Czechs mark 10 years of NATO membership

One decade has elapsed since the Czech Republic definitively brought down the remains of the Iron Curtain by joining NATO. For the alliance, the 1999 event, which also saw the accession of Poland and Hungary, marked the beginning of an expansionary era.

Seven more countries, all formerly communist, have since joined the organization, and the accession of two more, Croatia and Albania, appears imminent. Yet, as NATO approaches its 60th anniversary and sprawls further east, the debate over the principal focus of this alliance - originally forged as a counterbalance to the Soviet bloc - continues to fulminate.

At last year's NATO summit in Bucharest, Russia's Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, then the country's president, openly questioned the organization's future prospects: "NATO was created when there was still an author of evil in the Soviet Union. Today, there is no Soviet bloc … yet NATO still exists."

Such claims can be interpreted as a manifestation of the wariness with which Moscow views NATO's graduation toward its borders, infringing on what it still views as its traditional domain. Yet even those inside the alliance recognize the need for a new strategic mission that would boost NATO's effectiveness and allow it to face the challenges of an increasingly multipolar world.

"It is evident that it took a long time for the U.S. to figure out what the Soviets were doing while assembling satellite states. It took the 1948 [communist coup in Czechoslovakia] for the U.S. to realize this, and NATO was born."
Madeleine Albright, former U.S. secretary of state

"The tale of NATO expansion is happening without an adequately clear military-strategic concept, which is always formed as somewhat of an afterthought. [Russian Foreign Affairs Minister Sergey] Lavrov has said that we belong in Eastern Europe. … It's time to stop being afraid to say the name of the country that considers us its enemy."
Luboš Dobrovský, former Czech ambassador to Russia and Charter 77 spokesman

"When the Czech Republic was entering NATO during the time of my government, the Russians protested, and I said it was none of their business. On the other hand, we should take Russia's protests against the entry of Ukraine and Georgia into consideration."
Miloš Zeman, former Czech prime minister

At a March 12-13 Prague conference marking the 10th anniversary of NATO's enlargement, global diplomats and security experts reflected on the Czech NATO experience while pondering the alliance's future direction. The purpose is no longer to "keep the Russian out, the Americans in and the Germans down," said German Deputy Defense Minister Christian Schmidt, alluding to a famous 1949 quote by Lord Ismay, the organization's first secretary general.

Though political developments of the past two decades have redefined this world power's relationship with the West, Russia remains a precarious, albeit essential, piece of the NATO puzzle. U.S.-Russia relations had reached a freezing point by the end of U.S. President George W. Bush's final term. After loudly protesting Ukraine and Georgia's NATO aspirations on the grounds that they lay within its traditional sphere of influence, Russia invaded Georgia last August in a conflict over that country's secessionist regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. NATO reacted by suspending its formal ties with Moscow for several months.

A second point of contention is the U.S. plan to install a NATO-sanctioned missile-defense shield in the Czech Republic and Poland. Although Iran and North Korea are the system's declared targets, Russia remains unconvinced. Negotiations all but crashed when the Kremlin demanded to install Russian monitors on the shield sites, resurrecting local memories of Soviet occupation.

The current hope is that the reformed stance of the new U.S. administration will warm relations with the Kremlin. Advocating what U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called a "fresh start," NATO foreign ministers renewed formal ties with Russia earlier this month.

The move, coupled with recent signals from U.S. President Barack Obama's cabinet that Washington is willing to rethink its missile-defense strategy in exchange for Russian cooperation on Iran, indicates that NATO views Moscow as key strategic partner, in spite of its expansion toward Russian borders. "The NATO-Russia relationship is too valuable to be stuck in arguments over things that define us," said NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer.

While it continues to clash with Russia on key issues, NATO needs Moscow to effectively resolve Afghanistan, its current nemesis. A NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) has operated in the country since 2003, marking the alliance's first military engagement outside the Euro-Atlantic area. The Afghan operation also illustrates NATO's post-9-11 interpretation of Article 5 of the NATO charter, which states that an attack on any member shall be considered an attack on all.

Six years into the engagement, Afghanistan remains NATO's most pressing challenge. The country's virtually inaccessible border with Pakistan is a hotbed for global Islamic extremist networks, making it the primary battleground in the fight against terrorism.

"The Taliban remains formidable for reasons that are less military than cultural," said former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. "No outside force has ever been welcomed in Afghanistan for long, and none has ever fully achieved its goals."

NATO's strategy in Afghanistan is to ensure internal stability by training the country's security forces and helping build up civil institutions. As the United States increases its military presence and urges other NATO members to do the same, it is still too early to speculate on a potential end date for the operation. "The success of this task is a condition for the alliance to focus on other problems, from the Balkans to energy security," said U.S. Ambassador to NATO Kurt Volker.

Local perspectives

While attitudes toward Russia and expansion differ, Czech politicians looks back at their country's NATO accession as an essential step out of the Cold War. Former President Václav Havel, credited with bringing the first trio of former Soviet satellites into NATO, recalls the high level of reluctance Czech policymakers faced at the time, both from a leery local populace and skeptical West European member states.

"Among all the arguments … was the question, what is the alternative?" he said. "In some way, the Iron Curtain would continue." Instead of prospective European Union membership, states like the Czech Republic would be prone to nationalist regimes with leaders in the style of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milošević, Havel noted.

Public support for NATO has grown significantly since the country's 1999 inception. Recent independent polls show that 75 percent of Czechs now support the membership. With 580 soldiers in ISAF and just over 400 in the KFOR Kosovo peacekeeping force, the Czechs are considered a fully contributing NATO member, Scheffer said. The costs of operating these missions are just over one percent of the country's gross domestic product.

The global economic crisis is expected to affect NATO financing, but given the security that NATO offers, "It's fair to say that the costs of NATO membership have … remained modest," Scheffer said.

Markéta Hulpachová can be reached at
features@praguepost.com