NATO ENLARGEMENT PROCESS AFTER THE COLD WAR: WEAKNESSES AND CHALLENGES
NATO ENLARGEMENT PROCESS AFTER THE COLD WAR: WEAKNESSES AND CHALLENGES

Summary/Abstract: The process of NATO enlargement is based on the political will of the member states and their perception of security developments, both regionally and globally. The disintegration of the former socialist republics, after the Cold War, encouraged the insistence of the newly emerging countries in Central and Eastern Europe for their admission to the Alliance, with which begins the process for their Euro-Atlantic integration. NATO has done a lot to promote democracy, stability and security in Euro-Atlantic region. On the other hand, Alliance commitment to open door policy is often questionable, because of the weaknesses and inconsistent implementation of the open door policy. The NATO enlargement is a complex multicriteria process related to the large number of quantitative and qualitative entry criteria, that applicant countries have to achieve. However, the analyses indicate that the political calculations are closely related to the enlargement of the Alliance. This paper analyzes the NATO enlargement process, after the Cold War. It is organized as follows: introduction, two sections and conclusion. Introduction gives а short explanation of the Alliance enlargement process. First section gives an overview of the enlargement process after the Cold War. With the end of the Cold War, Central and Eastern Europe increasingly insisted on their admission to the Alliance. The Alliance carefully avoided this issue till the Brussels Summit in 1994, when the Alliance has promoted the idea of NATO enlargement with the countries of the former Eastern Bloc. According to Article 10 of the North Atlantic Treaty, the total number of NATO member countries reached a milestone of 29. Section two focuses on the inconsistencies in the implementation of the open door policy of the Alliance. NATO's doors must remain open to deserving European countries especially Western Balkans. The case of enlargement should be on the top of the agenda. The conclusion wraps up the topic processed and discussed in the paper. The aim of this paper is to stimulate and provoke discussion and additional research about weaknesses and challenges in the field of NATO enlargement.

• Details
• Contents