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Contemporary Security
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NATO expansion: A realist's

view
a b c
Kenneth N. Waltz
a
Ford Professor, Emeritus , University of
California , Berkeley
b
Research Associate at the Institute of War
and Peace Studies
c
Adjunct Professor at the Department of
Political Science , Columbia University
Published online: 28 Sep 2007.

To cite this article: Kenneth N. Waltz (2000) NATO expansion: A realist's view,
Contemporary Security Policy, 21:2, 23-38, DOI: 10.1080/13523260008404253

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PART II: POWER AND PREFERENCES

 NATO Expansion: A Realist's View1

KENNETH N. WALTZ
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The purpose of this paper is both to ask how well non-realist

approaches to international politics serve us and to show how realist
theory helps one to understand international-political events and
changes. One of the charges hurled at realist theory is that it fails to
explain the failure of a new balance of power to form since the end
of the Cold War. Another charge is that the survival and flourishing of
the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) defeats realists'
expectations.
With the demise of the Soviet Union, the international-political
system became unipolar. In the light of structural theory, unipolarity
appears as the least durable of international configurations. This is so
for two main reasons. One is that dominant powers take on too many
tasks beyond their own borders, thus weakening themselves in the long
run. Ted Robert Gurr, after examining 336 polities, reaches the same
conclusion that Robert G. Wesson had reached earlier: 'Imperial decay
is ... primarily a result of the misuse of power which follows inevitably
from its concentration'.2 The other reason for the short duration of
unipolarity is that even if a dominant power behaves with moderation,
restraint and forbearance, weaker states will worry about its future
behaviour. America's founding fathers warned against the perils of
power in the absence of checks and balances. Is unbalanced power less
of a danger in international than in national politics? Throughout the
Cold War, what the United States and the Soviet Union did, and how
they interacted, were dominant factors in international politics. The
two countries, however, constrained each other. Now the United States
is alone in the world. As nature abhors a vacuum, so international
politics abhors unbalanced power. Faced by unbalanced power, some
states try to increase their own strength or they ally with others to
bring the international distribution of power into balance. The
reactions of other states to the drive for dominance of Charles V
 24 Explaining NATO Enlargement
Hapsburg ruler of Spain, of Louis XIV and Napoleon I of France, of
Wilhelm II and Adolf Hitler of Germany, illustrate the point.
Will the preponderant power of the United States elicit similar
reactions? Unbalanced power, whoever wields it, is a potential danger to
others. The powerful state may, and the United States does, think of
itself as acting for the sake of peace, justice and well-being in the world.
These terms, however, are defined to the liking of the powerful, which
may conflict with the preferences and interests of others. In
international politics, overwhelming power repels and leads others to try
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to balance against it. With benign intent, the United States has behaved,
and until its power is brought into balance, will continue to behave in
ways that sometimes frighten others.
For almost half a century, the constancy of the Soviet threat
produced a constancy of American policy. Other countries could rely on
the United States for protection because protecting them seemed to
serve US security interests. Even so, beginning in the 1950s western
European countries, and beginning in the 1970s, Japan had increasing
doubts about the reliability of the American nuclear deterrent. As Soviet
strength increased, western European countries began to wonder
whether America could be counted on to use its deterrent on their
behalf, thus risking its own cities. When President Carter moved to
reduce American troops in Korea, and later when the Soviet Union
invaded Afghanistan and strengthened its forces in the Far East, Japan
developed similar worries.
With the disappearance of the Soviet Union, the United States no
longer faces a major threat to its security. As General Colin Powell said
when he was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff: 'I'm running out of
demons. I'm running out of enemies. I'm down to Castro and Kim II
Sung.'3 Constancy of threat produces constancy of policy; absence of
threat permits policy to become capricious. When few if any vital
interests are endangered, a country's policy becomes sporadic and self-
willed.
The absence of serious threats to American security gives the United
States wide latitude in making foreign policy choices. A dominant power
acts internationally only when the spirit moves it. One example is
enough to show this. When Yugoslavia's collapse was followed by
genocidal war in successor states, the United States failed to respond
until Senator Robert Dole moved to make Bosnia's peril an issue in the
forthcoming presidential election; and it acted not for the sake of its own
 NATO Expansion: A Realist's View 25
security but to maintain its leadership position in Europe. American
policy was generated not by external security interests but by internal
political pressure and national ambition.
Aside from specific threats it may pose, unbalanced power leaves
weaker states feeling uneasy and gives them reason to strengthen their
positions. The United States has a long history of intervening in weak
states, often with the intention of bringing democracy to them.
American behaviour over the past century in central America provides
little evidence of self-restraint in the absence of countervailing power.
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Contemplating our history and measuring our capabilities, other

countries may well wish for ways to fend off our benign ministrations.
Concentrated power invites distrust because it is so easily misused. To
understand why some states want to bring power into a semblance of
balance is easy, but, with power so sharply skewed, what country or
group of countries has the material capability and the political will to
bring the 'unipolar moment' to an end? The expectation that following
victory in a great war a new balance of power will form is firmly
grounded in both history and theory. The last four grand coalitions (two
against Napoleon and one in each of the world wars of the twentieth
century) collapsed once victory was achieved. Victories in major wars
leave the balance of power badly skewed. The winning side emerges as a
dominant coalition. The international equilibrium is broken; theory
leads one to expect its restoration.
Clearly something has changed. Some believe that America is so nice
that, despite the dangers of unbalanced power, others do not feel the fear
that would spur them to action. Michael Mastanduno, among others,
believes this to be so, although he ends his essay with the thought that
'eventually power will check power'.4 Others believe that the leaders of
states have learned that playing the game of power politics is costly and
unnecessary. Instead the explanation for sluggish balancing is a simple
one. In the aftermath of earlier great wars, the materials for constructing
a new balance were readily at hand. Previous wars left a sufficient
number of great powers standing to permit a new balance to be rather
easily constructed. Theory enables one to say that a new balance of
power will form but not to say how long it will take. International
conditions determine that.
Those who refer to the unipolar moment are right. In our
perspective, the new balance is emerging slowly; in historical
perspectives, it will come in the blink of an eye.
 26 Explaining NATO Enlargement
I ended a 1993 article this way. 'one may hope that America's internal
preoccupations will produce not an isolationist policy, which has become
impossible, but a forbearance that will give other countries at long last
the chance to deal with their own problems and make their own mistakes.
But I would not bet on it.'5 I should think that few would do so now.
Charles Kegley has said, sensibly, that if the world becomes multipolar
once again, realists will be vindicated.6 Seldom do signs of vindication
appear so promptly.
The candidates for becoming the next great powers, and thus
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restoring a balance, are the European Union, China and Japan. Since
the Cold War's end, the policies and behaviours of western European
states lead one to believe that for the first time in modern history
the new balance of power will be made in the East rather than in the
West.
The countries of the European Union have been remarkably
successful in integrating their national economies. The achievement
of a large measure of economic integration without a corresponding
political unity is an accomplishment without historical precedent. On
questions of foreign and military policy, however, the European
Union can act only with the consent of its members, making bold or
risky action impossible. The European Union has all the tools -
population, resources, technology and military capabilities - but lacks
the organizational ability and the collective will to use them. As
Jacques Delors said when he was President of the European
Commission: 'It will be for the European Council, consisting of heads
of state and government ..., to agree on the essential interests they
share and which they will agree to defend and promote together."
Policies that must be arrived at by consensus can be carried out only
when they are fairly inconsequential. Inaction as Yugoslavia sank into
chaos and war signalled that Europe will not act to stop wars even
among near neighbours. Western Europe was unable to make its own
foreign and military policies when it was an organization of six or nine
states living in fear of the Soviet Union. With less pressure and more
members, it can hardly hope to do so now. Only when the United
States decides on a policy are European countries able to follow it. As
far ahead as the eye can see, western Europe will be a follower rather
than a leader internationally.
The fate of European states continues to depend on decisions made
in America. NATO's expansionist policy illustrates how the absence of
 NATO Expansion: A Realist's View 27
external restraints on the United States affects its policy. The states of
the European Union generally have shown no enthusiasm for expanding
NATO eastward and have revealed little willingness to bear a share of the
costs entailed. German officials, notably Volker Riihe, were among the
few western Europeans to show enthusiasm. While the United States
pressed ahead with expansion, the European Union, as expected, was
content to stand by meekly and watch. In a statement that would be hard
to credit were it not made by a European Union official, Hans van der
Broek, commissioner for external relations with countries from central
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Europe to Russia, has said that the Union takes no position on NATO's
expansionist policy because it has no 'competence' on NATO
enlargement.8
In the old multipolar world, the core of an alliance consisted of a
small number of states of comparable capability. Their contributions to
one another's security were of crucial importance because they were of
similar size. Because major allies were closely interdependent, the
defection of one would have made its partners vulnerable to a competing
alliance. The members of opposing alliances before the First World War
were tightly knit because of their mutual dependence. In the new bipolar
world, the word 'alliance' took on a different meaning. One country, the
United States or the Soviet Union, provided most of the security for its
bloc. The defection of France from NATO and of China from the
Warsaw Treaty Organization (WTO) failed even to tilt the central
balance. Early in the Cold War, Americans spoke with alarm about the
threat of monolithic communism arising from the combined strength of
the Soviet Union and China, yet the bloc's disintegration caused
scarcely a ripple. American officials did not proclaim that with China's
defection America's defence budget could safely be reduced by 20 or 10
per cent or even be reduced at all. Similarly, when France withdrew from
NATO, American officials did not proclaim that defence spending had
to be increased for that reason. Properly speaking, NATO and the WTO
were more treaties of guarantee than military alliances old-style.9 The
end of the Cold War quickly changed the behaviour of allied countries.
In early July 1990, NATO announced that the alliance would 'elaborate
new force plans consistent with the revolutionary changes in Europe'.10
By the end of July, without waiting for any such plans, the major
European members of NATO unilaterally announced large reductions
in their force levels. Even the pretence of continuing to act as an alliance
in setting military policy disappeared.
 28 Explaining NATO Enlargement
I expected NATO to dwindle at the Cold War's end and ultimately
to disappear as the four previous grand coalitions had done once their
principal adversaries were defeated." To some extent, the expectation
has already been borne out. NATO is no longer even a treaty of
guarantee since one cannot answer the question, guarantee against
whom? Glenn Snyder has remarked that 'alliances have no meaning
apart from the adversary threat to which they are a response'.12 How
then can one explain NATO's survival and growth? An obvious part of
the explanation is found in what has long been known about
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organizations in general. Organizations, especially big ones with strong

traditions, have long lives. The March of Dimes is an example
sometimes cited. Having won the war against polio, its mission was
accomplished. Nevertheless, it cast about for a new malady to cure or
contain. Even though the most appealing ones — cancer, heart, lungs,
multiple sclerosis, cystic fibrosis - were already taken, it did find a
worthy cause to pursue, the amelioration of birth defects. One can fairly
claim that the March of Dimes enjoys continuity as an organization,
pursuing an end consonant with its original purpose. How can one
make such a claim for NATO?
The question of purpose may, however, not be a very important one;
create an organization and it will find something to do.13 Once created,
and the more so once it has become well established, an organization
becomes hard to get rid of. A big organization is managed by large
numbers of bureaucrats who develop a strong interest in its
perpetuation. According to Gunther Hellmann and Reinhard Wolf,
NATO headquarters was recently manned by 2,640 officials, most of
whom presumably want to keep their jobs.14 Twenty-five years ago,
Bernard Brodie wondered whether NATO's useful life was over. Its
founding fathers thought of it as a defensive alliance needed until
Europe's recovery would enable it to provide its own defence. That time
had surely come. Yet, as Brodie remarked, 'The inertias built into'
NATO's international bureaucracy 'can only be imagined by those who
have not experienced them'. He concluded by saying 'we are either
blessed or burdened with this creation of a time that was very different
from our own days'.15 Clearly, Brodie thought that by 1973 the burden
outweighed the blessing, and the burden continues to be borne dispro-
portionately by the United States.
A second part of the explanation of NATO's longevity is
more important than the first part. Liberal institutionalists take
 NATO Expansion: A Realist's View 29
NATO's seeming vigour as confirmation of the importance of
international institutions and as evidence of their resilience. Realists,
noticing that as an alliance NATO has lost its major function, see it
simply as a means of maintaining and lengthening America's grip on
the foreign and military policies of European states. The survival and
expansion of NATO tell us much about American power and
influence and little about institutions as multilateral entities. The
ability of the United States to extend the life of a moribund
institution nicely illustrates how international institutions are created
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and maintained by stronger states to serve their perceived or

misperceived interests.
The Bush administration saw, and the Clinton administration
continued to see, NATO as the instrument for maintaining America's
domination of the foreign and military policies of European states. In
1991, Under-secretary of State Reginald Bartholomew's letter to the
governments of European members of NATO warned against Europe's
formulating independent positions on defence. France and Germany
had thought that a European security and defence identity might be
developed within the European Union and that the Western European
Union (WEU), formed in 1954, could be revived as the instrument for
its realization. The Bush administration quickly squelched these ideas.
The day after the signing of the Maastricht Treaty in December 1991,
President Bush could say with satisfaction that 'we are pleased that our
Allies in the Western European Union ... decided to strengthen that
institution as both NATO's European pillar and the defense component
of the European Union'.16
The European pillar was to be contained within NATO, and its
policies were to be made in Washington. Weaker states have trouble
fashioning institutions to serve their own ends in their own ways,
especially in the security realm. Think of the defeat of the European
Defence Community in 1954 and the inability of the WEU in the more
than four decades of its existence to find a significant role independent
of the United States. Realism reveals what liberal institutionalist
'theory' obscures: namely, that international institutions serve
primarily national rather than international interests.17 Keohane and
Martin, replying to Mearsheimer's criticism of liberal institutionalism,
ask how we are 'to account for the willingness of major states to invest
resources in expanding international institutions if such institutions
are lacking in significance'.18 If the answer were not already obvious,
 30 Explaining NATO Enlargement
the expansion of NATO would answer it: to serve what powerful states
believe to be their interests.
Domestic politics supply a third part of the explanation for
America's championing NATO's expansion. With the administra-
tion's Bosnian policy in trouble, Clinton needed to show himself to be
an effective leader in foreign policy. With the national heroes, Lech
Walesa and Vaclav Havel, clamouring for their countries' inclusion,
foreclosing NATO membership would have handed another issue to
the Republican Party in the congressional elections of 1994. To tout
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NATO's eastward march, President Clinton gave major speeches in

Milwaukee, Cleveland and Detroit, cities with significant numbers of
eastern European voters." Yotes and dollars are the lifeblood of
American politics. New members of NATO will be required to
improve their military infrastructure and to buy modern weapons.
The American arms industry, expecting to capture its usual large
share of a new market, lobbied heavily in favour of NATO's
expansion.20
The reasons for expanding NATO are weak. The reasons for
opposing expansion are strong.21 It draws new lines of division in
Europe, alienates those left out, and can find no logical stopping place
west of Russia. It weakens those Russians most inclined towards liberal
democracy and a market economy. It strengthens Russians of opposite
inclination. It reduces hope for further large reductions of nuclear
weaponry. It pushes Russia towards China instead of drawing Russia
towards Europe and America. NATO, led by America, scarcely
considered the plight of its defeated adversary. Throughout modern
history, Russia has been rebuffed by the West, isolated and at times
surrounded. Many Russians believe that, by expanding, NATO
brazenly broke promises it made in 1990 and 1991 that former WTO
members would not be allowed to join NATO. With good reason,
Russians fear that NATO will not only admit additional old members
of the WTO but also former republics of the USSR. In 1997, NATO
held naval exercises with Ukraine in the Black Sea, with more joint
exercises to come, and announced plans to use a military testing
ground in western Ukraine. In June 1998, Zbigniew Brzezinski went to
Kiev with the message that Ukraine should prepare itself to join
NATO by the year 2010.22 The further NATO intrudes into the Soviet
Union's old arena, the more Russia is forced to look to the south and
east rather than to the west. This seems all the more ironic when one
 NATO Expansion: A Realist's View 31
recalls that during the 1980s Russian military analysts began to believe
that long-range threats to Russia would come from the south and east,
not the west.23
Late in 1996, expecting a measure of indifference, I asked an
official in the Indian Ministry of External Affairs whether India was
concerned over the expansive NATO policy. He immediately replied
that a policy seemingly designed to bring Russia and China together
of course was of great concern to India. Despite much talk about the
'globalization' of international politics, American political leaders to a
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dismaying extent think of East or West rather than of their

interaction. With a history of conflict along a 2,600-mile border, with
ethnic minorities sprawling across it, with a mineral-rich and sparsely
populated Siberia facing China's teeming millions, Russia and China
will find it difficult to co-operate effectively, but we are doing our best
to help them do so. Indeed, the United States provides the key to
Russian-Chinese relations over the past half-century. Feeling
American antagonism and fearing American power, China drew close
to Russia after the Second World War and remained so until the
United States seemed less, and the Soviet Union more, of a threat to
China. The relatively harmonious relations the United States and
China enjoyed during the 1970s began to turn sour in the late 1980s
when Russian power visibly declined and American hegemony became
imminent. To alienate Russia by expanding NATO, and to alienate
China by pressing it to change its policies and lecturing its leaders on
how to rule their country, are policies that only an overwhelmingly
powerful country could afford, and only a foolish one be tempted, to
follow.
Once some countries are brought in, how can others be kept out?
Secretary Albright has said that no democratic country will be
excluded from NATO because of its position on the map. A hurt and
humiliated Russia can expect to suffer further pain. Secretary Albright
thinks it ridiculous of Russia to fear NATO's inclusion of a distant
Hungary, but the distance between additional members of the alliance
and Russia would be shorter.24 Anyway, it is not so much new members
that Russia fears as it is America's might moving ever closer to its
borders. Any country finds it difficult to understand how another
country feels. Americans should, however, be able to imagine what
their fears would be if they had lost the Cold War and Russia expanded
the WTO into the Americas, all the while claiming that it was acting
 32 Explaining NATO Enlargement
for the sake of stability in central America with no threat to the United
States implied. Adept statesmen keep their countries' potential
adversaries divided. The Clinton administration seemed to delight in
bringing them together.
Even while American leaders were assuring Russia that NATO's
expansion was not motivated by animosity towards Russia, American
and NATO estimates of the costs entailed depended in large
measure on speculations about when Russia would once again pose a
military threat to Europe.25 As Boris Yeltsin said in Moscow, with
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President Jiang Zemin at his side, 'someone is longing for a single-

polar world'.26 Pressure from the West helps to unite them in
opposition to this condition. Both parties now speak of a
'constructive partnership aimed at strategic co-operation in the
twenty-first century'.27 The American rhetoric of globalization turns
out to be globaloney: we fail to understand how our policy for one
region affects another.
Winners of wars, facing few impediments to the exercise of their
wills, have often acted in ways that created future enemies. Thus
Germany, by taking Alsace and most of Lorraine from France in 1871,
earned its lasting enmity; and the Allies' harsh treatment of Germany
after the First World War produced a similar effect. In contrast,
Bismarck persuaded the Kaiser not to march his armies along the road
to Vienna after the great victory at Koniggratz in 1866. In the Treaty
of Prague, Prussia took no Austrian territory. Thus Austria, having
become Austria-Hungary, was available as an alliance partner for
Germany in 1879. Rather than learning from history, the United States
is repeating past errors by extending its influence over what used to be
the province of the vanquished.28
Can one find any reason to be optimistic about the pointless policy
of expansion? Perhaps this to start with: in a co-ordinated
organization, more is less. The larger the number of members, the
greater the number of interests to be served and the more varied the
views that have to be accommodated. In the absence of a final arbiter,
aligning interests becomes more difficult as their numbers increase.
Just as a wider European Union means a shallower one, so a more
inclusive NATO means a less coherent and focused alliance. Western
Europeans think of NATO's expansion as being of low cost because
with no foe to fear additional military expenditure would have little
purpose. Thus French President Jacques Chirac said in effect not a
 NATO Expansion: A Realist's View 33
centime for NATO's expansion, and British leaders said not a penny.
Yet American leaders continued to claim that old and new European
members would pay the major share of the costs. NATO argued
enough about burden-sharing during the Cold War, and America by
and large lost because it believed that fairly or not it had to do what
Europe's and its own security required. A larger NATO will have
more to argue about and, lacking the disciplining threat of a serious
opponent, the arguments are likely to become more frequent and
bitter than they used to be.
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One can turn this the other way and say that differences will be
muted precisely because the absence of a threat means it matters little
whether they are resolved. The members of NATO, however, will still
have the obligation to come to one another's defence. The American
military will certainly take the obligation seriously, as it should.
Moreover, because nuclear deterrence covers only a country's manifestly
vital interests, it will not cover newly admitted members of the alliance.
Deterrence is cheaper than defence. The increase in American
commitments makes reliance on deterrence more desirable and less
possible.
The expansion of NATO extends its military interests, enlarges its
responsibilities and increases its burdens. Not only, do new members
require NATO's protection, they also heighten its concern over
destabilizing events near their borders. Thus Balkan eruptions
become a NATO and not just a European concern. In the absence of
European initiative, Americans believe they must lead the way because
the credibility of NATO is at stake. Balkan operations in the air
and even more so on the ground exacerbate differences of interest
among NATO members and strain the alliance. European members
marvel at the surveillance and communications capabilities of the
United States and stand in awe of the modern military forces at its
command. Aware of their weaknesses, Europeans express deter-
mination to modernize their forces and to develop their ability to
deploy them independently. Europe's reaction to America's Balkan
operations duplicates its determination to remedy deficiencies
revealed in 1991 during the Gulf War, a determination that produced
few results.
Will it be different this time? Perhaps, yet if European states do
achieve their goals of creating a 60,000 strong rapid reaction force
and enlarging the role of the WEU, the tension between a NATO
 34 Explaining NATO Enlargement
controlled by the United States and a NATO allowing for
independent European action will again be bothersome. In any
event, the prospect of militarily bogging down in the Balkans tests
the alliance and may indefinitely delay its further expansion.
Expansion buys trouble, and mounting troubles may bring expansion
to a halt.
European conditions and Russian opposition work against
the eastward extension of NATO. Pressing in the opposite direction
is the momentum of American expansion. The momentum of
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expansion has often been hard to break, a thought borne out by the
empires of Republican Rome, of Tsarist Russian, and of Liberal
Britain.
One is often reminded that the United States is not just the
dominant power in the world but that it is a liberal dominant power.
True, the motivations of the artificers of expansion - President
Clinton, national security adviser Anthony Lake, and others - were to
nurture democracy in young, fragile, long-suffering countries. One
may wonder, however, why this should be an American rather than a
European task and why a military rather than a political-economic
organization should be seen as the appropriate means for carrying it
out. The task of building democracy is not a military one. The military
security of new NATO members is not in jeopardy; their political
development and economic well-being are. In 1997, Assistant
Secretary of Defense Franklin D. Kramer told the Czech defence
ministry that it was spending too little on defence.29 Yet investing in
defence slows economic growth. By common calculation, defence
spending stimulates economic growth about half as much as
direct investment in the economy. In eastern Europe, economic not
military security is the problem and entering a military alliance
compounds it.
Using the example of NATO to reflect on the relevance of realism
after the Cold War leads to some important conclusions. The winner of
the Cold War and the sole remaining great power has behaved as
unchecked powers have usually done. In the absence of
counterweights, a country's internal impulses prevail whether fuelled
by liberal or by other urges. The error of realist predictions that the
end of the Cold War would mean the end of NATO arose not from a
failure of realist theory to comprehend international politics, but from
an underestimation of America's folly.
 NATO Expansion: A Realist's View 35
Do liberal institutionalists provide better leverage for explaining
NATO's survival and expansion? According to Keohane and Martin,
realists insist 'that institutions have only marginal effects'.30 On
the contrary, realists have noticed that whether institutions have
strong or weak effects depends on what states intend. Strong states
use institutions, as they interpret laws, in ways that suit them.
Thus, Susan Strange, in pondering the state's retreat, observes
that 'international organization is above all a tool of national
government, an instrument for the pursuit of national interest by
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other means'.31
Interestingly, Keohane and Martin, in their effort to refute
Mearsheimer's trenchant criticism, in effect agree with him. Having
claimed that his realism is 'not well specified', they note that
'institutional theory conceptualizes institutions both as independent and
dependent variables'.32 Dependent on what? - on 'the realities of power
and interest'. Institutions, it turns out, 'make a significant difference in
conjunction with power realities'.33 Yes! Liberal institutionalism, as
Mearsheimer says, 'is no longer a clear alternative to realism, but has, in
fact, been swallowed up by it'.34 Indeed, it never was an alternative to
realism. Institutionalist theory, as Keohane has stressed, has as its core
structural realism, which Keohane and Nye sought 'to broaden'.35 The
institutional approach starts with structural theory, applies it to the
origins and operations of institutions, and unsurprisingly ends with
realist conclusions.
Alliances illustrate the limitations of institutionalism with special
clarity. Keohane has remarked that 'alliances are institutions, and both
their durability and strength may depend in part on their institutional
characteristics'.36 In part, I suppose, but one must wonder on how large
a part. The Triple Alliance and the Triple Entente were quite durable.
They lasted not because of alliance institutions, there hardly being any,
but because the core members of each alliance looked outwards and
saw a pressing threat to their security. Previous alliances did not lack
institutions because states had failed to figure out how to construct
bureaucracies. Previous alliances lacked institutions because in the
absence of a hegemonic leader, balancing continued within as well as
across alliances. NATO lasted as a military alliance as long as the Soviet
Union appeared to be a direct threat to its members. It survives and
expands now not because of its institutions but mainly because the
United States wants it to.
 36 Explaining NATO Enlargement
NATO's survival also exposes an interesting aspect of balance-of-
power theory. Robert Art has argued forcefully that without NATO
and without American troops in Europe, European states will lapse
into a 'security competition' among themselves.37 As he emphasizes,
this is a realist expectation. In his view, preserving NATO, and
maintaining America's leading role in it, are required in order to
prevent a security competition that would promote conflict and impair
the institutions of the European Union. The secondary task of an
alliance, intra-alliance management, should continue to be performed
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by the United States even though the primary task, defence against an
external enemy, has disappeared. The point is worth pondering, but I
need to say here only that it further illustrates the dependence of
international institutions on national decisions. Balancing among
states is not inevitable. As in Europe, a hegemonic power may suppress
it. As a high-level European diplomat put it, 'it is not acceptable that
the lead nation be European. A European power broker is a hegemonic
power. We can agree on US leadership, but not on one of our own'.38
Accepting the leadership of a hegemonic power prevents a balance of
power from emerging in Europe, and better the hegemonic power
should be at a distance than next door.
Keohane believes that avoiding military conflict in Europe after the
Cold War depends greatly on whether the next decade is characterized
by a continuous pattern of institutionalized co-operation.39 If one
accepts the conclusion, the question that remains is what sustains
the 'pattern of institutionalized cooperation'? Realists know the
answer.

NOTES

1. I am indebted to Robert Rauchhaus for help on this paper from its conception to its
completion. For insightful and constructive criticism, I owe thanks to Karen Adams, Robert
Art, Richard Betts, Barbara Farnham, Anne Fox, Robert Jervis, Warner Schilling and Mark
Sheetz. The paper derives in part from my 'Structural Realism after the Cold War',
International Security, Vol.25, No.l (Summer 2000).
2. Quoted by Ted Robert Gurr, 'Persistence and Change in Political Systems, 1800-1971',
American Political Science Review, Vol.68, No.4 (Dec. 1974), p.1504. Cf. Paul Kennedy, The Rise
and Fall of Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000 (New York:
Random House, 1987).
3. 'Cover Story: Communism's Collapse Poses a Challenge to America's Military', U.S. News and
World Report, Vol.3, No.16 (14 Oct. 1991), p.28.
4. Michael Mastanduno, 'Preserving the Unipolar Moment: Realist Theories and U.S. Grand
Strategy after the Cold War', International Security, Vol.21, No.4 (Spring 1997), p.488. And see
Josef Joffe's interesting analysis of America's role, '"Britain or Bismarck"? Toward an
American Grand Strategy after Bipolarity', International Security, Vol.19 (Spring 1995).
 NATO Expansion: A Realist's View 37
5. Kenneth N. Waltz, 'The Emerging Structure of International Polities', International Security,
Vol.18, No.2 (Fall 1993), p.79.
6. Charles W. Kegley, Jr., 'The Neoidealist Moment in International Studies? Realist Myths and
the New International Realities', International Studies Quarterly, Vol.37, No.2 (June 1993),
p. 149.
7. Jacques Delors, 'European Integration and Security', Survival, Vol.33, No.l (March-April
1991), p.I06.
8. Europe: Magazine of the European Union, June 1997, p. 16.
9. See Kenneth N. Waltz, 'International Structure, National Force, and the Balance of World
Power', Journal of International Affairs, Vol.21, No.2 (1967), p.219.
10. John Roper, 'Shaping Strategy without the Threat', Adelphi Paper No.257 (London:
International Institute of Strategic Studies, Winter 1990/91), pp.80-1.
11. Waltz, 'The Emerging Structure of International Polities', pp.75-6.
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12. Glenn H. Snyder, Alliance Politics (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997), p.192.
13. Joseph A. Schumpter, writing of armies, put it this way: 'Created by wars that required it, the
machine now created the wars it required'. 'The Sociology of Imperialism', in Imperialism and
Socialism (New York: Meridian Books, 1955), p.25.
14. Gunther Hellmann and Reinhard Wolf, 'Neorealism, Neoliberal Institutionalism, and the
Future of NATO', Security Studies, Vol.3, No.l (Autumn 1993), p.20.
15. Bernard Brodie, War and Politics (New York: Macmillan, 1973), pp.338-9.
16. Mark S. Sheetz, 'Correspondence', International Security, Vol.22, No.3 (Winter 1997/98),
p. 170; Mike Winnerstig, 'Rethinking Alliance Dynamics' (paper given at the International
Studies Association annual meeting, Washington, DC, 18-22 March 1997), p.23.
17. Robert O. Keohane and Lisa Martin, 'The Promise of Institutional Theory', International
Security, Vol.20, No.l (Summer 1995), p.40.
18. James M. Goldgeier, 'NATO Expansion: The Anatomy of a Decision', Washington Quarterly,
Vol.21, No.l (Winter 1998), pp.94-5; and see his Not Whether But When: The U.S. Decision to
Enlarge NATO (Washington, DC: Brookings, 1999).
19. William D. Hartung, 'Welfare for Weapons Dealers 1998: The Hidden Costs of NATO
Expansion' (New York: New School for Social Research, World Policy Institute, March 1998).
Jeff Gerth and Tim Weiner, 'Arms Makers See Bonanza in Selling NATO Expansion', New
York Times, 29 June 1997, pp.I, 8.
20. See Michael Brown, 'The Flawed Logic of Expansion', Survival, Vol.37, No.l (Spring 1995),
pp.34-52. Michael Mandelbaum, The Dawn of Peace in Europe (New York: Twentieth Century
Fund Press, 1996). Phillip Zelikow, 'The Masque of Institutions', Survival, Vol.38, No.l
(Spring 1996).
21. J.L. Black, Russia Faces NATO Expansion: Bearing Gifts or Bearing Arms? (Lanham, MD:
Rowman and Littlefield, 2000), pp.5-35, 175-201.
22. Ibid., pp. 156-64.
23. Madeleine K. Albright, 'Stop Worrying about Russia', New York Times, 29 April 1998.
24. Steven Erlanger, 'A War of Numbers Emerges over Cost of Enlarging NATO', New York
Times, 13 Oct. 1997, p.Al.
25. Michael R. Gordon, 'Russia-China Theme: Contain the West', New York Times, 24 April 1997,
p.A3.
26. 'Yeltsin in China to Put an End to Border Issue', New York Times, 10 Nov. 1997, p.A8.
27. Tellingly, John Lewis Gaddis comments that he has never known a time when there was less
support among historians for an announced policy. 'History, Grand Strategy and NATO
Enlargement', Survival, Vol.40 (Spring 1998), p.147.
28. Black, Russia Faces NATO Expansion, p.72.
29. Keohane and Martin, 'The Promise of Institutional Theory', pp.42, 46.
30. Strange, Retreat of the State (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), p.xiv; and see
pp. 192-3.
31. Keohane and Martin, 'The Promise of Institutional Theory', p.46.
32. Ibid., p.42.
33. Mearsheimer, 'A Realist Reply', International Security, Vol.10, No.l (Summer 1995), p.85.
34. Robert O. Keohane and Joseph S. Nye, Power and Interdependence, 2nd ed. (New York: Harper
 38 Explaining NATO Enlargement
Collins, 1989), p.251; cf. Keohane, 'Theory of World Polities', in Keohane (ed.), Neo Realism
and Its Critics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986), p. 193, where he describes his
approach as a 'modified structural research program'.
35. Keohane, International Institutions and State Power: Essays in International Relations Theory
(Boulder, Colorado: Westview, 1989), p.15
36. Robert J. Art, 'Why Western Europe Needs the United States and NATO', Political Science
Quarterly, Vol.111, No.l (Spring 1996).
37. Ibid., p.36.
38. Robert O. Keohane, 'The Diplomacy of Structural Change: Multilateral Institutions and State
Strategies', in Helga Haftendorn and Christian Tuschoff (eds.), America and Europe in an Era
of Change (Boulder: Westview, 1993), p.53.
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