President Bush will begin his journey to
Germany, France and Russia today, where he will discuss NATO policy with key
allies and make official the administration's new love
affair with Russia. At the top of the agenda for the trip will be how
much power Moscow should receive in the new NATO-Russian Council, a decision
which will reflect how relevant the Bush administration believes NATO to be. The
greater the power Russia gets, the more irrelevant the alliance is. Mr. Bush
must, at the very least, make clear that Russia will not have the capability to
block decisions made by NATO members.
Last
week, at a NATO pep rally in Reykjavik, Iceland, the alliance's foreign
ministers agreed to a proposal by the United States and Britain to create the
NATO-Russian Council, which will be made official May 28 in Rome. NATO
Secretary-General George Robertson boasted of the new arrangement, in which the
19 members of the alliance would sit together with Russia, as one which would
consist of "20 equals." Back home, the administration is trying to allay fears
about the power this arrangement would give Moscow by saying that the changes
are merely cosmetic — and that NATO members would be able to overrule Russia
where disagreements arise. That is not what Russia is hearing, nor does it
reflect where NATO policy is now. While America was sleeping, Russia was able to
skip the entire membership action plan process all other potential new members
had to fulfill and was given a bigger voice in formulating policy on nine
topics, including the war on terrorism, theater missile defense and crisis
management.
What exactly does Russia's
"preferred status" mean for the United States and NATO? At best, it further
contributes to the alliance's deterioration from a military alliance into a
political one, adding another dissenting voice to slow down decision-making.
Remember Russia's recent track record with NATO: It didn't support U.S. bombing
in Kosovo, then it lied to NATO
by saying it would wait until alliance troops entered the country and upstaged
the alliance by claiming it had control of the Pristina airport before the
alliance troops arrived. Moscow has tried to drive a wedge between NATO's
European allies and the United States on missile defense, has nurtured ties with
NATO enemies Iraq and Iran and attempted to block the alliance's expansion into
Eastern Europe. Even if Russia is being invited into the fold to "expand
democracy," NATO needs a reality check. It has politely shut its eyes to vast
human rights abuses in Russia's war on the Chechens, and there is no guarantee
that this inhumane behavior will stop now. And now, NATO — at the prompting of
the United States and Britain — wants to reward Russia with virtual membership
in the institution it has discounted as irrelevant on the one hand and reviled
as imperialistic on the other.
How have the
U.S. and other NATO member-states allowed this to happen? Perhaps they are
content with NATO as a political institution, a toothless alliance whose time as
a military institution has been outdated since the end of the Cold War. This is
surely dangerous in a time when the United States and Europe need more than ever
to be allied in the war against terrorism. Russia's virtual membership in NATO
degrades the alliance that has successfully fought threats around the world for
53 years. It is time for NATO to wake up.
Title: Message
EDITORIAL
• May 20, 2002
Wake up,
NATO
