East or Further East?
| DOI | 10.1177/0022343399036006002 |
| Published date | 01 November 1999 |
| Author | Douglas M. Gibler |
| Date | 01 November 1999 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
East or Further East?*
DOUGLAS M. GIBLER
Department of Political Science, University of Kentucky
NATO has recently expanded to include several eastern European, formerly communist states. This
article uses empirical evidence on alliances and war to argue that this expansion and plans to expand
NATO even more may pose a serious threat to international peace since the expanded alliance possesses
two of the three major factors that have been found to be associated with war-prone alliances. In
addition, it is argued that the expanded alliance may greatly hamper Russia’s transition to democracy.
The article concludes that a better long-term policy for NATO states to pursue would be an expansion
that included Russia but that would be restructured to resolve outstanding territorial disputes in ways
similar to the Congress of Vienna of 1815. The potential impact of this expanded NATO on political
transitions in the Balkan states is also discussed.
Introduction
NATO expansion has been much debated
the past few years, but this debate has taken
an interesting turn recently as several
scholars have begun to advocate the inclu-
sion of Russia in NATO (Kugler, 1998;
Russett & Stam, 1998). The rationale for
including NATO’s former foe as a new
alliance member is based upon evidence
which suggests that a rising China may be
the greatest threat to the international peace
in the coming century. Power transition
theory argues that the greatest point of world
instability occurs when a dissatisfied major
state overtakes the dominant nation, and
China is by most accounts dissatisfied.
Therefore, according to this logic, it is better
to delay the power transition by including
Russia as an ally, or, at the very least, to have
Russia as an ally rather than an enemy once
the transition occurs.1
This essay agrees with the policy conclu-
sions of the power transition theorists, but it
argues the merits of Russian inclusion on the
basis of accumulated evidence on the effects
of alliances and territorial issues on war.
Specifically, because of the way NATO is
structured now, an expanded alliance that
does not include Russia could have destabi-
lizing effects on the former Soviet Union
and on the region and the world as a whole.2
* My thanks to Windi Blazyk, Nils Petter Gleditsch,
John Vasquez, the participants in IPS 200 at Stanford
University, and the editors and two anonymous reviewers
from JPR for comments on this article. Of course, only
I remain responsible for any errors in the manuscript. All
of the data discussed in this article can be obtained from:
http://www.uky.edu/~dgibler/researchpapers.htm
627
journal of
peace
R
ESEARCH
© 1999 Journal of Peace Research
vol. 36, no. 6, 1999, pp. 627–637
Sage Publications (London, Thousand
Oaks, CA and New Delhi)
[0022-3433 (199911) 36:6; 627–637; 010656]
COUNTER-
POINT
1For the impact of alliances on power transitions, see Kim
(1991).
2This manuscript was submitted before the NATO
bombing campaign against Serbia. However, in revising
the article after the end of this campaign, it is my opinion
that NATO’s attack on a non-member-state, Russia’s
rather limited role in the peace plan, and Russia’s objec-
tions to that limited role only strengthen the arguments
given herein.
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