Author: Dr Stephen J Blank
NATO's enlargement will be perhaps the most important defense and foreign policy issue of 1997. Certainly, its impact will exert a decisive influence on the future evolution of European security and the institutions that comprise it. This process raises a host of serious issues concerning Europe, not the least being the questions of what can or will be done for those states who are not members of NATO or will not be able to enter in the first round of enlargement. Other issues include the impact of enlargement on NATO as an alliance system, on U.S. foreign and defense policy, and on the European neutrals. With these questions in mind, the Strategic Studies Institute (SSI) and the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) convened a roundtable in Washington on January 27, 1997. The chapters in this report originally were presented at that roundtable. In publishing these papers SSI and CSIS offer the substantive contributions of six expert authors to the growing public debate over NATO enlargement.