This research examines the status and continued role of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The research focuses on the issue of whether there is a continuing role for NATO in the changing global political environment and, if a role for NATO can be defended in this changing environment, whether the membership in NATO should be expanded to include former Warsaw Pact nations.
The crumbling of the so-called Communist Empire in Eastern Europe in 1989 and 1990 led many political analysts to proclaim that the transformation of international political environment from a bipolar character, in which the United States and the Soviet Union were the principal players, would result in either: (1) a multipolar character, in which either (a) the United States will be but one of several major players (Hyland 5), or (b) the United States, Japan, and the reunited Germany will be the major players, with a considerably less significant role for Russia (Tarnoff 67-80); or (2) a unipolar character in which the United States is the dominant world power (Sanders 27-35). According to many political analysts, NATO becomes superfluous regardless of which of the forecasted scenarios evolves (Morrison 11-15).
There is little doubt that the international political order is changing, and that in the spring of 1997 it is significantly different from what it was in the fall of 1988 just before the collapse of the Soviet Union's dominance over Eastern Europe began. Although the United States appears to be attempting to assume a role as the ruler of the world, it is somewhat too soon to predict with any degree of accuracy who the major players in the developing multipolar or unipolar environment will and will not be, and which, if any, of these players will be first among equals over the long-term. In spite of the difficulties being experienced the national government in Russia, a great leap of faith is required to assume that a major international ...