Slovenia and NATO Enlargement

Abstract

THE ENLARGEMENT OF THE North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) into central-east Europe has been the subject of lively debate for almost a decade. Opinions and positions on this subject in Europe and North America have ranged from angry denunciations through solid criticisms, serious doubts, and guarded support to enthusiastic accolades. These contrasting attitudes underline the flux and uncertainties, as well as the divisibility, of security in the post-cold war era. Less than three years after NATO's initial stonewalling on enlargement in late 1994, invitations to join have been extended to three former members of the Warsaw Treaty Organization. But nine of the twelve central-east European candidates still remain at NATO's gates, not satisfied with the status of so-called 'partner countries.' One of them is the Republic of Slovenia.According to many experts and observers, reducing the 'grey zone' of insecurity and uncertainty in Europe is an important rationale for NATO enlargement. Javier Solana, the secretary general of NATO, con firmed this when he stated that 'enlargement must ... promote greater stability not only to the territories of the new invitees but through them to the neighboring regions.(f.1) Although this statement and its underlying contention have certain merits in general terms, they raise some serious questions in relation, for example, to Slovenia, whose candidacy was deferred at the NATO meeting in Madrid in July 1997.On the whole, the lines separating secure and insecure areas in Europe, the Mediterranean, and Asia do not coincide with the division between NATO members and non-members. Furthermore, flash-points of violence and terrorism in the territories of NATO members - Ulster, the Basque country, Corsica, parts of Turkey, for example - have existed for decades. Actual or potential interstate conflicts have taken place or might conceivably (again) take place between NATO member-states, for example, on the Greek-Turkish border, in Cyprus, or over Gibraltar. It is true that Slovenia is situated in the geographic proximity of recent armed hostilities in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. In fact, a string of trouble spots stretches from Bosnia across the 'Eurasian Balkans,' as Zbigniew Brzezinski calls them, all the way to southeast Asia. However, Slovenia, together with a number of other European countries, including neighbouring Austria, belongs to an area of stability and security. As for Slovenia's intentions, there is no room for uncertainty or for treating the country as part of a 'grey zone' in Europe.Soon after Slovenia became independent in June 1991 its political elite found little comfort in relying on membership in the United Nations and participation in the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) alone. The ineffectiveness of the international community in dealing with even a relatively small aggressor in the Balkans only contributed to the sense of unease.Since then the Slovenian government has abandoned ex-Yugoslavia's stance of 'active non-alignment.' During the same period, the considerable political strength of the pacifist 'Greens,' who advocated Slovenia's unilateral disarmament and neutrality, has practically evaporated. Because of this shift in the political scene, and with no tradition of neutralism and no constitutional or international legal obligations in this respect, Slovenia did not opt for a defence policy of armed neutrality. As a non-member in the only remaining effective regional security organization (NATO), Slovenia has been left for the time being with no option but to pursue external non-engagement and armed self-reliance - a posture practiced by the state but not desired by the largest coalition party. In addition, the Slovenian defence ministry signed bilateral co-operation protocols with its counterparts in the United States, Britain, Hungary, Austria, and the Czech Republic, among others, and a trilateral protocol on military co-operation with Italy and Hungary. …