Criteria for NATO admission shift after 9/11: candidates get extra credit for assisting the United States in the war on terrorism.

• Author: Book, Elizabeth G.

When the North Atlantic Treaty Organization convenes in Prague next month, the United States is expected to throw its considerable political weight behind seven countries seeking membership in the alliance.

Although the formal papers endorsing those countries' membership are classified, comments by officials from the Defense and State Departments suggest that the United States will support a "big bang" expansion of the alliance. Invitations are likely to be extended to the former Eastern-bloc nations of Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia.

U.S. support for such rapid enlargement would have been unlikely before the 9111 terrorist attacks, experts said. Observers note that, in 1997, when the Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary became the first of the former Eastern-bloc countries to be invited to join the alliance, the standards for admission to NATO were more stringent and the process less transparent.

Shortly before September 11, the United States was not expected to support more than three countries for membership, said Jennifer Moroney, a research analyst at DFI International. But the dynamics have changed, and over the past year, each of the seven aspirants who met minimum requirements in NATO's membership action plan (MAP) also set themselves apart by providing various types of support in the U.S.-led war on terrorism.

In the new security environment, the aspirants' willingness to side with the United States in the war on terrorism, to contribute niche emergency-response capabilities and to share information for counter-terrorism, have set the countries apart as allies of the United States.

The changes in the security environment seem to have diminished the relevance of the Defense Capabilities Initiative, a 1999 agreement by NATO members to boost investments in precision-guided munitions, aircraft, missile defense, chemical-biological defense, strategic/operational lift and mobility, C41 and suppression of enemy air defenses.

Interoperability among NATO forces also was a cornerstone element of the DCI, which stipulated that future aspirants should buy defense systems that are compatible with other alliance members.

The priorities set by the DCI shifted after 9/11. Although NATO moved quickly to invoke Article 5 of the Washington Treaty, which states that an attack on one member country is treated as an attack on all, the United States ignored NATO's offer to lead the war-planning efforts. Instead, the United States organized and began executing since last October its own "global war on terrorism," gathering its own coalition of allies, which now number 68.

The move made it possible for smaller countries, such as the NATO aspirants, to present their niche capabilities to the United States, for use in the war on terrorism. Their help was accepted in many cases. U.S. forces worked, for example, with Estonia's explosive-detection dog teams and Bulgaria's nuclear, biological and...