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.

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