Poland and NATO Enlargement:    The Best Assurance for the Money

Andrzej Karkozka

The speed with which NATO is proceeding with enlargement depends on one’s point of view, which is always dependent on where one sits—for Poland, NATO is being very slow. What is noteworthy is the discussion is no longer about whether the Alliance should enlarge, but what are the costs going to be. For Poland that is a positive sign. It means the Alliance and its suitors are coming to real issues, to the nitty-gritty implementation problems. Although monetary cost is often misused as an argument against enlargement, it should not be the primary consideration. The most important issues and costs are political, moral, and ethical. In Poland an important consideration is that 90 percent of the population supports Poland joining the Alliance.

Poland’s membership in the Alliance is long overdue, actually 40 or 50 years overdue. If you take into account our situation in 1945 and having to resign from the Marshall Plan in 1947 at the insistence of our friends you can understand why we believe membership in the Alliance is long overdue and we would like to simply get back to normal life.

Many false arguments are raised against enlargement. One negotiator of the Berlin agreement and the arms control agreements said that the enlargement process is reminiscent of past German preparations for aggression against the Soviet Union. Gorbachev said that the "Governments of central Europe and NATO countries are concocting a nuclear deployment." Where? Which governments have been discussing this? Others say that the United States will be made the policeman of central Europe. It’s all easy to raise such arguments and very difficult to answer them or to rebuff them if one is not present at the same time when the argument is first raised.

There are political and financial costs to enlargement. One of the most important in the debate thus far is the so called loss of Russia. But the facts contradict the loss of Russia argument. Russia is important to the United States, Western Europe, Poland, and Russia’s other neighbors as a partner, and for the first time in a long history for having a chance for developing a democratic government. And Russia as a partner is engaged in foreign relations in a positive way.

The same argument can be made about isolating Russia by enlarging NATO. One has to look at the map and ask: "How can you isolate Russia by having Poland in NATO." The argument against the loss of Russia is enough to rebuff this kind of approach. The more difficult argument is that Russia may isolate herself by deciding that it doesn’t like the whole process of NATO enlargement. But then, one has to weigh a possible Russian self-isolation against an equally valid question. Is Russia interested in having good relations with the West? Russia’s diplomatic history is that it will oppose NATO up to the last moment, but once decisions are made they accept the situation realistically and try to arrange the best possible compromise. NATO enlargement, and NATO itself in the larger sense, should try to be as transparent as possible. If Russia chooses to be realistic, and to have good relations with NATO, they will come to agreement with us.

Another argument is about pushing the Commonwealth of Independence States (CIS) into some type of military integration. It doesn’t matter whether NATO enlarges or not. Russia is going to work as hard as possible to reestablish the sphere of influence and the connections they have had in defending their borders and in keeping up the military-industrial establishment, the air defense warning system, and other elements.

Russia will pressure the Baltics and Ukraine to create arguments that could aggravate their security. Some in the Central and East European states believe that Russia still does not accept Ukraine as an independent state or as a real partner, but they want to have the integrated system of unified states. The same goes for Baltics. At least among a big part of Russia’s political elite.

So, if you take into consideration the negotiations between Russia and the former states of the Soviet Union over the past four to five years, with no real resolution, NATO’s enlargement will not have a negative effect but may well help strengthen democratic forces in Russia. By not enlarging NATO it will prove to the non-democratic forces that they have the power, that they can be taken as a serious political instrument, and that they are the force the West must deal with. Moreover, if the West does not invite at least some of the democratic societies of Central and Eastern Europe to join in accession talks, it will prove Russia’s non-democratic forces right.

We also hear the argument about nuclear weapons being stationed in the enlargement states and other places in western Europe. This argument then extends to the deployment of NATO troops and raises questions about conventional forces agreements. All these arguments have no bearing on whether enlargement should take place. Some nuclear weapons will exist in Europe whether NATO enlarges or not.

The final argument suggests that enlargement will create a new dividing line in Europe. However, PFP and enhanced PFP; all the financial arrangements; and the NATO-Russian charter, which is under debate, all show that there is no intention to cut off states that are not in the first enlargement group from this process. Rather, the process is rich in the potentials for linkages between countries that are not invited to accession talks with those which are.

There are political gains that are a result of the enlargement process. Democracy and free market economies are maturing within the states of potential new members. These states are gaining civilian control over their militaries. The political gains are also being seen in states that may not be offered accession talks at Madrid. Even failure to obtain an invitation should strengthen stability and democracy because prospective members will see that membership—with all its benefits—is based on rules of behavior. And, their democracies and market economies will be strengthened by implementing these rules of behavior.

The enlargement process has already improved European stability. The prospect of getting into the Alliance helped improve relations for Poland with Lithuania, Ukraine, and Russia; and, for Hungary with Slovakia and Romania; and there are talks between Romania and Ukraine, and arrangements between Italy and Slovenia. All this happened in the last year or two because of this process.

The proposal for engaging Russia through a charter and through other elements is helping to bring Russian society to an understanding of NATO. That’s the biggest trouble with everything connected with NATO enlargement. There has been no effort inside Russia— in the schools, the programs for military officer education, or in the press—to change the stereotyped Cold War assessment of NATO. And this has benefitted several nationalistic, post-communist political parties: they are unified in acting against the Cold War stereotype of NATO.

There are several issues that, depending on how you see them, will change your assessment of the costs of NATO enlargement.

First, should enlargement involve the heavy or light integration of NATO forces into new member states? Heavy integration would probably mean a return to a Cold War where you would station 10 divisions on Polish borders, and 20 air wings and so on. Who needs it? There is no need for it. There's no threat. There's no provocation toward Russia in the thinking of the Central and East European states who want to join NATO. Rather, these states have a bigger stake in their relations with Russia than anyone currently in NATO. We are Russia’s neighbor. We need friendship and good relations with them.

Second, how willing and able are the invited states to bear the financial costs of membership integration. Some of the states that are likely to be invited for accession talks have plans to pay for the integration process that are open, public, and concrete.

Third, what will the process of enlargement be for the invited states? To ease the transition process we have a program which began in 1994 and is planned until 2002 for integration and interoperability with NATO before we have even been invited to have accession talks. These integration and interoperability programs will make the transition easier to fulfill.

Fourth, what level of interoperability will be required? We planned our integration in two stages. We thought about minimum interoperability, which means several things which I will mention: language; command procedures; communications; IFF [identification friend or foe] equipment on aircraft; maps; airfield navigation aids; curriculum and handbooks for officers' schools; and basic standards for support services like medical, rescue, and so on. None of these things will require money from NATO. The maximum requirement is for the next 15 to 20 years. It's an exchange of entire stocks of weapons due to the affects of high technology on weapons.

Fifth, what will be the method of accounting. To talk about $100 billion or $125 billion as a first report on the costs of integration is an obstruction. It's devoid of any reality. It's actually good for only one thing—to provide arguments against enlargement.

We, of course, have done our own study on expected costs and it will be ready by March or April. We calculated the direct costs, civilian NATO budget, military budget, plus fees, plus buying the protective rights to some NATO structures to be $35 million a year. Plus something like $700 million a year for these interoperability requirements. We are now spending something like $400 million, so we will need to spend more. But we are taking into account that every year our economy grosses 5, 6, or 7 percent greater than the previous year in GNP. I think this is entirely within our abilities. That means that, in comparison to the report of the U.S. government that the United States would have to pay one-tenth of one percent a year of your American military budget for the enlargement, we would pay something like 10 to 15 percent a year of our military budget. That's a difference of commitment and obvious political will on our side.

In sum, there's no way to persuade Russians to accept enlargement until it happens. Russians do not agree. They are losing their sphere of interest. They don't like it.