Why Alliances Are Dangerous

By Doug Bandow

Some advocates of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) argue that peace would have ruled the Caucasus had the Western alliance offered Georgia a membership action plan last spring.

Actually, Georgian and Russian perceptions of potential NATO support for Georgia likely radicalized both sides, making war all but certain. In practice, alliances can be destabilizing as well as stabilizing.

When the Cold War ended, many people expected America to rethink its security commitments. Without the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact, there seemed little need for NATO, at least an American led and dominated NATO.

However, instead of dismantling or even shrinking its Cold War alliance structure, the U.S. expanded its defense commitments. Former Warsaw Pact and even Soviet republics were inducted into the ``North Atlantic" Treaty Organization.

The argument for doing so was stability through deterrence. Russia wouldn't dare attack them.

Oddly, proponents of this strategy do not take it to its logical conclusion. If the argument is right, then America should offer a security guarantee to any country anywhere threatened by another. The result would be an era of world peace.

Unfortunately, alliances can promote war as well as peace. Perhaps the best example is the pre-World War I lineup of the Entente versus the Central Powers.

Competing alliances created to ensure security turned into transmission belts of war, transforming the assassination of Austria-Hungary's heir apparent into a global conflagration that killed upwards of 20 million people.

First, the military connections ensured that the dominant empires would go to war when the minor partners quarreled. Germany and Russia (and France and Great Britain, less directly) lost the flexibility to say no to war.

Second, by offering military backing, such as Berlin's famous ``blank check'' to Austria-Hungary, the German and Russian empires encouraged their allies to take irresponsible gambles, presuming that their bigger partners would bail them out of any resulting difficulties.

As a result, both empires unintentionally encouraged allied irresponsibility, world war, and their own destruction.

The expansion of NATO up to Russia's borders risks having a similar impact. The original NATO had a clear purpose: to protect Western Europe from Soviet aggression, which could result in a hostile power controlling much of the Eurasian land mass.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union and dissolution of the Warsaw Pact, that threat disappeared, and with it any justification for continued American security guarantees for Europe.

Unfortunately, expanding NATO has made the world more rather than less dangerous ― at least for the U.S. The former Eastern Europeans possess subpar militaries which do nothing to help defend America and which actually cost the U.S. money to train and equip. Manpower contributions to Afghanistan and Iraq ― even the 2,000 soldiers from Georgia ― were more symbolic than real.

Worse, all these nations brought their bilateral and regional quarrels with them into NATO. And America's security guarantee encourages allied irresponsibility.

The previous government of Poland offended everyone, starting with NATO ally Germany. Estonia created a bitter quarrel with Russia by moving a World War II memorial.

Georgia has sparked a war by misplaying a geopolitical game of chicken with Moscow over two insignificant territories, Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

The issue is not whether these governments had the legal right to act as they did. The question is whether it was prudent for them to do so. Common sense dictates dampening rather than inflaming conflict.

Although denied approval of a membership action plan by NATO, Georgia still has an individual partnership action plan, which provides for cooperation with the alliance. The Bush administration helped train and equip Georgia's military.

Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili's hope for allied aid if Georgia was attacked by Russia likely encouraged him to strike South Ossetia, which triggered Moscow's intervention.

Ironically, the prospect of Georgian membership in NATO essentially forced Moscow to respond to Tbilisi's attempt at a blitzkrieg conquest. If Georgia eventually enters NATO, any Russian military action would risk a far wider military escalation.

However, responding violently today demonstrated to America and Europe the risks of inviting Georgia to join the alliance.

Imagine Georgia as a member of NATO. Then the U.S. would be a permanent hostage to Saakashvili's domestic political machinations and foreign policy ambitions. Tbilisi's policy was mad, but, thankfully did not commit the West because Georgia is not a member of NATO.

While Georgia as a member of NATO might have deterred Russian action, it would have ensured NATO involvement had Moscow nevertheless intervened. And alliance membership would have encouraged Tbilisi to be even more irresponsible.

Conflict in the Caucasus should be a wakeup call for Washington to stop promiscuously distributing security guarantees as if they were free. They are not. In fact, for America alliances have increasingly become potential transmission belts of war. As would have NATO membership for Georgia.

Doug Bandow is the Robert A. Taft fellow at the American Conservative Defense Alliance. A former special assistant to President Ronald Reagan, he is the author of ``Foreign Follies: America's New Global Empire" (Xulon Press). He can be reached at ChessSet@aol.com.