Ted Galen Carpenter.

• Position: Response to William Odom, The National Interest, Spring 1995 - Expanding NATO: An Exchange Between Odom and His Critics

Although William Odom's brief for the prompt expansion of NATO responds (with sporadic effectiveness) to some of the objections raised by opponents, it glosses over or ignores many of the most telling criticisms. His analysis especially fails to come to grips with three crucial issues.

First, if NATO expansion is confined to the four Visegrad powers, it is not clear how that step will solve the problem of uncertainty and instability elsewhere in the former Soviet bloc. As Fred Ikle has pointed out, limited expansion would merely push the "zone of instability, further to the east while implicitly consigning those nations not tapped for membership to a Russian sphere of influence. Yet as Odom himself seems to concede, incorporating the other former Warsaw Pact states -- not to mention Ukraine and the Baltic republics -- would raise a variety of thorny problems, including the provocation of Russia.

Second, Odom does not clarify how NATO's security commitments can be made credible to either new members or potential adversaries. It is unlikely that the nervous Central European states will be satisfied with the paper promise of assistance contained in Article 5. Sooner or later they will want NATO tripwire forces, including U.S. units, stationed on their territory. The coyness of NATO expansionists -- for example Zbigniew Brzezinski's comment that troop deployments should not take place "initially" -- suggests that such a follow-on measure is more than a remote possibility. Two generations of American Atlanticists have insisted that substantial numbers of U.S. troops (and nuclear weapons) must be stationed on the Continent to reassure the West Europeans of Washington's commitment to their defense. Are Atlanticists now arguing that new members of NATO, in a region that has never been as important as Western Europe to the United States strategically or economically, will be satisfied with mere paper guarantees?

Finally, Odom's contention that an enlarged NATO would contribute to greater stability in Eastern Europe begs the question of...