NATO Enlargement

What was the purpose of NATO enlargement? What were its benefits and drawbacks? How was it perceived by key actors, including Eastern European and Russian leaders? This chapter reviews the concept of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) enlargement and resets its conceptual parameters by revisiting the key policy and scholarly disputes that have shaped the Alliance&s;s decision-making since its inception. It also highlights the different political tensions that have emerged over time between different perspectives that either present NATO enlargement as a normative good or a geopolitical error. This chapter argues instead that it should be understood as a flexible strategic tool that served (and still serves) many, and sometimes competing, objectives. NATO&s;s open-door policy should be approached with a nuanced perspective that rejects monocausal explanations and acknowledges the role played by the historical and geopolitical context at the time and the individual agency of the key actors involved. Not all new members were invited—or joined—for the same reasons. Not all new adhesions had the same positive or negative consequences.