become, when it is qualified,
an Alliance member.
The Washington Post's Wednesday, February 11, 1998 edition contains
an editorial and a separate article that support my perspective on this
issue. The editorial entitled ``Opening NATO's Door,'' states that, and
I quote:
There is a moral heart to the case for enlargement, and it
is to bind the democracies, refreshing the old, strengthening
the new. The first three candidates have demonstrated they
are committed to assuming alliance responsibilities. Their
accession would, as Secretary of State Albright put it
Monday, `make us all safer by expanding the area of Europe
where wars do not happen.' The resulting increments of
stability would benefit not only NATO members but the
Russians, who remain opposed to the development but are
unable to stop it.
The serious American objection to enlargement comes from
strategists who fear the political and military dilution of
an alliance once focused laser-like on territorial defense
against a single dangerous foe. These strategists would have
the European Union do the main work of easing the path of the
new democracies, leaving NATO to deal with a still-
problematic Russia and its huge residual nuclear resource.
But the would leave the now-free pieces of the old Soviet
empire marooned in strategic ambiguity. The new democracies
need better and deserve it.
The article, entitled ``NATO Candidates Urge Senators to Back
Expansion,'' by Edward Walsh, is also important. It quotes the foreign
ministers of
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Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary as supporting the continued
expansion of NATO when other candidate states are ready to join. Here
is the description of what they said, and I quote:
Geremek said other Central and Eastern European countries
that hope to join NATO were disappointed to be left out of
the first proposed expansion round but ``they are happy that
the expansion will take place and feel it will increase their
security.''
Enacting legislation requiring a three- to five-year wait
before others could join NATO, as some have suggested, would
send a discouraging message to these countries, the officials
argued. ``The purpose of the enlargement is to diminish the
dividing lines [in Europe], not to create new lines of
division between the new members of NATO and those who stay
outside,'' Kovacs said.
Mr. President, I ask that the full text of both the editorial and the
article from which I have just quoted be included in the Record at the
conclusion of my remarks.
I urge my colleagues to support NATO expansion. It is the right thing
to do for America, the right thing to do for the Alliance, and the
right thing to do for the people of Central and Eastern Europe who
struggled so long in a seemingly hopeless quest for freedom and
independence. We supported them then, and we must continue to support
them now.
The material follows:
[From the Washington Post, Feb. 11, 1998]
Opening NATO's Door
As the Senate moves to the question of ratifying NATO
enlargement, the debate is in a curious place. It is
generally accepted that adding Poland, Hungary and the Czech
Republic to the 16-nation Atlantic Alliance will be approved
by well over the necessary two-thirds when the vote comes
probably next spring. Yet several years of intense discussion
have not removed all serious doubts about the step. Even
among supporters, misgivings about adding further members
later are evident.
There is a moral heart to the case for enlargement, and it
is to bind the democracies, refreshing the old, strengthening
the new. The first three candidates have demonstrated they
are committed to assuming alliance responsibilities. Their
accession would, as Secretary of State Albright put it
Monday, ``make us all safer by expanding the area of Europe
where wars do not happen.'' The resulting increments of
stability would benefit not only NATO members but the
Russians, who remain opposed to the development but are
unable to stop it.
The serious American objection to enlargement comes from
strategists who fear the political and military dilution of
an alliance once focused laser-like on territorial defense
against a single dangerous foe. These strategists would have
the European Union do the main work of easing the path of the
new democracies, leaving NATO to deal with a still-
problematic Russia and its huge residual nuclear resource.
But that would leave the now-free pieces of the old Soviet
empire marooned in strategic ambiguity. The new democracies
need better and deserve it. The EU should move more quickly
but cannot fairly be asked to satisfy the full range of their
wish to be of the West. Their insecurity could rub events raw
and unsettle the region.
The different currents of resistance to enlargement meet in
common opposition to taking in any more than Central Europe's
favored three. This is the impulse behind suggestions of a
legislated ``pause.'' Such a maneuver, tying the hands of
executive-branch foreign policymakers, is a truly bad idea.
It could generate nervousness verging on desperation among
the unfavored of Central Europe, and tempt others to throw
their weight around.
The better way surely is, with Secretary Albright, to leave
the NATO door open. Other democracies, as they meet the
rigorous political as well as military standards for alliance
membership, will then be able to assert their claim to be
brought into the charmed circle. Time will let the allies
show that enlargement, far from simply moving a military bloc
menacingly closer to Russia's borders, calms the region as a
whole.
____
[From the Washington Post, Feb. 11, 1998]
NATO Candidates Urge Senators to Back Expansion
(By Edward Walsh)
Pressing for Senate ratification of an agreement to admit
their countries to NATO, senior officials from three Central
European countries said yesterday that enlarging the military
alliance would enhance stability in that region.
Foreign Ministers Laszlo Kovacs of Hungary and Bronislaw
Geremek of Poland and Deputy Foreign Minister Karel Kovanda
of the Czech Republic visited key senators yesterday and
Monday as part of the campaign to win the two-thirds Senate
vote necessary for ratification. President Clinton is
scheduled to send the expansion agreement, formally known as
Protocols of Accession, to the Senate today. The Senate
Foreign Relations Committee has scheduled at least one more
hearing on the agreement for Feb. 24 before a full Senate
vote, probably this spring.
At a breakfast meeting with Washington Post reporters and
editors, the officials said Senate concerns about the
agreement center on the cost of the expansion and its impact
on U.S.-Russian relations. Russia last year agreed to the
expansion, which NATO officials have estimated will cost $1.5
billion over 10 years, with the United States paying about 25
percent of that amount. Other estimates have set the figure
significantly higher.
Pointing to numerous potential ``trouble spots'' in the
region, Kovacs said NATO and the United States ``have two
options--to stay idle and wait for the next crisis, then to
intervene and try to enforce peace, which is more expensive
and certainly more risky, or to enlarge NATO, projecting
stability. The new members will further project stability.''
Kovacs and Geremek said public opinion in their countries
supported joining NATO. Polls in the Czech Republic, Kovanda
said, show 55 percent to 60 percent support, but also 15
percent to 20 percent who are ``diehard opponents.''
Geremek said other Central and Eastern European countries
that hope to join NATO were disappointed to be left out of
the first proposed expansion round but ``they are happy that
the expansion will take place and feel it will increase their
security.''
Enacting legislation requiring a three- to five-year wait
before others could join NATO, as some have suggested, would
send a discouraging message to these countries, the officials
argued. ``The purpose of the enlargement is to diminish the
dividing lines [in Europe], not to create new lines of
division between the new members of NATO and those who stay
outside,'' Kovacs said.
Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.), a senior member of the Armed
Services Committee, said in a statement to the Senate
yesterday he intends to propose a three-year moratorium on
further NATO expansion as a condition to the resolution of
ratification for the admission of Poland, Hungary and the
Czech Republic.
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