Ten years ago, I flew with Ronald Reagan to Reykjavik for one of
the crucial
summits of the Cold War. With a sweeping deal on the table -- for
elimination of all
nuclear weapons -- Reagan got up and walked away when Mikhail
Gorbachev
demanded that he give up SDI. It was among that great president's
finest hours.
Lately, I have mused: Suppose Gorbachev had swept aside talk of
missiles, leaned
across the table and said: "Mr. President, I make you an offer.
I will withdraw the Red Army from Europe, kill the Warsaw Pact, let
the Berlin Wall
be torn down and let Germany be reunited. I will free Eastern
Europe and dissolve
the Soviet Union into 15 nations, liberating the Baltic republics
and Ukraine; and I
will make Russia a democracy! I ask but one thing in return: Do not
move NATO
east to the borders of a democratic Russia." We would have flown
home from
Iceland with the greatest deal in diplomatic history. Yet, in five
years, all that came to
pass. But now, America is moving NATO's Red Line right up against
Russian
territory, violating commitments we gave Moscow when Russia agreed
to German
reunification.
We pledged no NATO forces east of West Germany. Today, we are
dishonoring
that pledge. Why? What is the benefit to us of giving war
guarantees to a region of
Europe where no U.S. soldiers have ever fought before and that no
Cold War
president ever thought was vital to U.S. security? Our purpose in
expanding, we are
told, is to stabilize Europe and lock in democracy. But democracy
is not in danger in
Poland, the Czech Republic or Hungary, and NATO expansion is
destabilizing
Eastern Europe. The deeply agitated and humiliated Russians have
fired a
pro-American foreign minister and replaced him with a KGB man who
is reknitting
Moscow's ties to Iraq, Iran and China; they refused to ratify the
strategic arms
reduction treaty and are attempting to reincorporate the empire.
Ignoring U.S. protests, Moscow is again peddling weapons to rogue
states. While
Warsaw, Prague and Budapest are delighted at being the first
offered NATO
membership, resentment is growing in Slovakia and Romania over
being excluded.
Relations between Czechs and Slovaks are deteriorating. Bratislava
is moving closer
to Moscow. The tension is understandably greatest now in Ukraine
and the three
Baltic republics, the nations most vulnerable to Russian
revanchism. Some
expansionists want NATO memberships offered to all four. But this
would be
rashness bordering on madness. It would put Russia's Baltic naval
base Kaliningrad
behind NATO lines and bring into the alliance four countries with
large Russian
minorities.
Latvia is half Russian; eastern Ukraine is almost entirely Russian.
There is no way
America or NATO could defend or liberate these four nations --
without risking a
nuclear exchange with Moscow. Apparently anticipating such a NATO
expansion,
U.S. Marines and Ukrainian troops will conduct maneuvers this
summer in the
Crimea -- which Moscow claims as Russian territory -- within a few
miles of
Sebastapol, home base of Russia's Black Sea fleet. There is no
other word for this
little exercise than provocation. Some 175 years ago, America
declared in the
Monroe Doctrine that we would go to war to keep foreign powers out
of the
Americas.
Can we not understand why nationalistic Russians would resent and
recoil at having
U.S. troops building bases and training soldiers in lands that were
lately parts of their
own country? Even the defense of Poland, the Czech Republic and
Hungary would
require a buildup in Eastern Europe. Where are we to find the
troops and equipment
when we are downsizing defense for the 12th year in a row? Who is
going to pay for
it? Who is going to do the fighting? Does anyone think prosperous
and pacifist
Germans of 1997 will declare war on a nuclear-armed Russia over
Poland or
Lithuania? Or the Brits, who could not find enough soldiers to
serve as extras in the
new Steven Spielberg-Tom Hanks movie "Saving Private Ryan"?
Will Congress, which wrung its hands for months on end over sending
peacekeepers
to Bosnia, send American combat troop to retake Bialystok from the
Belarussians?
Who are we kidding? NATO expansion is a globalist scheme to lock
America,
without national debate, into every single 21st century war in
Europe and defending
all of Europe's borders with American blood forever. What is being
done is
un-American, and it is being done in a way that is anti-democratic.
The U.S. Senate
is being presented with a fait accompli, told that now that we have
issued the NATO
invitations, you have no choice but to approve. The founding
fathers must be
spinning in their graves.
With the Cold War over, we should be shedding commitments, not
adding them. Let
us correct this blunder before it explodes into a far more
consequential political or
military crisis.
