Endgame in NATO’s enlargement. The Baltic States and Ukraine

Endgame in NATO's enlargement. The Baltic States and Ukraine:

The thrust of this work is that in the protracted negotiations that are taking place over NATO's first enlargement into East Central Europe, that the strategic endgame should not be lost from sight. The author argues that the more desirable status quo is not that of August 22, 1939, just before the conclusion of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, but of December 8th 1991, which brought about the disestablishment of the Soviet Union, against which the original NATO had been set up. This strategic endgame calls for the simultaneous admission into NATO of the three Baltic states, the victims of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and of Ukraine, which is both a victim and a beneficiary of that pact. The second point of this volume is that it states that, by 1999, at the latest, a decision must be made in principle to foreclose another, similar adventure on the part of a strengthened, nuclear-armed Russia. The author believes the best way to do this would be to admit the three relatively small Baltic states and populous Ukraine under the umbrella of NATO at the first opportunity.

Chapter one of this volume briefly reviews some of the arguments, contra and pro, for any kind of enlargement by NATO, while the second chapter deals with the specific problems of the Baltics and the third with the specific problem of the Ukraine. A fourth chapter interprets the diplomatic events of May 1997 that have a bearing on the Baltics and Ukraine and a fifth chapter brings the story up to mid-1998. At the end is a brief conclusion and epilogue.