Essay, Research Paper: Cons Of Nato Expansion

Cons of NATO Expansion
Throughout the Clinton years the government has tried to make NATO expansion
look like a risk free operation. But the truth is that there are many risks and dangers that
go with the expansion of NATO. It has been said that the expansion of NATO would be
a fatal error in the American policy.

As NATO expands it is drawing an imaginary dividing line separating the many
NATO nations from the Ukraine, Russia and other countries in the eastern half of the
world. The goal should be to settle things between Russia by joining with them and
making good relationships with them economically, militarily, and politically. This was
done between the U.S. and Germany after World War II to end the threat between
Germany and its neighbors. Why shouldn’t we do it now. But as NATO expands the
dividing line grows darker and darker between these nations. Since the Cold War era the
goal has been to reduce nuclear weapons in Russia. But as NATO expands it scares
Russia, who thinks to compete with NATO the only thing they can do is put emphasis on
nuclear weapons. Russia’s economy is no where near the strength of the United States
which drives them to depend on nuclear weapons. It is the cheapest way for them to
compete with us. Russia has always and will continue to have a great fear of foreign
invasion as long as NATO expands. As NATO expands it sends fear into Russia that
NATO is increasing in domination in former Soviet territories. As NATO expands it
only will hurt any good relations that the United States has with Russia.

There are also many economic setbacks in the expansion of NATO. Many of the
nations will have to spend great amounts of money to modernize their militaries to the
NATO standards. Many of these countries cannot afford expenses like that. It would just
send small nations economies into the ground causing the needed economic reforms to be
that much more difficult to achieve. One example of this is the Czech Republic that is
receiving pressure from other NATO nations to modernize their military. The Czech
Republic economy does not have that kind of money though. As NATO expands many
of the smaller countries cannot or do not want to pay extra fees for things like military
enlargement. These expenses will most likely get dumped on us. Causing the United
States costs to climb up to the way it was during the Cold War.

Some also think that as NATO grows in size it grows in weakness. The more
nations it has the less decisive it will be. Many of the new countries will not be able to
make decisions because they do not understand the concerns of NATO. The United
States does not want to get dragged in to things that don’t concern us. The U.S. might be
drug into unsafe and deadly conflicts that do not concern our national interests. The only
way to protect some of the Baltic nations is to use the threat of nuclear weapons.

As you can see the expansion of NATO has many drawbacks. The U.S. does not
have any real reasons to want the expansion of NATO. It could cause some real
economic and security problems that this country could do without.


Word Count: 555