CROATIA & USA - 1996 AND BEYOND
Croatia and the Atlantic Alliance
The Emerging Cooperative Security Order
The end of the Cold War and the collapse of Communism fundamentally altered the structure of international relations and for the First time enabled European stability and security to be based on cooperation rather than animosity. To turn the vision of a new Europe into a reality requires a serious consideration of fundamental elements of multilateral diplomacy and cooperation. The key question is how to manage the process of NATO expansion in a way that does not at any stage produce categories of security "haves" and "have nots" in Europe while calibrating the nature of NATO's activities in a way that both deters security threats to European stability from arising and manages them, if and when such threats do arise. As Henry Kissinger recently said, "NATO expansion requires a decision, not a study." For Croatia, considerations of enlarging nato into Central and East Europe require opening a dialogue on fundamentals that enhance cooperative security and that reinforces the role that NATO has and will continue to play in consolidating democratization and emerging market economies.
NATO enlargement should follow the expansion of democracy in Central and East Europe to reinforce the consensus that undergirds the coherence of Europe and stability on the continent. The principal unifying idea of the Atlantic Alliance is not just security; today it involves common purposes, interests and values that provide the cohesion of a stable alliance. This year will be a defining moment in the history of NATO as it comes to articulate its role in the new Europe. The Alliance will move forward in a process of change and renewal by expanding NATO membership and enhancing the Partnership For Peace (PFP) initiative to broaden the scope of cooperation.
NATO is the political and security institution that, more than any other factor, is responsible for the past 50 years of peace, stability and prosperity in Western Europe. In rebuilding Europe and maintaining peace, NATO is surely the single most successful military and political alliance in modern history. NATO's value to the United States was recently recognized by Congress in the nato Enlargement Act of 1996, which stated that NATO "has played an essential role in guaranteeing the security, freedom and prosperity of the United States." This success cannot be preserved, consolidated and extended without bringing into NATO's framework the emerging democracies of Central and Eastern Europe.
Croatia is pleased that the Clinton Administration has endorsed the early expansion of NATO. We fully support the Administration's efforts to bring in new members. We applaud the Congress for passing the NATO Enlargement Facilitation Act last fall. That legislation recognized in a tangible form the importance of NATO expansion to United States security interests, and made clear that such expansion was a bipartisan effort.
At that time, the Congress also recognized (in the report accompanying the legislation), that Croatia should, in its turn, be considered for NATO membership, making clear that Croatia should be recognized and commended for its contributions to nato and the various peace-keeping efforts in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In addition, the report said the U.S. should "support the active participation of Croatia in activities appropriate for qualifying for NATO membership."
Croatia is fully committed to the commonly-shared values and goals of the Western European democracies and those of the United States. For most of their history, the Croatian people have been an integral part of the "West." Western values and democratic standards are deeply rooted in Croatia's political traditions, mores and institutions. This commitment was clearly demonstrated by the sacrifices and contributions made by Croatia to the anti-fascist struggle during the Second World War to the ultimate victory of the Allies.
In the years since the collapse of communist Yugoslavia, Croatia has reasserted and defended its independence, establishing in the process a fully functioning democratic political structure. It has a constitution which guarantees its citizens the same fundamental rights assured by other Western constitutions, and has held successive elections which have been monitored and declared to be free and fair by international organizations. Croatia's military is completely under civilian control, and has a proven record of cooperation with NATO's Dayton Accord-related forces (IFOR and SFOR) in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Croatia's intelligence and police forces are also under civilian control, and along with the military, share technical data and intelligence information with NATO and United Nations forces.
Croatia is deeply committed to establishing and preserving a stable constitutional democracy that will endure. There is an obvious internal impetus for this evolving maturation of Croatian democracy-the Croatian people want to enjoy all of democracy's benefits. Nevertheless, close cooperation with, and eventual membership in, Western security, political, and economic institutions will expedite this process. When NATO was established, German democracy was in its infancy, and the survival of democratic regimes in other Western European states (such as Italy or Greece) was in doubt. More than anything else, it was the stabilizing influence of NATO membership that assured the survival of democratic institutions in Western Europe, and that influence can and should now assure their success in Central and Eastern Europe.
Croatia is well able to undertake the obligations of NATO membership. Croatia has a highly educated and motivated workforce. In the six years following the achievement of its independence, Croatia has built and significantly developed a healthy and expanding economy, despite a tragic war that resulted in almost 10,000 deaths and an estimated $27 billion in damages. It has instituted an aggressive privatization program, and enjoys a robust economy. Inflation has stabilized at around 3.5 percent annually, and economic growth in the past several years has been between five and seven percent. Our economic performance now is comparable to that of the Czech Republic and Slovenia, our economy can be expected to continue its solid growth as the government's privatization program proceeds and our infrastructure is rebuilt and improved.
In addition, NATO will gain significant strategic benefits from the inclusion of Croatia. Croatia borders on Slovenia and Hungary (both slated for eventual NATO membership) and shares the largest portion of the Adriatic with Italy. Croatia's seacoast and ports are highly valuable from both a strategic and tactical perspective, and Croatia's eastern border on the Danube-once its Eastern Slavonian territory is fully reintegrated to Croatian authority-will ensure that this vital inland waterway remains open to commerce and trade.
In this regard, Croatia already has proven its strategic worth to NATO by serving as both a staging ground and a headquarters to at least four international peace-keeping operations, including NATO's IFOR. Indeed, as part of its implementation of the peace process in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia has cooperated closely with the NATO forces, and will continue to work with nato and the Contact Group to ensure the security of those forces and the successful completion of their mission. Croatia believes that this experience has trained it well for cooperating with, supporting, and implementing NATO's mission.
Croatia has already taken concrete steps toward achieving NATO membership. It has moved quickly to fulfill the requirements set forth in the Framework Document of the Partnership for Peace Program, which is the first essential step toward joining NATO's PFP. Croatia's potential for PFP membership has been acknowledged on several occasions by U.S. Defense Secretary William J. Perry and, during his official visit to Croatia last March, Secretary Perry reiterated his preparedness to sponsor Croatia's initiative to join the PFP initiative. At the end of the talks in Zagreb, agreement was reached on the strengthening of military cooperation between Croatia and the United States. This cooperation will include joint military training and exercises, especially in peace-keeping operations, exchange programs for military officers, and cooperation in the field of military and defense materials. To that end, a bilateral working group will be established and charged with the task of developing an efficient structure for defense cooperation.
Although the PFP provides a framework for each of the new Central and Eastern European democracies to advance at its own speed and terms, such flexibility should not compromise the likelihood nor the ultimate quality of the NATO partnership. In this regard, Croatia views its future participation in the PFP, and other regional security and defense systems, as a vehicle to full integration into the Atlantic Alliance. We strongly believe that there are no realistic alternatives to full integration of the new democracies, including Croatia, into NATO. If left to chance, the post-Cold War European landscape can quickly succumb to instability. The case of Croatia, and even more so, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the very places where Europe and the international community temporarily abdicated their responsibilities, proves the point best.
In the final analysis, Croatia supports the unity of Europe. It views the establishment of a new European security system aimed at the preservation of fundamental human rights and democracy as a joint task. If the "new Europe" is to become a reality, the historic nations of both Western, Central and Eastern Europe, and the United States will have to work together to integrate the newly emerging democracies of Central, Southern and Eastern Europe into a new, and stronger security system. We believe that Croatia's membership will contribute to achieving the goals of the new transatlantic cooperative security order.
