[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 45 (Friday, April 2, 2004)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E530]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




   WELCOMING THE ACCESSION OF BULGARIA, ESTONIA, LATVIA, LITHUANIA, 
     ROMANIA, SLOVAKIA, AND SOLVENIA TO THE NORTH ATLANTIC TREATY 
                              ORGANIZATION

                                 ______
                                 

                               speech of

                             HON. RON PAUL

                                of texas

                    in the house of representatives

                        Tuesday, March 30, 2004

  Mr. PAUL. Madam Speaker, I rise in opposition to this resolution. I 
do so because further expansion of NATO, an outdated alliance, is not 
in our national interest and may well constitute a threat to our 
national security in the future.
  More than 50 years ago the North Atlantic Treaty Organization was 
formed to defend Western Europe and the United States against attack 
from the communist nations of Eastern Europe. It was an alliance of 
sovereign nations bound together in common purpose--for mutual defense. 
The deterrence value of NATO helped kept the peace throughout the Cold 
War. In short, NATO achieved its stated mission. With the fall of the 
Soviet system and the accompanying disappearance of the threat of 
attack, in 1989-1991, NATO's reason to exist ceased. Unfortunately, as 
with most bureaucracies, the end of NATO's mission did not mean the end 
of NATO. Instead, heads of NATO member states gathered in 1999 
desperately attempting to devise new missions for the outdated and 
adrift alliance. This is where NATO moved from being a defensive 
alliance respecting the sovereignty of its members to an offensive and 
interventionist organization, concerned now with ``economic, social and 
political difficulties . . . ethnic and religious rivalries, 
territorial disputes, inadequate or failed efforts at reform, the abuse 
of human rights, and the dissolution of states,'' in the words of the 
Washington 1999 Summit.
  And we saw the fruits of this new NATO mission in the former 
Yugoslavia, where the US, through NATO, attacked a sovereign state that 
threatened neither the United States nor its own neighbors. In 
Yugoslavia, NATO abandoned the claim it once had to the moral high 
ground. The result of the illegal and immoral NATO intervention in the 
Balkans speaks for itself: NATO troops will occupy the Balkans for the 
foreseeable future. No peace has been attained, merely the cessation of 
hostilities and a permanent dependency on US foreign aid.
  The further expansion of NATO is in reality a cover for increased US 
interventionism in Europe and beyond. It will be a conduit for more 
unconstitutional US foreign aid and US interference in the internal 
politics of member nations, especially the new members from the former 
East.
  It will also mean more corporate welfare at home. As we know, NATO 
membership demands a minimum level of military spending of its member 
states. For NATO's new members, the burden of significantly increased 
military spending when there are no longer external threats is hard to 
meet. Unfortunately, this is where the US government steps in, offering 
aid and subsidized loans to these members so they can purchase more 
unneeded and unnecessary military equipment. In short, it is nothing 
more than corporate welfare for the US military industrial complex.
  The expansion of NATO to these seven countries, we have heard, will 
open them up to the further expansion of US military bases, right up to 
the border of the former Soviet Union. Does no one worry that this 
continued provocation of Russia might have negative effects in the 
future? Is it necessary?
  Further, this legislation encourages the accession of Albania, 
Macedonia, and Croatia--nations that not long ago were mired in civil 
and regional wars. The promise of US military assistance if any of 
these states are attacked is obviously a foolhardy one. What will the 
mutual defense obligations we are entering into mean if two Balkan NATO 
members begin hostilities against each other (again)?
  In conclusion, we should not be wasting US tax money and taking on 
more military obligations expanding NATO. The alliance is a relic of 
the Cold War, a hold-over from another time, an anachronism. It should 
be disbanded, the sooner the better.

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