(i.)

a. Achievements. The NATO Study reaffirms NATO’s repeated pledge that the possibility of membership will not be foreclosed to any European country (Ch. 2 para. 29). It understands Europe broadly as the OSCE area (Ch. 2 para. 15).

This pledge is an essential part of NATO’s strategy for avoiding the damage that would be done if NATO’s enlargement were to exclude Russia. If Russia were excluded, then enlargement really would mean the isolation of Russia, both diplomatically and strategically, no matter how much of a consolation prize was offered along the lines of external consultative links. It would have the result of discrediting definitively the country’s entire Westernizing orientation since 1986 and driving Russia into the arms of its forthright convinced anti-Westernizers. In a Weimar-style period in Russian politics, in which tens of millions of people, socially disoriented and newly thrown into political life, have voted for Zhirinovsky and Zyuganov, there are simply no limits as to how dangerous the reaction could become. This is a reality about which Westerners cannot afford any illusions. It cannot be dismissed, as some facile old Soviet hands would like to dismiss it, as a charade pulled by the Russian regime for the sake of scaring the West.

b. Shortcomings. Despite the repeated pledge of NATO’s openness, many people in the NATO milieu still feel a sort of “cognitive dissonance” at the idea of Russia ever joining the Alliance. They have regarded the pledge of openness to Russia as a public relations line, not something they ever want to implement. This is not lost on the Russians, who have despaired of NATO ever letting their country in and have concluded, logically enough, that NATO’s enlargement would isolate their country. Leaders from virtually all Russian political tendencies have made clear that, while the compensation links offered to Russia can slightly soften their sharply negative view of NATO enlargement, only the inclusion of Russia in the enlargement can actually change their view from negative to positive.

For these reasons, it is necessary to take substantive steps to make the pledge of openness to Russia meaningful: to make serious plans for it, to prepare an accession process which Russians could really hope to get through, and to reform NATO procedures in ways sufficient that NATO could be confident of its ability to continue functioning effectively with Russia as a member. Otherwise even the public relations value of the pledge will be – or rather, will continue to be – lost.

c. Further Steps. The steps outlined in the NATO Study to prevent blockage of later accessions (section 3 above) constitute an important step in the direction of giving meaning to the pledge of openness to Russia. However, they still fall short, as noted earlier. The shortcomings are especially sharp when it comes to the danger of blockage of Russian accession. Many of the present NATO personnel and members have ingrained prejudices about Russia, and all of the prospective new entrants have historical scores to settle with Russia. Under conditions of a legal unit-veto with an enlarged membership, the likelihood of Russian entry getting fair consideration would shrink to nearly zero. The “Further Steps” outlined in section 3 above provide the minimum conditions for overcoming this problem and, with it, Russia's despair.

(ii.)

a. Achievements. Pending the day when it is ready to consider Russian membership, NATO’s goal is a working partnership with Russia. Here the Study points to what has already been achieved: the Partnership for Peace and the NATO-Russia agreement of May 31, 1995 on broader dialogue and cooperation. It looks forward to the results of a discussion underway between NATO and Russia, which it hopes will “achiev(e) by the end of this year a political framework for NATO-Russia relations elaborating basic principles for security cooperation as well as for the development of mutual political consultations.” (Ch. 2 para. 25 and 26) The Study makes no proposals of its own to enable the cooperation to work; it simply waits on the negotiations which (thanks largely to Russia’s insistence) are now underway.

b. Shortcomings. NATO’s structure and procedures are ill-adapted for live and regular cooperation with a non-member country. This has already been observed by Russia in the difficulties it has had with its existing partnership with NATO.

Russian Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev has warned (Sept. 27, 1995) that the partnership already isn't working because of what he calls the "organizational trap" in NATO. Even if in NATO they want partnership, he continued, it fails, because there are sixteen nations in NATO, they have an internal mechanism to consult among themselves, they make their compromises, and then they come out with ready-made decisions and fail to compromise with Russia. Sometimes they consult Russia, sometimes not even that. Russians, he concluded, are increasingly concerned that NATO is something that does not include them.

It behooves us to listen to Kozyrev's points. It is the West, after all, that has proclaimed that an intensification of the partnership between NATO and Russia is the solution to all of Russia's fears of isolation. If we are serious about this – if we do not mean it as window-dressing for an actual policy of isolating Russia – we had better listen to what Kozyrev is telling us about what it is that stands in the way of a functioning partnership.

The crucial problem is the “organizational trap.” NATO is so focused on its internal process of reaching consensus among its member nations that it has no space left for give-and-take with external "partners" like Russia. It too often isn't willing to consider adjusting its decisions after they have been made by internal consensus, for fear that the consensus will unravel. This seemingly arcane organizational problem is actually quite well known in EU discourse, where is goes under the name of the “joint decision trap” and is understood to arise if consensus is required for decision-making. It afflicts NATO’s relations with all external partners, including other international organizations, not just its relations with Russia.

c. Further Steps. The key to solving to this problem, as to the problem of enabling enlargement to proceed without loss of decision-making capability, is to streamline the decision-making process in NATO, as indicated in the “Further Steps” under section 1 above. Beyond this, if for the interim NATO has only an external link with Russia, it needs to give this link a meaningful position in the consultative schedule, with frequent NAC + 1 meetings, and to get rid of the widespread prejudice that any agreement with Russia's position amounts to “yielding” or “giving Russia a veto”.