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PERSPECTIVE
Since the conflict in Kosovo, we can probably expect the familiar debates about Canada's involvement in NATO to continue, as issues of cost-effectiveness, democracy, and constructive engagement remain unresolved.
Although Canada has been a committed member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) since the alliance was founded in 1949, it has not greeted all NATO decisions with unalloyed pleasure, as the recent debate about enlargement and the controversy over NATO bombing of Kosovo and Serbia will attest. And we can probably expect yet another debate about Canada's commitment to NATO later this year because the foreign minister, Lloyd Axworthy, has promised to question NATO's continued reliance on unclear deterrence. There is also bound to be future dissension over whether the Allies should embrace such countries as Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia in a 'second round of expansion.' While issues related to NATO expansion and the war in Kosovo have dominated the news lately, it might be useful to stand back and look at some past debates and possible future issues around Canada's NATO involvement since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the cold war.
CURRENT CONTROVERSIES
Expansion could be a risky business
In the spring of 1999, before the war in Kosovo, NATO was preparing a party in Washington, DC, to mark its fiftieth anniversary. Celine Dion would sing, and NATO jet fighters would fly in formation overhead. Among the achievements to be celebrated was NATO's expansion from 16 to 19 members as it took in Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic in the first round of enlargement. But the black ties and tuxedos were never unpacked, and the big party was cancelled in favour of a quiet meeting to discuss what might be done about the crisis in Kosovo.
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Although every political party in Russia vigorously opposed NATO expansion, at the last moment, President Boris Yeltsin backed down. Nonetheless, the issue raised a great deal of controversy. Some NATO analysts in the West and in the East saw expansion as a regression to regional alliance formations and balance-of-power politics. Some even feared a return to the politics of containment, to the focus on military force, to collective defence, and possibly extended deterrence. Others saw it as...