‘Founding Act’ Or ‘Final Act’ For NATO?

(Phoenix, Arizona): Albert Wohlstetter
must be spinning in his grave. The
Clinton Administration’s gross
mismanagement of the NATO enlargement
issue, and its ominous implications for
the Nation’s most important alliance,
would infuriate Dr. Wohlstetter — the
world-renowned and recently deceased
strategist whose six decades of brilliant
contributions to U.S. and allied security
policy and programs are to be honored at
a memorial service in Washington
tomorrow.

One can only imagine the withering
contempt with which Dr. Wohlstetter would
dissect the so-called “Founding Act
on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and
Security Between NATO and the Russian
Federation.” This sixteen-page
document was unveiled late last week in
Moscow with much fanfare and declarations
that the way was now clear for including
several former Soviet-occupied states in
Central Europe in the Atlantic Alliance.
Unfortunately, if the United States is
not careful, this “Founding
Act” could become the “Final
Act” for NATO.

A Bill of Particulars

Consider some of the particulars of
this agreement:

• As Richard Perle — one of Dr.
  Wohlstetter’s most accomplished
  protégés — noted at a splendid
  congress of the New Atlantic
  Initiative held here over the
  weekend, the agreement
  reads like a Soviet document.
  This is, as the communists loved
  to say, “no accident,
  comrade.” After all, the
  principal author for the Russian
  side was an unreconstructed
  apparatchik and long-time KGB
  operative from the old Soviet
  Union, Foreign Minister Yevgeny
  Primakov.
• Mr. Primakov’s fine hand is
  evident in the mutation
  of NATO contemplated by this
  document — from a
  free-standing military alliance
  of democratic states to a
  “Euro-Atlantic”
  community with which Russia
  becomes an “equal
  partner” in political as
  well as security matters. The
  tone is set with the pledge by
  the two parties to pursue
  “to the maximum extent
  possible, where
  appropriate…joint decisions and
  joint action with respect to
  security issues of common
  concern.”
• Moscow will be in a good position
  to try to enforce this commitment
  as it will always
  co-chair the new “Permanent
  Joint Council” created
  by this accord. The United
  States, by contrast, will only
  serve as a co-chair on a
  rotating basis, taking turns
  with the other fifteen-plus NATO
  member states. Since NATO
  operates by consensus, chances
  are good that this arrangement
  will make alliance
  decision-making more ponderous
  and problematic than ever.
• In addition, the “Founding
  Act” explicitly and
  repeatedly affirms the
  primacy of multilateral
  organizations in which
  Moscow enjoys a de jure
  or de facto veto,
  notably the United Nations
  Security Council and the
  Organization on Security and
  Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). For
  instance, it declares that
  “any actions undertaken by
  the Russian Federation or NATO,
  together or separately, must be
  consistent with the UN Charter
  and the OSCE’s governing
  principles.” While Russia
  was not much concerned with such
  principles in its war with
  Chechnya, it is predictable that
  it will find grounds in this
  language to oppose or otherwise
  constrain NATO’s planning and
  freedom of action.
• Concerns on this score are
  further exacerbated by the myriad
  institutional arrangements
  promised by the “Founding
  Act” agreement. In addition
  to the Permanent Joint Council
  which will be “the principal
  venue of consultation between
  NATO and Russia in times of
  crisis or for any other situation
  affecting peace and
  stability,” meetings of
  foreign ministers and of defense
  ministers will occur twice per
  year. As a practical matter, this
  will likely translate into
  including the Russians in at
  least parts of the currently
  scheduled semi-annual ministerial
  meetings of the North Atlantic
  Council and Defense Planning
  Committees. Inexorably, Russia
  can be expected to insinuate
  itself more and more into these
  important events, in much the
  same way as it has functionally
  transformed the G-7 into the G-8.
• In addition, Moscow will get to
  participate in regular joint
  meetings of senior military
  officers, and various committees
  and working groups. Clearly, if
  the spirit of this “Founding
  Act” is faithfully honored
  by NATO, the Russians
  will have ample opportunity to
  shape alliance decisions and
  prevent those they cannot
  influence. These bureaucratic
  realities are, after all, more
  likely to govern than will the
  blithe assertion that neither
  NATO nor Russia have “a
  right of veto over the actions of
  the other.”
• The language of the
  “Founding Act” is also redolent
  of Soviet-style moral equivalence.
  Fresh promises are made to
  “observe in good faith [the
  parties’] obligations under
  international law” —
  papering over the fact that
  Russia has consistently violated
  its treaty commitments, both at
  the margin and in material ways.
  Repeated pledges are made to
  “transparency” when
  there is precious little about:
  the real status of Russian
  strategic forces; chemical and
  biological weapons programs;
  Moscow’s continuing preparations
  for nuclear warfighting
  (evidenced, for example, by
  enormous expenditures on vast,
  deep underground command
  complexes); its aggressive
  intimidation of former Soviet
  republics and client states in
  the so-called “Near
  Abroad”; etc.
• Last but hardly least, this
  NATO-Russian charter sows the
  seeds of trouble for enlargement
  of the alliance. It
  clearly gives Moscow a seat at
  the table before the new
  candidates for membership —
  presumably, Warsaw, Prague and
  Budapest — get represented
  there. It appears to relegate new
  members to a second-class status
  with what amount to pledges that
  they will never have nuclear
  deterrents or allied troops
  deployed on their soil nor will
  their existing military
  infrastructure be available to
  NATO. And it encourages
  speculation that Russia will be
  able to create insurmountable
  friction if additional
  enlargement is contemplated.

This Accord Demands the
Senate’s Advice and Dissent

The “Founding Act” is being
described by the Clinton Administration
as a “political” document, not
a legal one. Therefore, the Clintonistas
contend this agreement need not be
submitted to the Senate for its advice
and consent — even though it
threatens to modify the North Atlantic
Treaty more dramatically than Mr.
Clinton’s efforts to multilateralize the
Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty would do to
the latter accord. href=”97-D69.html#N_1_”>⁽¹⁾

Fortunately, the Senate voted
unanimously last week to declare that the
Memorandum of Understanding concerning
ABM Treaty successorship must get the
approval of two-thirds of the Senate. Senators
should, accordingly, insist on no lesser
standard for an agreement that could
wreck NATO. Such an approach
seems particularly justified since the
Russian Duma will be asked to approve
ratification. How could the Kremlin
object if the United States treats this
agreement every bit as seriously as it
does?

The Bottom Line

In any event, since the Clinton
Administration agrees that Russia’s
consent is not a precondition for the
enlargement of NATO, there is no reason
why a Senate ratification debate on the
“Founding Act” should be
allowed to interfere with formally
inviting new members to join the alliance
at the Madrid summit in July. What such a
debate would do, however, is give the
Senate an opportunity to fix or reject an
agreement that threatens to make the
price for enlargement, at best, the
neutering and, at worst, the evisceration
of the Atlantic Alliance.

Albert Wohlstetter would certainly
approve.

– 30 –

1. See the
Center’s Decision Brief
entitled Will Senate Pass
‘No-Brainer,’ Insist On Right To Advise
And Consent On Major A.B.M. Treaty
Changes? ( href=”index.jsp?section=papers&code=97-D_64″>No. 97-D 64, 12
May 1997).