NATO’s Transformation in the 21st Century: The Expansion of the NATO to the East
NATO’s Transformation in the 21st Century: The Expansion of the NATO to the East

Author(s): Jungwon Park
Subject(s): Military policy, Geopolitics
Published by: Kossuth Kiadó Zt.
Summary/Abstract: As its opponent military alliance, the Warsaw Treaty Organization, vanished with the end of the Cold War, NATO fell into a position where its raison d’être became qustionable. NATO has been corresponding to this identity crisis with both consistency and change. The first step was to keep the unified Germany within the purview of NATO. The next one was to expand NATO to the East. The participation of the former Soviet bloc communist countries as new members of NATO went through three stages. These moves represent the aspect of NATO as an alliance. However, in the Kosovo War in 1999, NATO intervened advocating the principle of collective security, which follows the Kantian tradition in international politics and is quite different from the logic of alliance. The 9/11 terror became the occasion to newly give meaning to Article 5 of the NATO Treaty, and the “war on terror” manifested again NATO’s character as an alliance. Bush Administration’s Missile Defense policy also aimed at strengthening the alliance. From the Russian standpoint, the Bush Administration started a neo-Cold War. NATO is taking charge of the role of collective security once again in the Libyan War. This war has some similar points with the Kosovo War, just except the fact that the latter was not mandated by the UN Security Council. Like this, NATO has been showing its double character since the end of the Cold War. If NATO’s eastward expansion and anti-terrorism activities represent one aspect of its function, namely the function of alliance, the Kosovo War and the Libyan War represent another aspect of NATO’s function, namely the function of collective security.

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