April 19, 2022

Was NATO Enlargement a Mistake?

Source: Foreign Affairs

We at Foreign Affairs have recently published a number of pieces on NATO, the decision to proceed with its enlargement, and its impact on European and global security. To complement these articles, we decided to ask a broad pool of experts for their take. As with previous surveys, we approached dozens of authorities with specialized expertise relevant to the question at hand, together with leading generalists in the field. Participants were asked to state whether they agreed or disagreed with a proposition and to rate their confidence level in their opinion. Their answers are below.

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Maria Snegovaya: NATO enlargement is a fake pretext to excuse Russian aggression against its neighbors. This argument does not comply with the timing of expansion: when Russian leadership was more pro-Western, NATO enlargement was not a problem. The issue is resurgent Russian revanchism and imperialism, trying to prevent post-Soviet space, the zone of Russian strategic interest, from becoming more integrated with the West.

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Author

  • Maria Snegovaya

    Former Adjunct Senior Fellow, Transatlantic Security Program

    Maria Snegovaya (Ph.D., Columbia University) is a former adjunct senior fellow in the Transatlantic Security Program at CNAS. She also serves as a Postdoctoral Fellow in Polit...