Battle Lines Forming in Senate Over Further NATO Expansion

Albright says proposed moratorium would be seen as a vote of no confidence in Eastern Europe

By Pat Towell, CQ Staff Writer

With Senate approval of NATO membership for Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic all but certain, opponents are now pressing for a limit on further expansion of the alliance.

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee is slated March 3 to mark up a resolution approving NATO membership for the three countries, thus clearing the way for floor action on the measure as early as mid-March.

Technically, the resolution would express the Senate's consent to ratification of an amendment -- or "protocol" -- to the 1949 North Atlantic Treaty. Most critics of NATO expansion concede that Senate support for that protocol (Treaty Doc 105-36) is considerably stronger than the two-thirds majority that the Constitution requires for action on a treaty.

The critics of NATO expansion are a politically diverse lot, including conservative isolationists, liberal anti-militarists and pillars of the Cold War foreign policy establishment concerned that including former Soviet satellites in NATO will exacerbate U.S.-Russian relations.

But debate on the issue has drawn scant public attention, and the opponents have been swamped by the vigorous support afforded enlargement not only by the Clinton administration, but by key Senate leaders, including Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jesse Helms, R-N.C., and senior committee Democrat Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware.

Some opponents are concentrating on trying to block additional expansion, at least for a few years, by means of an amendment to the resolution, technically called a "reservation" or "understanding." Virginia Republican John W. Warner, for one, has announced that he will offer a reservation intended to bar for three years invitation of any additional countries to join NATO.

Would-Be Members

Two leading candidates for early invitations are Romania and Slovenia, which some NATO members had backed for inclusion along with the three current invitees. But nine other countries also have applied for NATO membership, including Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

The bids by those three, collectively referred to as the Baltic republics, pose a particularly thorny set of problems. On one hand, all three have made progress in establishing democratic political institutions and free-market economies. On the other hand, all three would be militarily difficult to defend because they are relatively small and adjacent to Russian territory.

Moreover, the Soviet Union annexed all three countries in 1940. The United States never acknowledged their incorporation into the Soviet state. However, Moscow -- which appears unhappily reconciled to NATO membership for Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic -- might oppose more vigorously the addition to NATO of countries it once deemed part of the Soviet state.

Although NATO has agreed to review in 1999 the possibility of inviting additional countries to join, Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright assured Helms' committee Feb. 24 that no additional countries had been promised a future invitation to join the alliance. But she also reiterated the administration's adamant opposition to any legislation like Warner's.

"A mandated pause [before any additional countries were invited to join] would be heard from Tallinn [Estonia] in the north to Sofia [Bulgaria] in the south as the sound of an open door slamming shut," Albright said. "It would be seen as a vote of no confidence in the reform-minded governments from the Baltics to the Balkans."

Proponents of expansion contend that the prospect of NATO membership has encouraged not only the three current invitees, but also countries that hope to be invited in the future, to reform their political and economic systems and resolve longstanding disputes with neighboring countries.

While reservations dealing with the timing of future invitations to join the alliance will be controversial, the Senate resolution almost certainly will include other reservations. One will insist that the U.S. share of NATO costs not increase as a result of expansion. Another will demand that Russia not gain any control over NATO decisions as the result of the NATO-Russian consultation agreement reached last year.

The only statement of outright opposition to NATO expansion during the Feb. 24 hearing came from Missouri Republican John Ashcroft, a prospective candidate for the 2000 GOP presidential nomination.

Ashcroft contended that, by committing the United States to an enlarged NATO with a broader mission than defending Europe, the Clinton administration was indulging its penchant for subordinating U.S. national interests to multinational institutions. The same basic argument was made the week of Feb. 23 by Lott and some other Republicans against the U.N.-brokered weapons inspection agreement with Iraq.

Albright denied that the administration had allowed international organizations to override U.S. interests. "Clearly, there are times a multilateral approach works," she said. "I don't think you would want us to do everything by ourselves."

Saturday February 28, 1998

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• GOP Finds Little To Applaud In U.N. Deal With Iraq
• Battle Lines Forming in Senate Over Further NATO Expansion
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