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Original Articles

Eastbound and down: The United States, NATO enlargement, and suppressing the Soviet and Western European alternatives, 1990–1992

Pages 816-846 | Published online: 01 Apr 2020
 

ABSTRACT

When and why did the United States first contemplate NATO’s enlargement into Eastern Europe? Existing research generally portrays U.S. backing for NATO enlargement as a product of the policy debates and particular beliefs inside the William Clinton administration (1993–2001) starting in the mid-1990s. New evidence, however, shows that U.S. backing for enlargement began earlier, under the preceding George H.W. Bush administration (1989–1993). Moreover, the Bush administration favored enlargement for fundamentally realpolitik reasons, viewing it as a way of sustaining U.S. preeminence and suppressing challengers in post-Cold War Europe. The results carry implications for historiography, foreign policy, and international relations theory.

Notes

1 I use the terms ‘NATO enlargement’ and ‘NATO expansion’ interchangeably.

2 For arguments favoring enlargement, see Ronald Asmus, Richard Kugler, and Stephen Flanagan, ‘Building a New NATO’, Foreign Affairs 72/4 (October 1993), 28–40; Stephen Flanagan, ‘NATO and Central and Eastern Europe: From Liaison to Security Partnership’, The Washington Quarterly 15/2 (June 1992), 141–51; Igor Lukes, ‘Central Europe Has Joined NATO: The Continuing Search for a More Perfect Habsburg Empire’, SAIS Review 19/2 (July 1999), 47–59; major critiques include Michael Brown, ‘The Flawed Logic of NATO Expansion’, Survival 37/1 (March 1995), 34–52; Kenneth Waltz, ‘NATO Expansion: A Realist’s View’, Contemporary Security Policy 21/2 (August 2000), 23–38; Dan Reiter, ‘Why NATO Enlargement Does Not Spread Democracy’, International Security 25/4 (April 2001), 41–67; Michael McCgwire, ‘NATO Expansion: “A Policy Error of Historic Importance,”’ Review of International Studies 24/1 (January 1998), 23–42.

3 On the non-expansion pledge, see Joshua Itzkowitz Shifrinson, ‘Deal or No Deal? The End of the Cold War and the U.S. Offer to Limit NATO Expansion’, International Security 40/4 (Spring 2016), 7–44; Mary Elise Sarotte, ‘A Broken Promise? What the West Really Told Moscow About NATO Expansion’, Foreign Affairs 93/5 (October 2014), 90–97; Mark Kramer, ‘The Myth of a No-NATO-Enlargement Pledge to Russia’, The Washington Quarterly 32/2 (2009), 39–61.

4 James Goldgeier, Not Whether but When: The U.S. Decision to Enlarge NATO (Washington: Brookings Institution Press, 1999); Ronald Asmus, Opening NATO’s Door: How the Alliance Remade Itself for a New Era (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002); William Hill, No Place for Russia: European Security Institutions Since 1989 (New York: Columbia University Press, 2018).

5 Hill, No Place for Russia, 110; Goldgeier, Not Whether but When, 14; Vojtech Mastny, ‘Eastern Europe and the Early Prospects for EC/EU and NATO Membership’, Cold War History 9/2 (May 2009), 216–17.

6 Mary Sarotte, ‘The Convincing Call from Central Europe: Let Us Into NATO’, Foreign Affairs Snapshot, 12 March 2019, 13. Elsewhere, Sarotte elaborates that ‘even as the final stages of German reunification took place, ‘Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait had reoriented U.S. priorities away from Europe. The Gulf War and the collapse of the Soviet Union dominated U.S. foreign-policy making in 1991 and early 1992, and the U.S. presidential election then took priority for the remainder of 1992. The Bush team’s time was up when Bill Clinton won;’ Sarotte, ‘The Convincing Call from Central Europe: Let Us Into NATO.’

7 Hill, No Place for Russia, 110. Other analysts argue that NATO members rejected enlargement as ‘totally unrealistic’ before 1993; that the United States ‘resisted calls for an early expansion’ of NATO membership into 1992; and that through 1992 ‘the prospect of NATO enlargement still appeared distant’ due to US opposition; see, respectively, Trine Flockhart, ‘The Dynamics of Expansion: NATO, WEU, and EU’, European Security 5/2 (June 1996), 200; Kori Schake, ‘NATO after the Cold War, 1991–1995: Institutional Competition and the Collapse of the French Alternative’, Contemporary European History 7/3 (November 1998), 394; Mastny, ‘Eastern Europe and the Early Prospects for EC/EU and NATO Membership’, 216.

8 Kimberly Marten, ‘Reconsidering NATO Expansion: A Counterfactual Analysis of Russia and the West in the 1990s’, European Journal of International Security 3/2 (June 2018), 140.

9 Jeffrey Engel, When the World Seemed New: George H.W. Bush and the End of the Cold War (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2017); Timothy Sayle, Enduring Alliance: A History of NATO and the Postwar Global Order (Ithaca New York: Cornell University Press, 2019), chap. 10.

10 Mary Elise Sarotte, ‘Perpetuating U.S. Preeminence: The 1990 Deals to “Bribe the Soviets Out” and Move NATO In’, International Security 35/1 (Summer 2010), 115–19; Shifrinson, ‘Deal or No Deal?’ 37–39; Sayle, Enduring Alliance, 233.

11 This situation is changing; see Sayle, Enduring Alliance, 235–240. Where, however, Sayle discusses NATO’s post-Cold War expansion as part of a broader post-war history of NATO, this study specifically examines the evolution of U.S. arguments surrounding NATO enlargement in 1990–1992.

12 Even projects expressly focused on American foreign policy at and after the Cold War’s end jump over this period, focusing largely on efforts to manage the Revolutions of 1989 and the 1991 Gulf War, and the post-1993 shifts in U.S. policy under Clinton; see Brands, Making the Unipolar Moment; Derek Chollet and James Goldgeier, America Between the Wars: From 11/9 to 9/11: The Misunderstood Years Between the Fall of the Berlin Wall and the Start of the War on Terror, (New York: BBS PublicAffairs, 2008), chaps. 1–3.

13 Although I was unaware of the work when composing this article, Liviu Horovitz has recently advanced an argument similar to the one here, concluding, ‘During Bush’s final year in office, a consensus appears to have slowly emerged: Washington should offer the Central Europeans the perspective [sic] of joining NATO.’ Horovitz’s thesis is correct, but – as elaborated below – does not go far enough. In fact, the Bush administration had endorsed NATO enlargement by 1992 and was taking steps to enact this policy; Liviu Horovitz, ‘The George H.W. Bush Administration’s Policies Vis-à-Vis Central Europe: From Cautious Encouragement to Cracking Open NATO’s Door’, in Open Door: NATO and Euro-Atlantic Security After the Cold War, ed. Daniel Hamilton and Kristina Spohr (Washington: Foreign Policy Institute and Henry Kissinger Center for Global Affairs, 2019), 71–94. Horovitz’s essay was published in the summer of 2019, at which time an earlier version of this article was already under review.

14 The ESSG’s composition changed over time. Illustrating the seniority of the group, a partial list of members at mid-1991 included Undersecretary of State Reginald Bartholomew, Undersecretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, Director of Strategic Plans for the Joint Chiefs of Staff Lieutenant General Edwin Leland, Deputy Director of Central Intelligence Richard Kerr, Arms Control and Disarmament Agency Director Ronald Lehmann, State Department Policy Planning Director Dennis Ross, State Department Counselor Robert Zoellick, Acting Assistant Secretary of State for Europe James Dobbins, Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy Stephen Hadley, Assistant to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Lieutenant General Howard Graves, and NSC Senior Directors Arnold Kanter and David Gompert; see Arnold Kanter and David Gompert to Reginald Bartholomew et al., ‘European Strategy Review’, 23 May 1991, folder ‘NATO – Future [2] [2]’, CF00293, Wilson Files, George Bush Presidential Library, College Station, Texas (hereafter GBPL).

15 Noting the ESSG’s importance, Gates later recalled that it ‘included the closest and most trusted advisers of Baker, Cheney, Powell, Scowcroft, and [CIA Director William] Webster […] and provided a mechanism for translating the ideas of Zoellick, Blackwill, and their colleagues into government policy;’ Robert M. Gates, From the Shadows (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2007), 493–94. For details on the ESSG, see Robert Hutchings, American Diplomacy and the End of the Cold War: An Insider’s Account of U.S. Policy in Europe, 1989–1992 (Washington: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 1997), 155; Philip Zelikow and Condoleezza Rice, Germany Unified and Europe Transformed: A Study in Statecraft (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995), 238, 442n99; Interview with Robert M. Gates, University of Virginia Miller Defense for Public Affairs, interview by Timothy Naftali and Tarek Masoud, 23 May 2000, 66.

16 Stephen Flanagan, ‘NATO From Liaison to Enlargement: A Perspective from the State Department and the National Security Council 1990–1999’, in Open Door: NATO and Euro-Atlantic Security After the Cold War, ed. Daniel Hamilton and Kristina Spohr (Washington: Foreign Policy Institute and Henry Kissinger Defense for Global Affairs, 2019), 94.

17 U.S. policymakers worried throughout 1990–1991 that Soviet quiescence to their loss of influence in Eastern Europe would soon end; James Baker, The Politics of Diplomacy (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1995), 472–76; Joshua Itzkowitz Shifrinson, Rising Titans, Falling Giants: How Great Powers Exploit Power Shifts (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2018), 139–41, 155.

18 No author, ‘Objectives in Upcoming Consultations’, undated [included in Briefing Packet sent to National Security Council Principals on 13 April 1992], folder ‘ESSG: European Security Policy Documents – [13 April 1992]’, CF01527, Lowenkron Files, GBPL.

19 For background on European security ambitions and U.S. concerns, see Charles Krupnick, ‘Not What They Wanted: American Policy and the European Security and Defense Identity’, in Disconcerted Europe: The Search for a New Security Architecture, ed. Alexander Moens and Christopher Anstis (Boulder: Westview, 1994), 115–34; Schake, ‘NATO after the Cold War, 1991–1995;’ Robert Art, ‘Why Western Europe Needs the United States and NATO’, Political Science Quarterly 111/(1996), 1–39. Here, I connect U.S. concerns to the previously unappreciated early 1990s drive to enlarge NATO.

20 The 1992 Defense Planning Guidance called for the United States to prevent the emergence of new peer competitors including, if necessary, through unilateral means. Although its argument for unilateral action was challenged, the emphasis on sustaining U.S. dominance enjoyed wide support in the Bush administration; Eric Edelman, ‘The Strange Career of the 1992 Defense Planning Guidance’, in In Uncertain Times: American Foreign Policy After the Berlin Wall and 9/11, ed. Melvyn Leffler and Jeffrey Legro (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2011), 63–77; Chollet and Goldgeier, America Between the Wars, 50–51. Several of the individuals who formulated the DPG also served on the ESSG.

21 On the realist Bush administration, see Chollett and Goldgeier, America Between the Wars.

22 In this sense, the findings extend the structural realist claim that ‘similarity of behavior is expected from similarly situated states,’ implying that a state experiencing a leadership change but facing near-identical systemic conditions tends to behave similarly; Kenneth Waltz, Theory of International Politics (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1979), 122. They also indirectly pose problems for arguments that leaders’ ideas play a dispositive role affecting a state’s foreign policy.

23 On primacy, see Barry Posen and Andrew Ross, ‘Competing Visions for U.S. Grand Strategy’, International Security 21/3 (Winter 1996–1997), 32–43.

24 Scowcroft to The President, ‘U.S. Diplomacy for the New Europe’, 22 December 1989, folder ‘German Unification (December 1989)’, 91116, Scowcroft Files, GBPL.

25 Brent Scowcroft to the President, ‘Objectives in U.S.-Soviet Relations for 1990’, 13 January 1990, folder ‘Gorbachev (Dobrynin) Sensitive 1989 -June 1990 [Copy Set] [5]’, 91127, Scowcroft Files, GBPL. Given the style and tone, Rice appears to have authored this document.

26 Brent Scowcroft to The President, ‘U.S. Policy in Eastern Europe in 1990’, undated, enclosed with Robert Hutchings to Brent Scowcroft, ‘U.S. Policy in Eastern Europe in 1990’, 10 January 1990, folder ‘Soviet Power Collapse in Eastern Europe (December 1989-January 1990’, 91125, Scowcroft Files, GBPL.

27 Scowcroft hand annotations on Scowcroft, ‘U.S. Policy in Eastern Europe in 1990.’

28 Quotes from Lawrence Eagleburger, ‘Impressions from Hungary, Poland, Austria, and Yugoslavia’, 1 March 1990, folder ‘Soviet Power Collapse in Eastern Europe (February–March 1990)’, 91125, Scowcroft Files, GBPL. See also Mary Sarotte, 1989: The Struggle to Create Post-Cold War Europe (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009), 139–40.

29 Scowcroft, ‘U.S. Diplomacy for the New Europe.’ For related concerns see Dennis Ross, [untitled paper], undated, enclosed with Reg Bartholomew, ‘Memorandum for the Thursday Group’, 12 March 1990, folder ‘NATO – Future [1][6]’, CF00293, Wilson Files, GBPL. Ross’ paper was blunt in arguing that NATO was the ‘organization which anchors unambiguously the U.S. military commitment to the Continent’ but now needed to ‘compete with other security arrangements.’

30 Harvey Sicherman to Dennis Ross and Robert Zoellick, ‘Our European Strategy: Next Steps’, 12 March 1990, folder 14, box 176, BP/SMML.

31 Peter Rodman to Brent Scowcroft, ‘NATO as a “Political” Organization,’ 26 March 1990, supplied directly to author by GBPL. The WEU was established after World War Two as the Western Union. Renamed the WEU in the 1950s, NATO’s role in European security left the WEU moribund for much of the Cold War. With, however, Western European states seeking greater influence over NATO policy, the 1980s witnessed growing discussion over reactivating the WEU as a European grouping within NATO.

32 ‘Press Briefing by James Baker, Enroute ANDREWS AFB to Shannon, Ireland’, 4 June 1990, folder 16, box 163, BP/SMML.

33 James A. Baker III, ‘CSCE,’ part of ‘JAB Notes from 7/4–5/90G-24 Ministerial Mtg., Brussels, Belgium & 7/5–6/90 Economic Summit, London, UK’, folder 3, box 109, BP/SMML.

34 Quoted in Gerald Solomon, The NATO Enlargement Debate, 1990–1997: Blessings of Liberty (Westport: Greenwood, 1998), 10.

35 Briefing Book, ‘NATO Strategy Review’, 3 August 1990, folder ‘NATO Strategy Review [6]’, CF00293, Wilson Files, GBPL. On Eastern European membership requests, see Sayle, Enduring Alliance, 233.

36 David Gompert, ‘Agenda for Meeting of the European Strategy Steering Group on Monday, October 29, 3:00–5:00 PM’, folder ‘NATO Strategy Review #1[1]’, CF01468, Zelikow Files, GBPL.

37 James Dobbins to David Gompert, ‘NATO Strategy Review Paper for October 29 Discussion’, folder ‘NATO Strategy Review #1[3]’, CF01468, Zelikow Files, GBPL.

38 Philip Zelikow to Robert Gates, ‘Your Meeting of the European Strategy Steering Group on Monday, October 29, 3:00 to 5:00 PM’, folder ‘NATO – Strategy [4],’ CF00293, Wilson Files, GBPL.

39 No author, ‘NATO’s Future Political Track of the Strategy Review.’

40 Condoleezza Rice to Brent Scowcroft, ‘Whither the Soviet Union’, 23 November 1990, folder ‘USSR – Gorbachev’, CF00719, Rice Files, GBPL; CIA, ‘Gorbachev’s Position and the Soviet Domestic Scene,’ 4 September 1990, folder ‘Master Chron Log for USSR – January 1990 – December 1990 [1]’, CF00715, Rice Files, GBPL.

41 Brent Scowcroft to the President, ‘Turmoil in the Soviet Union and U.S. Policy’, 18 August 1990, folder ‘USSR Collapse: U.S.-Soviet Relations Thru 1991 (August 1990)’, 91118, Scowcroft Files, GBPL.

42 No author, ‘NATO’s Future Political Track of the Strategy Review.’

43 Zelikow, ‘Your Meeting of the European Strategy Steering Group on Monday, October 29.’

44 David Gompert to Reginald Bartholomew et al., ‘Revised Final Summary of Conclusions from European Strategy Steering Group Meetings, November 29–30’, 4 December 1990, folder ‘European Strategy [Steering] Group (ESSG)’, CF01301, Gompert Files, GBPL.

45 NATO, ‘London Declaration on a Transformed Alliance’, July 5–6, 1990, https://www.nato.int/docu/comm/49-95/c900706a.htm.

46 SecState to All Diplomatic Posts, ‘Results of NATO Summit’, 8 July 1990, folder ‘NATO Summit, July 1990 [3 of 3]’, CF00290, Wilson Files, GBPL.

47 Philip Zelikow, Mike Fry, and Heather Wilson to Robert Gates, ‘The Meeting of the European Strategy Steering Group (ESG) on Monday, July 16, at 9:30 a.m.’, 14 July 1990, folder ‘NATO – Future[2][7],’ CF00293, Wilson Files, GBPL.

48 No author [likely State Department], ‘Enhancing NATO’s Political Role in Support of Security’, 5 October 1990, folder ‘NATO – Strategy[6]’, CF00293, Wilson Files, GBPL.

49 No author, ‘America’s Postwar Agenda in Europe’, enclosed with David Gompert to Reginald Bartholomew et al., ‘Meetings of European Strategy Steering Group Meetings [sic], March 11–12’, 6 March 1991, folder ‘ESSG: ESSG Papers for March 10 & 11 Meetings – [6 March 1991]’, CF01527, Lowenkron Files, GBPL.

50 Memcon, ‘Expanded Meeting with Lech Walesa, President of Poland’, 20 March 1991, https://bush41library.tamu.edu/files/memcons-telcons/1991-03-20–Walesa.pdf.

51 Memcon, ‘Meeting with Francois Mitterrand, President of France’, 14 March 1991, https://bush41library.tamu.edu/files/memcons-telcons/1991-03-14–Mitterrand.pdf.

52 No author, ‘Draft Summary of Conclusions: European Strategy Steering Group, March 11–12, 1991’, included with David Gompert to Robert Gates, ‘Meeting of Principals on European Pillar, March 27, 5:00 p.m.’, 26 March 1991, folder ‘European Steering Group – March 1991’, CF01035, Gordon Files, GBPL.

53 Brent Scowcroft to The President, ‘NATO and European Integration’, 11 March 1991, folder ‘European Steering Group – March 1991’, CF01035, Gordon Files, GBPL.

54 No author ‘America’s Postwar Agenda in Europe’, no date, folder ‘European Steering Group – March 1991’, enclosed with Philip Zelikow for Robert Gates, ‘Your Meetings of the European Strategy Steering Group on March 11 at 3:00 pm and March 12 at 2:00 pm’, 9 March 1991, CF01035, Gordon Files, GBPL.

55 Zelikow ‘Your Meetings of the European Strategy Steering Group on March 11 at 3:00 pm’; No author, ‘America’s Postwar Agenda.’

56 Zelikow, ‘Your Meetings of the European Strategy Steering Group on March 11.’

57 No author [paper prepared for ESSG meeting], ‘The Rome Summit and NATO’s Mission’, undated [circulated to ESSG circa 19 September 1991], folder ‘ESSG: ESSG Meeting – 23 September 1991’, CF01527, Lowenkron Files, GBPL. On Soviet problems, see Serhii Plokhy, The Last Empire (New York: Basic Books, 2014).

58 Sayle, Enduring Alliance, 183–190, 223–224.

59 For details, see Frédéric Bozo, ‘Mitterrand’s France, the End of the Cold War, and German Unification: A Reappraisal’, Cold War History 7/4 (2007), 466–68; Alexander Moens, ‘Behind Complementarity and Transparency: The Politics of the European Security and Defense Identity,’ Journal of European Integration 16/1 (September 1992), 29–48.

60 CIA, ‘The Dynamics and Momentum in Europe for the Organization of a European Security Identity’, 15 March 1991, enclosed with David Gompert to Robert Gates, ‘Meeting of Principals on European Pillar, March 27, 5:00 p.m.’, 26 March 1991, folder ‘NATO [4]’, CF01329, Rostow Files, GBPL.

61 Sayle, Enduring Alliance, 234.

62 No author, ‘Framework for Discussion of U.S. Strategy Toward Organization of a European Defense Identity’, undated, enclosed with Gompert to Gates, ‘Meeting of Principals on European Pillar, March 27, 5:00 p.m.’ A separate ESSG analysis similarly averred that European interest in a common security policy presented ‘a principal challenge’ to American interests; No author, ‘America’s Postwar Agenda.’

63 No author, ‘NATO’s Future Political Track of the Strategy Review: Questions to Ask Ourselves’, 22 October 1990, folder ‘NATO – Strategy [5]’, Wilson Files, GBPL.

64 Schake, ‘NATO After the Cold War’, 383–384; Moens, ‘Behind Complementarity.’

65 David Gompert to Brent Scowcroft, ‘Thoughts on the Future of the Alliance’, 9 October 1990, folder ‘NATO [5]’, CF01329, Rostow Files, GBPL.

66 No author, ‘Summary of Conclusions: European Strategy Steering Group, November 29–30, 1990’, enclosed with David Gompert for Brent Scowcroft, ‘US Policy on the “European Pillar”’, 1 December 1990, folder ‘NATO Strategy Review #2[1],’ CF01468, Zelikow Files, GBPL.

67 Scowcroft, ‘NATO and European Integration.’ March 1991 also saw revised guidance delivered to Bush underlining that the United States was ‘ready to support arrangements [… for] a common European foreign, security, and defense policy’ provided NATO remained ‘the principal venue for consultation and the forum for agreement on all policies bearing on the security and defense commitments of its members;’ No author, ‘Minutes of Principals’ Meeting on European Pillar, March 27 [1991]’, folder ‘ESSG: ESSG Meeting of European Pillar – [27 March 1991]’, CF01527, Lowenkron Files, GBPL.

68 Zelikow, ‘Your Meetings of the European Strategy Steering Group on March 11.’

69 Jeffrey Engel, ed., Into the Desert: Reflections on the Gulf War (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012).

70 Baker quoted in SecState to All Capitals, ‘Guidance on NATO Strategy Review – European Security Identity and Related Issues’, 21 February 1991, folder ‘Six Power Conference [1]’, CF01354, Zelikow Files, GBPL.

71 Moens, ‘Behind Complementarity’, 40–41; Krupnick, ‘Not What They Wanted’, 124–126. The demarche has never been declassified, but releases from British files cover the substance; Christopher Prentice, ‘European Security’, 27 February 1991, PREM 19/3326, The National Archives, Kew, London (hereafter NA); Anthony Acland, ‘NATO and European Security’, 17 February 1991, PREM 19/3326, NA.

72 Memcon, ‘Meeting with Francois Mitterrand, President of France’, 14 March 1991, https://bush41library.tamu.edu/files/memcons-telcons/1991-03-14–Mitterrand.pdf. By the end of 1991, American pressure became more overt, culminating in Bush telling allied heads of state at the November 1991 Rome Summit that ‘Our premise is that the American role in the Defense and affairs of Europe will not be made superfluous by European union. If our premise is wrong, if, my friends, your ultimate aim is to provide independently for your own Defense, the time to tell us is today;’ quoted in Krupnick, ‘Not What They Wanted’, 130.

73 No author, ‘Draft Summary of Conclusions: European Strategy Steering Group, March 11–12, 1991.’

74 Earlier in March, an ESSG paper argued that NATO needed to have primary responsibility – irrespective of Western European ambitions – in creating ‘a security environment in which no country would be able to intimidate or coerce any nation or to impose hegemony,’ elaborating that this included protecting NATO’s prerogative to address ‘stability and security in Eastern Europe;’ No author, ‘America’s Postwar Agenda.’

75 Memcon, ‘Meeting with Mitterrand.’

76 Flanagan, ‘NATO From Liaison to Enlargement’, 99–100.

77 David Gompert to Reginald Bartholomew et al., ‘European Strategy Review’, 10 May 1991, folder ‘ESSG: European Strategy Review – [16 May 1991]’, CF01527, Lowenkron Files, GBPL.

78 David Gompert to Reginald Bartholomew et al., ‘European Strategy Review’, 16 May 1991, folder ‘ESSG: European Strategy Review – [16 May 1991]’, CF01527, Lowenkron Files, GBPL.

79 Steve Flanagan, ‘NATO Liaison: General Principles for Development’, 17 May 1991, folder ‘NATO: Eastern Europe’, CF01526, Lowenkron Files, GBPL.

80 Memorandum of Conversation, ‘Meeting with Helmut Kohl, Chancellor of Germany’, 20 May 1991, https://bush41library.tamu.edu/files/memcons-telcons/1991-05-20–Kohl.pdf; also Scowcroft, ‘NATO and European Integration.’ On Western European efforts, see No author, ‘Framework for Discussion of U.S. Strategy toward Organization [sic] of a European Defense Identity’, 26 March 1991, folder ‘NATO [4]’, Rostow Files, GBPL.

81 As Hutchings later described, ‘if NATO had no role in [Eastern Europe], it had no role at all except as an insurance policy […] NATO would be marginalized as an agent of European security’; Hutchings, American Diplomacy, 277.

82 No author, ‘Transatlantic Relations: The Next Five Months’, undated, folder ‘European Strategy [Steering] Group (ESSG)’, CF01301, Gompert Files, GBPL. Although undated, the content of the report indicates it was written in spring 1991.

83 Hints of this trajectory came in late May when the ESSG accepted Wolfowitz’s suggestion to ‘take up the question of the adequacy of our political-security-economic strategy toward the new democracies’ in Eastern Europe; David Gompert to Reginald Bartholomew et al., ‘European Strategy Steering Group Review, 28 May 1991’, folder ‘ESSG: ESSG Meeting – 30 May 1991’, Lowenkron Files, GBPL.

84 Flanagan, ‘NATO Liaison’. Also Stanley Sloan, Catherine Guicherd, and Rosita Thomas, NATO’s Future: A Congressional-Executive Dialogue (Washington: Congressional Research Service, 1992), 19.

85 Adrian Basora to Robert Gates, ‘European Strategy Steering Group Meeting of 30 May 1991, 4:00–5:00 p.m.’, 29 May 1991, and enclosure, ‘NATO Summit Strategy,’ folder ‘ESSG: ESSG Meeting – 30 May 1991’, CF01527, Lowenkron Files, GBPL.

86 NATO, ‘Statement Issue by the North Atlantic Council Meeting in Ministerial Session in Copenhagen: Partnership with Countries of Central and Eastern Europe’, June 6–7, 1991, https://www.nato.int/docu/comm/49-95/c900706a.htm. Baker included similar language when he briefed Bush before the latter’s attendance at NATO’s Rome Summit; James A. Baker III to The President, ‘Your Visit to the NATO Summit in Rome, November 7–8, 1991’, 5 November 1991, folder ‘NATO – Summit [2]’, CF01436, Chellis Files, GBPL.

87 No author, ‘Rome Summit and NATO’s Mission.’ This document outlined different conceptions of NATO that might justify expanding the alliance’s presence into Eastern Europe (including potential membership).

88 AmEmbassy Paris to SecState, ‘U.S.-France Security Discussions: Rome Summit and Eastern Liaison’, 12 October 1991, folder ‘NATO – EE/Soviet Liaison [1]’, CF01436, Chellis Files, GBPL.

89 Stephen Flanagan, ‘New Directions for NATO Liaison: Building an Effective Partnership with the East’, 27 September 1991, folder ‘NATO – NATO Summit [2]’, CF01301, Gompert Files, GBPL.

90 Memcon, ‘Meeting with Vaclav Havel, President of Czechoslovakia’, 22 October 1991.

91 Baker notes on ‘Possible Questions for Press Briefing, Rome, Italy’, 7 November 1991, folder 4, box 289, BP.

92 No author, ‘US National Security Interests in Europe Beyond the NATO Area’, undated, enclosed with David Gompert to Robert Zoellick et al., ‘ESSG Meeting, Monday, 10 February 1992, 3:00–4:00 p.m., Situation Room’, 7 February 1992, folder ‘European Strategy [Steering] Group (ESSG)’, CF01301, Gompert Files, GBPL.

93 Untitled and undated list of questions, delivered under note by Barry Lowenkron to Jane Holl and dated 22 January 1992, no folder, CF01398, Holl Files, GBPL.

94 SecState to European Political Collective, ‘October 2 Baker-Genscher Statement’, 3 October 1991, folder ‘NATO – EE/Soviet Liaison [1]’, CF01436, Chellis Files, GBPL.

95 Hutchings, American Diplomacy, 289–292.

96 No author [likely NSC], ‘NATO and the East: Key Issues’, undated, folder ‘ESSG: ESSG Meeting – 3 February 1992’, Lowenkron Files, GBPL. This paper was used to frame the discussion at a 3 February 1992 ESSG meeting; David Gompert to Robert Zoellick et al., ‘Papers for 3 February 1992 ESSG Meeting in the Situation Room, 3:00–4:00 P.M.’, undated, folder ‘European Strategy [Steering] Group (ESSG)’, CF01301, Gompert Files, GBPL.

97 No author, ‘NATO and the East.’

98 No author, ‘U.S. Security and Institutional Interests in Europe and Eurasia in the Post-Cold War Era’, undated, enclosed with David Gompert to Robert Zoellick et al., ‘21 February 1992 ESSG Meeting, Situation Room, 10:00–11:00 A.M.’, 19 February 1992, folder ‘European Strategy [Steering] Group (ESSG)’, CF01301, Gompert Files, GBPL.

99 Barry Lowenkron to Brent Scowcroft, ‘Inclusion of Independent States of Former Soviet Union in the NACC’, 10 January 1992, folder ‘NATO [1]’, CF01329, Rostow Files, GBPL.

100 Barry Lowenkron to Brent Scowcroft, ‘Follow-Up to NATO Summit’, 15 November 1991, folder ‘NATO [1]’, CF01329, Rostow Files, GBPL; CIA, ‘The United States in Europe’, 29 January 1992, folder ‘European Strategy Steering Group [ESSG]’, CF01301, Gompert Files, GBPL. The intra-EC debate raises the question of whether American concerns with European security integration were justified given the possibility that intra-European rifts would prove insurmountable. A strong case can certainly be made in this direction. Still, the early 1990s were a highpoint in post-war integration efforts, with growing European political collaboration, the creation of a single European market, and the Maastricht Treaty itself signed in late 1992. This context renders American fears more understandable: European security integration was by no means a proximate challenge but, to the extent strategists sought to prevent a long-term loss of U.S. influence, the United States’ worries were not unwarranted in the abstract.

101 No author, ‘NATO and the East.’ The ESSG similarly concluded in February 1992 that if NATO’s scope was limited just to existing member’s territory, then ‘NATO will be irrelevant to the bulk of conflicts likely to arise in Europe and Eurasia’ and ‘would risk marginalizing the Alliance;’ No author, ‘U.S. Security and Institutional Interests in Europe and Eurasia.’

102 No author, ‘NATO and the East.’

103 NATO, ‘Rome Declaration on Peace and Security’, 8 November 1991, https://www.nato.int/docu/comm/49-95/c900706a.htm. Also Lowenkron, ‘Follow-Up.’

104 Krupnick, ‘Not What They Wanted’, 122–131. Background on the EC-WEU-NATO relationship is in J. Michael Lekson to Philip Zelikow, ‘Input for NSC Paper on the NATO Strategy Review and European Security Architecture’, 5 March 1991 and enclosures, folder ‘Six Power Conference’, CF01354, Zelikow Files, GBPL.

105 CIA, ‘NATO’s North Atlantic Cooperation Council: Views from Eastern Europe and the CIS States’, 17 March 1992, folder ‘NATO Volume II’, CF01099, Wayne Files, GBPL.

106 Thomas Niles to Robert Zoellick, ‘Security Implications of WEU Enlargement’, 27 February 1992, folder ‘NATO – Membership’, CF01526, Lowenkron Files, GBPL.

107 No author, ‘Implications for NATO of Expanded WEU Membership’, undated, enclosed with David Gompert to Robert Zoellick et al., ‘ESSG Meeting, Monday, 30 March 1992, 3:00 p.m.-4:00 p.m., Situation Room’, 26 March 1992, folder ‘European Strategy [Steering] Group’, CF01301, Gompert Files, GBPL.

108 ‘Implications for NATO of Expanded WEU Membership.’ NSC staffer Barry Lowenkron seems to have authored this report; for a draft, see Barry [Lowenkron] to David [Gompert], ‘Implications for NATO of Expanded WEU Membership’, 20 March 1992, folder ‘NATO – Membership’, CF01526, Lowenkron Files, GBPL.

109 ‘Implications for NATO of Expanded WEU Membership.’ In addition to the steps described below, U.S. officials sought to slow WEU expansion by promoting the idea that ‘NATO membership [would] continue to be an essential qualification for WEU membership’ and so giving NATO an implicit veto over WEU membership; James Dobbins ‘Memorandum for Under Secretary Zoellick’, 3 April 1992, folder ‘NATO – Membership’, CF01526, Lowenkron Files, GBPL.

110 ‘Implications for NATO of Expanded WEU Membership.’

111 Barry Lowenkron to Jonathan Howe, ‘ESSG Meeting, Monday, 30 March 1992, 2:30 p.m. – 3:30 p.m., Situation Room’, 26 March 1992, folder ‘European Strategy Steering Group (ESSG)’, CF01301, Gompert Files, GBPL.

112 For State Department reluctance, see Lowenkron, ‘ESSG Meeting, Monday, 30 March 1992.’

113 No author, ‘Item D: The Central/East European States’, undated, enclosed with David Gompert to Tom Niles et al., ‘NATO/NACC Peacekeeping Role’, 31 March 1992, folder ‘European Strategy [Steering] Group’, CF01301, Gompert Files, GBPL.

114 Stephen Flanagan to Dennis Ross and Robert Zoellick, ‘Developing Criteria for Future NATO Members: Now is the Time’, 1 May 1992, folder ‘NATO Membership’, CF01526, Lowenkron Files, GBPL; USMission NATO, ‘NATO/EC/WEU and Enlargement – Squaring the Growing Circles’, 8 May 1992, folder ‘NATO Membership’, CF01526, Lowenkron Files, GBPL; Barry Lowenkron to Jonathan Howe, ‘ESSG Meeting, Thursday, 28 May 1992, 2:00 p.m.-3:00 p.m.’, 27 May 1992, folder, ‘ESSG: ESSG Meeting – 28 May 1992’, CF01527, Lowenkron Files, GBPL.

115 No author [context indicates NSC], ‘Objectives in Upcoming Consultations’, undated [included in folder with materials dated 13 April 1992], folder ‘ESSG: European Security Policy Documents – [13 April 1992]’, CF01527, Lowenkron Files, GBPL.

116 No author [content indicates ESSG], ‘Preparing for the June NATO Ministerials’, undated, enclosed with David Gompert to Robert Zoellick et al., ‘ESSG Meeting Thursday, 28 May 1992, 2–3pm, Situation Room’, 27 May 1992, folder ‘European Strategy [Steering] Group’, CF01301, Gompert Files, GBPL.

117 Barry Lowenkron to Jonathan Howe, ‘ESSG Meeting, Thursday, 28 May 1992, 2:00 p.m.-3:00 p.m.’, folder ‘European Strategy [Steering] Group: ESSG Meeting – 28 May 1992’, Lowenkron Files, GBPL.

118 No author, ‘NATO Membership Question’, undated, folder ‘NATO Membership’, CF01526, Lowenkron Files, GBPL.

119 Barry Lowenkron to Brent Scowcroft, ‘Prime Minister Major and NATO Membership’, 5 June 1992, folder ‘NATO [1]’, CF01329, Rostow Files, GBPL.

120 AMEmbassy Oslo, ‘Statement by Deputy Secretary of State Lawrence S. Eagleburger, North Atlantic Council Ministerial Meeting in Oslo on 4 June 1992’, 4 June 1992, folder ‘NATO Volume II’, CF01099, Wayne Files, GBPL.

121 No author [interagency report], ‘Managing NATO-WEU Expansion’, undated [included in folder for July 1992 ESSG briefing materials], folder ‘ESSG: ESSG Meeting – 23 July 1992’, CF01527, Lowenkron Files, GBPL. See also Lowenkron ‘Prime Minister Major.’

122 No author [interagency report], ‘Managing NATO-WEU Expansion’, undated, enclosed with David Gompert to Robert Zoellick et al., ‘ESSG Meeting Thursday, 23 July 1992, 11:00 a.m. – 12:00 noon, Situation Room', folder ‘NATO (1)’, CF01329, Rostow Files, GBPL.

123 Quoted in Solomon, NATO Enlargement Debate, 19.

124 George Grayson, Strange Bedfellows: NATO Marches East (Washington: University Press of America, 1999), 73.

125 No author, ‘Managing NATO-WEU Expansion’. See also Barry Lowenkron to Jonathan Howe, ‘ESSG Meeting, Thursday, 23 July 1992, 5:00–6:00 p.m., Situation Room’, 22 July 1992, folder ‘NATO (1)’, CF01329, Rostow Files, GBPL; AmEmbassy London to SecState, ‘NATO’s Eastward Extension’, 16 July 1992, folder ‘NATO – EE/Soviet Liaison [3]’, CF01436, Chellis Files, GBPL.

126 William Burns to Frank Wisner, Robert Zoellick, and Thomas Niles, ‘Thinking About “Criteria” for NATO Membership’, 10 August 1992, folder ‘NATO – Membership’, CF01526, Lowenkron Files, GBPL.

127 No author [likely interagency paper], ‘Preparing for the December NATO Ministerials’, undated [included in folder for a September 1992 ESSG meeting], folder ‘ESSG: ESSG Meeting – 18 September 1992’, CF01527, Lowenkron, GBPL. Likewise, a paper from this period – bluntly titled ‘Expanding Membership in NATO’ – highlighted that U.S. strategy favored ‘opening up the Alliance to new members’; No author, ‘Expanding Membership in NATO’, undated, folder ‘NATO (1)’, CF01329, Rostow Files, GBPL. Though undated, the title matches a document referenced in 18 September 1992 ESSG materials in the Lowenkron Papers.

128 ‘Expanding Membership in NATO.’

129 Cheney and Eagleburger quoted in Goldgeier, Not Whether but When, 18.

130 Flanagan, ‘NATO from Liaison to Enlargement.’

131 Quoted in Grayson, Strange Bedfellows, 67.

132 That said, the results complicate the salience of Eastern European suasion in shaping American attitudes. After all, and as noted, U.S. officials largely ignoring Eastern European calls for NATO enlargement until it seemed there might be a long-term threat to NATO and, with it, U.S. predominance.

133 Indeed, when the Clinton administration contemplated NATO enlargement, there are some indications that working-level officials – including carryovers from the Bush administration – built on Bush-era initiatives. These appear to have been especially important with regard to the criteria states might have to meet before NATO accession, and a general consensus that NATO enlargement should happen at some point; see Flanagan, ‘NATO From Liaison to Enlargement’, 104–106; Jenonne Walker, ‘Enlarging NATO: The Initial Clinton Years’ in Open Door: NATO and Euro-Atlantic Security After the Cold War, ed. Daniel Hamilton and Kristina Spohr (Washington: Foreign Policy Institute and Henry Kissinger Center for Global Affairs, 2019), 268–269; Interview with Jenonne Walker, Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project, interview by Raymond Ewing, 26 May 2004, 23–26.

134 Charles Krauthammer, ‘The Unipolar Moment’, Foreign Affairs 70/1 (Winter 1990–1991), 23–33; William Wohlforth, ‘The Stability of a Unipolar World’, International Security 24/1 (Summer 1999), 5–41.

135 Stephen Brooks and William Wohlforth, World Out of Balance: International Relations and the Challenge of American Primacy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008); Brands, Making the Unipolar Moment.

136 Core works in this literature include Robert Keohane, ‘The Demand for International Regimes’, International Organization 36/2 (April 1982), 325–55; G. John Ikenberry, ‘Institutions, Strategic Restraint, and the Persistence of American Postwar Order’, International Security 23/3 (Winter 1998–1999), 43–78; Alexander Thompson, Channels of Power: The UN Security Council and US Statecraft in Iraq (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2010).

137 G. John Ikenberry, After Victory: Institutions, Strategic Restraint, and the Rebuilding of Order After Major Wars (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001); Lloyd Gruber, Ruling the World: Power Politics and the Rise of Supranational Institutions (Princeton University Press, 2000); Anders Wivel and T.V. Paul, eds., International Institutions and Power Politics: Bridging the Divide (Washington: Georgetown University Press, 2019).

138 This notion of preventive institutional action extends the concept of ‘preventive war’ – taking military action to stop a rival’s continued rise – to cover a state’s efforts at suppressing rivals from promoting interests that conflict with one’s own via institutions. On preventive war, see Jack Levy, ‘Declining Power and the Preventive Motivation for War’, World Politics 40/1 (October 1987), 82–107.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Joshua R. Itzkowitz Shifrinson

Joshua R. Itzkowitz Shifrinson is an Assistant Professor of International Relations, Pardee School of Global Studies, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, United States.  He is the author of Rising Titans, Falling Giants: How Great Powers Exploit Power Shifts (Cornell 2018), as well as articles in International Security, the Journal of Strategic Studies, and other venues. This article draws from his next book exploring when, why, and how existing great powers suppress prospective future challenges.

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