NATO Expansion May Prove a Fateful Error

[CHIMO]

The NATO meeting held in Riga, Latvia, in late November attracted very little attention. Nothing of substance emerged from the conference and there was plenty of competition for headlines. Not that long ago, the very idea of a NATO meeting in a Latvia that was itself in NATO would have been a nightmare for Russia, like a Warsaw-Pact Canada for the United States.

In the initial post-Soviet years, Russian officials begged the United States not to let any former Soviet republics join NATO. Former Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov threatened: "If any countries of the former Soviet Union are admitted to NATO, we will have no relations with NATO whatsoever." For all their bluster, the Russians caved -- resentfully, perhaps nourishing dreams of vengeance, but they caved nonetheless.

In fact, three former Soviet republics -- Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia -- are now part of NATO. Seven other new members -- Bulgaria, Romania, Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Slovenia -- were formerly part of the communist bloc. The United States and the rest of the West are now in the rather odd position of risking armageddon to defend Slovenia.

Many in the West opposed NATO expansion from the start, chief among them U.S. statesman George Kennan, creator of the "containment" doctrine. He called expansion "the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-Cold-War era." Kennan foresaw it leading to a restoration of suspicion and hostility and the inflammation of the "nationalistic, anti-Western and militaristic tendencies in Russian opinion."

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2006/12/11/007.html