Congressional Documents

Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright Statement before the Senate Appropriations Committee October 21, 1997, Washington, DC As released by the Office of the Spokesman U.S. Department of State

As Prepared for Delivery

NATO Enlargement

Mr. Chairman, members of the Committee, I am very pleased to come before you today, together with Secretary Cohen, to urge your support for the admission of the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland to NATO.

This initiative is the culmination of years of hard work -- by the United States, by NATO, and by the new democracies that wish to join our Alliance. All 16 NATO leaders have approved it. Many members of Congress have urged it.

Now the process of advice and consent has begun, and the fate of NATO enlargement is in your hands. Our friends in Europe and around the world are watching you. For they know that the United States is unique in the power our constitutional system grants to the Senate over foreign policy, especially over treaties.

I welcome this, because I know that the commitment NATO enlargement entails will only be meaningful if the American people and their representatives understand and accept it.

That is why I am glad, Mr. Chairman, that you have begun these hearings at such an early stage in the process, and why I am happy that you will be joined in your examination by the Foreign Relations, Budget, and Armed Services Committees, by the NATO Observers' Group, and by the House of Representatives.

I am hopeful that with your support, and after the full national debate to which these hearings will contribute, the Senate will embrace the addition of new members to NATO. I also know that before you decide, the Administration must continue to address many questions.

As appropriators, you will be highly focused, and rightly so, on the issue of costs. And as appropriators, I know you believe that the cost of any public initiative must be justified by its benefits. I want to explain today how America will benefit from the investment we ask you to make, and why I believe the costs will be reasonable and equitably shared.

Let me begin by asking you to recall the situation America faced in the world during the first year of this decade. The Cold War had ended. Our nation would no longer face a single, overriding threat concentrated along a well defined frontier in Europe. Many people wondered -- and I know this is one of your concerns, Mr. Chairman -- whether we needed to continue paying such close attention to Europe and NATO in the face of new challenges and opportunities in Asia.

But we did not lose sight of our interests across the Atlantic. Two world wars in this century already taught us that when Europe and America stand apart, we always pay a terrible price. What is more, we recognized that the triumph of freedom in Europe did not mean we could take its security for granted.

Before long, we saw Russia, with our help, build the foundations of a modern market democracy; but we knew and still know that its success is not assured. We saw war and genocide spread across the former Yugoslavia; only our leadership of a NATO coalition put an end to that horror. On Europe's horizon, we saw rogue states develop dangerous weapons that might have our allies within their range and in their sights. We knew enough from history and human experience to know that a grave threat, if allowed to arise, would arise.

In that first year of the post-Cold War era, another event proved the importance of our transatlantic partnership. American troops were sent to the Gulf to lead a coalition against a tyrant's aggression. And with us stood soldiers, sailors and aviators from virtually all our NATO allies -- joined, I might add, by men and women from some of the brand new democracies of central Europe. We were reminded then that when we are faced with new challenges, it helps to have old friends at our side.

If a serious challenge were to develop in Asia or elsewhere, Mr. Chairman, the last thing we would need is instability in Europe -- and the first thing we would want is for our European allies and partners to stand with us. Indeed, whatever challenges the future may bring, it will be in our interest to have a vigorous and larger alliance with those European democracies that share our values and our determination to defend them. It is that conviction we ask you to embrace today.

We recognize that NATO expansion involves a solemn expansion of American responsibilities in Europe. As Americans we take our commitments seriously, and we do not extend them lightly. Any major extension of American commitments must advance our fundamental national interests. Let me explain specifically why welcoming the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland into NATO meets that test.

First, a larger NATO will make us safer by expanding the area in Europe where wars simply do not happen. This is the productive paradox at NATO's heart: By making clear that we will fight, if necessary, to defend our allies, we make it less likely that our troops will ever be called upon to do so.

Now you may say that no part of Europe faces any immediate threat of armed attack today. That is true, for the first time in all of European history -- in part because the existence of NATO has helped deter such a threat. And the purpose of NATO enlargement is to keep it that way.

It is also fair to ask if our interest in preventing war in central Europe is vital enough to justify a security commitment. Some imply it is not. But let us not deceive ourselves.

The United States is a European power. If we have an interest in the lands west of the Oder River, then we surely have an interest in the fate of the 200 million people who live in the nations between the Baltic and Black Seas. We waged the Cold War in part because these nations were held captive. We fought World War II in part because they had been invaded. We know that half a continent cannot be secure if the other half is in turmoil.

Now that the nations of central Europe are free, we want them to succeed and we want them to be safe. For if there were a major threat to the security of their region, if we were to wake up one morning to the sight of cities being shelled and borders being overrun, I am certain we would choose to act, enlargement or no enlargement. Expanding NATO now is simply the surest way to prevent that kind of threat from arising, and thus the need to make that kind of choice.

Mr. Chairman, the second reason why enlargement passes the test of national interest is that it will make NATO stronger and more cohesive. The Poles, Hungarians, and Czechs are passionately committed to NATO and fully accept its principles of shared responsibility. Experience has taught them to believe in a strong American leadership role in Europe. Their forces have already risked their lives alongside ours from the Gulf War to Bosnia. Recently, Czech soldiers joined our British allies in securing a police station from heavily armed Bosnian Serb extremists.

When the President went to the Madrid summit in July, he insisted that NATO invite only the strongest candidates to join now. We settled on three nations that will make a tangible military contribution to the Alliance, three nations that have been our dependable partners ever since they won their freedom --from the fight against nuclear proliferation, to our effort to reform the UN, to our support for human rights -- three nations that will be good allies.

Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic do not look at NATO as a one way street of reassurance. They are asking to assume the obligations of mature democratic statehood and to start taking responsibility for the freedom and security of others. That is an offer we should not refuse.

Mr. Chairman, the third reason why a larger NATO serves our interests is that the very promise of it gives the nations of central and eastern Europe an incentive to solve their own problems. To align themselves with NATO, aspiring countries have strengthened their democratic institutions. They have made sure that soldiers answer to civilians, not the other way around. They have signed 10 major accords that taken together resolve virtually every potential ethnic and border dispute in the region.

I know that some of you have been concerned that a larger NATO might involve us in border and ethnic conflicts such as the one in Bosnia. On the contrary. The decision to expand the Alliance has encouraged the resolution of exactly the kind of disputes that might have led to future Bosnias. In fact, the three states we have invited to join NATO have resolved every potential problem of this type.

I have been a student of central European history and I have lived some of it myself. When I see Romanians and Hungarians building a genuine friendship after centuries of enmity, when I see Poles, Ukrainians and Lithuanians forming joint military units after years of suspicion, when I see Czechs and Germans overcoming decades of mistrust, when I see central Europeans confident enough to improve their political and economic ties with Russia, I know something remarkable is happening.

NATO is doing for Europe's east precisely what it did for Europe's west after World War II. It is helping to vanquish old hatreds, to promote integration and to create a secure environment for economic prosperity.

This is another reminder that the contingencies we do not want our troops to face, such as ethnic conflict, border skirmishes, and social unrest are far more easily avoided with NATO enlargement than without it. And if such contingencies were to arise, let me remind you that NATO operates by consensus, and that the NATO treaty preserves a role for our judgment and constitutional process in deciding how to respond.

In short, Mr. Chairman, a larger NATO will make America safer, NATO stronger, and Europe more peaceful and united. That is the strategic rationale. But I would be disingenuous if I did not tell you I see a moral imperative as well. Indeed, there is no contradiction here between realism and idealism, between pragmatism and principle, between security and justice.

NATO defines a community of interest among the free nations of North America and Europe that both preceded and outlasted the Cold War. America has long stood for the proposition that this Atlantic community should not be artificially divided and that its nations should be free to shape their destiny.

We should also think about what would happen if we were to turn new applicants away. That would mean freezing NATO at its Cold War membership and preserving the old Iron Curtain as its eastern frontier. It would mean locking out a whole group of otherwise qualified democracies simply because they were once, against their will, members of the Warsaw Pact.

Why would America choose to be allied with Europe's old democracies forever, but its new democracies never? There is no acceptable answer to that question. Instead, it would probably be said that we blocked the aspirations of our would-be allies because Russia objected. And that, in turn, could cause confidence to crumble in central Europe, leading to a search for security by other means, including arms buildups and competition among neighbors. This would be the price -- the very high price -- of not enlarging NATO.

We have chosen a better way. We have chosen to look at the landscape of the new Europe and to ask a simple question: Which of these nations that are so clearly important to our security are ready and able to contribute to our security? The answer to that question is before the Senate, awaiting your affirmation.

Mr. Chairman, I know I do not need to tell you that our security has never come without a price. So let me address the very real costs that this initiative will entail.

Last February, at the behest of Congress and before we had decided which nations to invite to membership, the Administration made a preliminary estimate of the total costs of a larger NATO. We projected how much our new allies would need to spend to adapt and modernize their militaries, the investments our old allies would need to make to extend security commitments eastward, as well as the direct costs related to enlargement, including those that would be covered by NATO's three common funded budgets.

Since then, we have settled on three candidates and we are gaining a much clearer understanding of the capabilities they will bring to the Alliance. NATO staff are now assessing the resource implications of enlargement for NATO's common funded budgets -- civil, military, and infrastructure. That assessment will be submitted to us and the other NATO ministers for approval at the December ministerial meeting of the North Atlantic Council.

This process is important because the conclusions it reaches about the commonly funded cost of enlargement will represent more than just another estimate. They will represent a commitment.

NATO is also engaged in an intensive effort to determine the level of forces our current and future allies will need to put at the disposal of the Alliance to meet their new commitments. The NATO cost study will not place a price tag on these military improvements, which are national responsibilities. But the requirements it defines will be part of NATO's next round of force planning, which will begin next spring.

I can assure you that we will continue to approach this process with several basic principles in mind.

The first and most important principle is that the amount we and our allies pay for a larger NATO must be a function of concrete military requirements. Our discussion in these hearings, and our consultations with our allies, should focus on defining the level of military capability we want our old and new allies to have in this changed security environment, and then making sure that they commit to that level.

This may seem counterintuitive, Mr. Chairman, but it now appears, as we examine the assets and infrastructure our new allies bring to NATO, that the commonly funded cost of integrating their armed forces will turn out to be lower than we estimated in February.

Either way, the deciding factor will be bang not buck. If we can integrate these nations into the Alliance, maintain NATO's capabilities and acquire the new ones we need at a lower cost than we expected, that will be good news. But we must also be wary of false economies and spend no less than we need to keep NATO strong. We will not shortchange NATO's effectiveness or its necessary investments in military readiness. Even as we work to ensure this initiative does not cost too much, we will also be careful that it does not end up costing too little.

A second principle is that costs within NATO's common funded budget must be equitably shared. The United States pays about 25 percent of these costs. That will not change. Our allies pay roughly 3/4 of NATO's costs today. And that will still be the case in a larger alliance, as old and new allies will pay 75% of the common funded costs.

A third principle is that each ally, old and new, must do its share at home to meet its military obligations to NATO and to preserve the credibility of NATO's security guarantees. NATO's members contribute in many different ways, from the United States, with our unequaled military arsenal, to Iceland, which provides bases, but no army. Still, NATO is a collective defense alliance. We need to know that at moments of crisis, each member will be able to deliver on its commitment to help defend new allies.

Mr. Chairman, the President, Secretary Cohen and I have been making these points loud and clear to our current and future allies. Our message has been received. As a result, I am confident that the costs of a larger alliance will be real, but affordable, and that NATO will emerge from this process with its military capabilities as strong and credible as ever.

Let me explain why I feel so confident, with respect to our new and old allies alike.

First of all, I know many of you are worried that Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic may not be able to pull their weight in NATO. As we all know, just 10 years ago they were members of the Warsaw Pact. Their militaries are not as advanced as those of most NATO allies.

I know that you, Mr. Chairman, have expressed concern that we will have to fund a massive program of assistance to help these countries meet their new obligations, just as we used the Marshall Plan and military assistance to help our original NATO allies half a century ago.

I can assure you this will not be necessary. These countries do not face the kind of threat our allies faced in the 1950s. They have time to achieve a mature military capability. After taking a hard look at what they already bring to the table, we have no doubt they are on their way to meeting that goal.

What is more, these are not ruined nations recovering from the devastation of a hot war. If you go to Budapest, Prague and Warsaw you will see some of the most vibrant economies in Europe. These economies have grown by an annual average of 4% in the last 3 years, and that trend is likely to continue for some time. Each of these nations is a member of the OECD, which admits only the most advanced industrial economies. Each has graduated, or is about to graduate from our SEED aid program, because they just don't need that kind of help any more.

In fact, Poland now funds its own military assistance program to support its neighbors, Ukraine and Lithuania. It has expanded its global responsibilities by joining KEDO, which funds the dismantlement of North Korea's nuclear weapons program. All three of these nations have paid their own way to send troops to Bosnia and to other trouble spots in Africa, Latin America, and Asia.

All three have pledged to increase the percentage of GDP they spend on their armed forces. And we have seen clear signs that all three have the political will to carry out that commitment.

Poland already has the most advanced armed forces in the region. The Polish government recently unveiled a 15 year defense plan, which includes substantial resources for further modernization. There was no controversy whatsoever on this issue during Poland's recent election campaign.

The Czech government has pledged to increase defense spending by .1% of GDP a year for the next three years. It recently unveiled a new budget that completely fulfills that commitment, and it did so after this summer's costly flooding disaster. As a result, Czech defense spending will rise by 17% next year -- about the equivalent of a one-year $40 billion increase in America's defense budget. The Czech Republic still has much work to do, but it is clearly committed to getting the job done.

Hungary has also committed to increase defense spending by .1% of GDP a year over the next five years. And while Hungary may not yet be in NATO, NATO is already in Hungary. More than 100,000 American troops have passed through NATO bases in that country on their way in or out of Bosnia. The Hungarian parliament approved NATO's request to use Hungarian territory within 72 hours of being asked. Without hesitation, Hungary has fulfilled its responsibilities as the supply lifeline for the largest and most complex deployment in NATO's history.

Some people have argued that these new democracies should not be asked to bear additional military burdens at a time when they are still undergoing difficult economic transformations. But these nations plan to spend roughly 2 percent of GDP on defense, a figure in line with the defense burden shouldered by many NATO countries, and one that their dynamic economies can readily sustain without neglecting other priorities. They will be modernizing their armed forces in any case, and they understand that in the long run, it will be cheaper to do so within NATO than outside it. NATO's prospective members know they will not have to fend for themselves if peace is threatened in their region. This gives them a reason to avoid mortgaging their future on the arms market. In fact, it has already given them the confidence to support new limits on conventional arms in central Europe.

Ultimately, only the people of these countries can decide what is best for their future. Today, in all three, solid public majorities and every mainstream party support membership in NATO. They are telling us they see no contradiction between security and prosperity, and we should not substitute our judgment for theirs.

Mr. Chairman and members, I know that many of you are equally concerned, if not more so, about the willingness of our old allies to meet their commitments to a larger NATO. Many of our western European allies are facing economic difficulties of their own. Many are reducing public spending so they can participate in a single European currency.

Fiscal constraints are well known to this committee. But when the 16 allied leaders gathered in Madrid in July, they made a commitment. They stated clearly in their final communiqué that a larger NATO would carry costs, that those costs would be manageable, and that they would be met.

I am confident that our allies will pay their fair share of the commonly funded costs of enlargement because we are going to determine those costs together. NATO's history gives us ample reason to believe that once we set a long term goal together, we will meet it together.

As for our allies' national defense spending, that is something that we obviously cannot control. But they understand the need to ensure that their armed forces can meet the new commitments NATO is taking on. What is more, some of the costs we expect our allies to incur would need to be faced even if NATO were not growing, since they would in any case have to adapt their power projection capabilities to meet new challenges. Enlargement simply underscores the issue. So I believe that over time they can and will take the necessary steps.

I am confident that our allies are not going to be free riders on American leadership in central and eastern Europe because, frankly, up to this point they have not been. The western European countries have committed over $80 billion to support the central European democracies through the end of the decade. The European Union has invited five central European countries, including two that are not being considered for NATO membership, to begin the process of joining its ranks. America's efforts on behalf of democracy and peace in the world are unparalleled, but in this region our European allies are making substantial contributions.

Our European allies' commitment to the cause of a larger, stronger NATO is as deep as ours, and that is no surprise. They need this alliance. They provide the majority of its ground troops. Over the course of history, they have provided the battlefield. They have the greatest possible stake in seeing our initiative succeed.

Mr. Chairman, those are my reasons for confidence. I base my assessment on my experience as Secretary of State in dealing with our current and future allies in Europe, as well as on the experience of a lifetime before that. I base it on my best judgment of what the immediate future may bring. But you know, there is one piece of equipment that I do not have at the State Department, although I hope one day the Appropriations Committee will fund it: and that is a crystal ball. None of us can know precisely what challenges we will be facing in Europe 10 or 20 or 50 years down the road.

As you know, President Clinton has pledged that the process of enlargement will continue after 1999. A new round of enlargement will carry cost implications that we cannot predict today. I can assure you, however, that the Senate would still have to ratify the admission of any additional members. Any new costs would have to be approved by the entire Congress.

I understand that for the Congress, our experience in Bosnia introduces another element of uncertainty. I acknowledge that our mission in that country has cost more than the Administration originally estimated. But I honestly believe that the circumstances of NATO enlargement are different.

It is intrinsically difficult to predict the cost of an overseas military deployment in a potentially hostile setting. It is virtually impossible to plan for every contingency, and once our troops are on the ground, we have a moral obligation to give them the support they need, even if it exceeds our original expectations. The costs of NATO enlargement, on the other hand, are more straightforward; they are budgeted in advance and we have a veto. We do not run our alliance on supplemental appropriations.

I know history offers other reasons to doubt our ability to predict future costs. You have reminded us, Mr. Chairman, that when NATO was created, Secretary of State Acheson was asked by Senator Hickenlooper of Iowa if it would require the permanent stationing of American troops in Europe. He replied it would not. Today, you understandably fear that history will repeat itself.

If you were to ask me today whether our continuing commitment to NATO requires the continued stationing of U.S. troops in Europe, my answer would be yes. We made that decision decades ago and reaffirmed it after the Cold War. If you were to ask me if our commitment to a larger NATO will require expanding our military presence across the Atlantic, my answer would be that in the current and forseeable security environment in Europe, we simply see no need, and nor do our future allies.

But I agree that this story is instructive. It helps us remember that when we decided to keep our troops in Europe in the 1950s, it was not just to meet a formal obligation. We did so because there were new signs of communist expansion in the world, because we were concerned about the survival of democracy in Europe, and because it was in our national interest to meet that threat.

I do not believe we will face such a threat in Europe in the foreseeable future. If I am proven wrong, and we are called upon to send troops to defend our new allies, the cost of defending a larger NATO would obviously grow. But then, if such a dire threat were to arise, the cost of our entire defense budget would grow, whether we enlarge NATO or not. If I am wrong about our allies' willingness to pay their share of the costs, that too is a problem we would face with or without enlargement. For if our interest in the fate of Europe's newly free nations were put at risk, we would not stand idly by, whether we had a formal treaty commitment to defend Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic or not.

The effect of NATO enlargement is to state plainly in advance what we would in any case wish to do if the security of central Europe were threatened. In this way, it is more likely that we will be able to deter such a threat from ever arising. And our friends in the region will gain the confidence and the time they need to build strong, stable, prosperous democracies.

That is why I am more comfortable facing an uncertain future with a larger, stronger NATO than I would be were NATO to stand still. I believe, as President Vaclav Havel so crisply put it when he came to Washington earlier this month, that "even the most costly preventive security is cheaper than the cheapest war."

So as you consider the cost issue, Mr. Chairman, I ask you to consider that there is an even more fundamental issue at stake. It is the value of military alliances to America's security and the importance of our partnership with Europe.

Here is the strongest, most successful, most dependable alliance America has ever had. Here are three democracies that wish to share the responsibilities of that alliance. Here are three nations that I believe will help us bear the cost of defending freedom, in Europe and beyond, because they know the cost of losing freedom.

In the conduct of foreign policy, we are often preoccupied with crisis. We spend much of our time managing disagreements with nations that do not see the world exactly as we do. In a world where attention to what is wrong often drowns out attention to what is right, we must take care not to forget our friends. We must not take for granted those upon whom we can rely.

Mr. Chairman, the first commandment of foreign policy is much the same as the first commandment of politics: Secure your base. Indeed, across the whole scope of human activity, from the life of the family and the neighborhood, to the politics of our nation and the world, when we want to get something done, we start by banding together with those who are closest to us in values and outlook.

That is why we cultivate our partnership with Europe. That is why we seek to extend that partnership to those newly free nations that have always been our allies in spirit, if not in fact. We do so not just to advance our interests across the Atlantic, but because we need dependable democratic allies to advance our interests in every part of the world.

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