Cons Of Nato Expansion Essay Research Paper

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.