Paris -- This week's meeting in Budapest of the CSCE organization -- incorporating all of the governments concerned with European security -- takes place in the midst of tension over the Bosnia crisis and inter-allied conflict over NATO's expansion and the alliance's future role in Europe.
One would think CSCE complementary to NATO rather than rival. Its purpose is to assure a dialogue between Russia and the other former Soviet countries and the nations of the Western alliance. It was created in the course of the Cold War's winding down, an element in the detente that broke out when Mikhail Gorbachev launched his reforms of the Soviet system.
The practical importance of CSCE is not great since the organization does not actually do very much, other than talk, and must have a consensus of views to be able to do anything at all.
NATO does do things: It deploys armies, conducts air and naval operations, is capable of going to war. It is exclusive. It is a security alliance, originally directed against Russia, which now contemplates admitting that country.
CSCE is inclusive. It makes no invidious distinctions between nations. It is valued by Russia precisely because it does not draw a line between vulnerable countries anxious about their security, and those others thought to be possible future threats to good order in Europe.
Should such invidious distinctions be drawn? If not, it is hard to see why NATO should exist. Its past role was to defend the West against the Soviet Union, and there is no more Soviet Union. It recently undertook a new role as the strong arm of U.N. peacekeeping in Bosnia; but this has led to confusion and frustration -- to the humiliation both of the United Nations and NATO -- and has done little to produce or "keep" peace.
So what is the purpose now of NATO? There would seem to be two possible functions for the alliance. The first is its classic role: to defend its members against a renewed threat from the East, should that come. As Russians themselves acknowledge, their country remains unstable. There is some danger of reversion to a belligerent nationalism, and conceivably -- if we are to take seriously the threats of Vladimir Zhirinovsky, a man who wants to be Russia's president -- of renewed aggressive behavior toward Russia's neighbors.
Much of the debate over NATO takes place in terms of an argument that says admitting Russia to NATO will strengthen democratic forces there, while to exclude Russia would strengthen undemocratic nationalists. This reflects the dangerous assumption that foreign influences are determinant in what happens to Russia.
Surely what happens in Russia's internal political affairs during the next few years will be determined by internal forces. It is rash to think otherwise. Russia's relations with the West have already been soured by the interference of well-intentioned Western governments and individuals who think that they can, or should, teach Russians what to do. The NATO affair is a factor -- but only one factor -- in influencing Russian popular and elite opinion.
The other function of NATO is to guarantee the security of its internal as well as external frontiers, assuring the peaceful conduct of its own members. This is a role extremely valuable to Russia, as well as to the United States, Western Europe and the central and Eastern European countries now candidates for NATO membership. In the foreseeable future, the threat to peace does not come from beleaguered Russia -- whatever the scenarios envisaged by some Western commentators -- but from instability born of ethnic nationalism in the region.
In a fundamental way, it was very easy for NATO to protect the West against the Soviet Union. The goal was clear. The means were available. Everyone believed in the necessity of the alliance. The public would pay, and willingly sent its young men into NATO service.
But today one must ask if the Western governments are prepared to deal with instability in Eastern Europe. Will they really guarantee Hungary's borders, when it has old and acrimonious quarrels with Serbia, Slovakia and Romania over the status of Hungarian minorities in those countries? Is the U.S. prepared to treat any violation of Poland's frontiers as equivalent to an attack on its own frontiers? Are Britain, France or Germany so prepared?
I think it would be prudent and wise for Washington, London, Paris and Bonn to say "yes." But I am not sure that this decision would have popular support. I favor such a guarantee because I think it serves Russia's interests, too. Western-guaranteed stability on Russia's western borders is a very good idea.
Russia has need of an orderly central and Eastern Europe. So does the West. NATO can provide that. It certainly has better chance of doing this than it has of influencing Russia's internal affairs, or that of Russia's neighbors in what used to be the Soviet Union.
NATO does have an important future role. It is to extend its system of international solidarity eastward, on terms that
guarantee the mutual respect of its members for one another's interests, and of their commitment to negotiation and the peaceful adjudication of conflicts. If it succeeds in that, it stabilizes the geopolitical terrain that Russia occupies, and that is good for everyone.
8, William Pfaff is a syndicated columnist.