ACCESSION NUMBER:384201
FILE ID:TXT301
DATE:03/22/95
TITLE:HOLBROOKE ON NATO (03/22/95)
TEXT:*95032201.TXT
HOLBROOKE ON NATO
(VOA Editorial)  (330)
(Following is an editorial, broadcast by the Voice of America March 22,
expressing the policies of the U.S. government.)

For 45 years, the Cold War created clear choices of right and wrong and an
unambiguous dividing line in the middle of Europe.  But with the collapse
of Soviet communism, those divisions have ceased to exist.  In recent
testimony before members of the U.S. Congress, Assistant Secretary of State
Richard Holbrooke said the NATO alliance now has the opportunity to help
secure a free and undivided continent.

The birth of democracy in the East brought an early euphoria, which has
since been replaced by a sober appreciation of new problems.  Internal
political and economic instability and the return of historic grievances
have replaced Soviet expansionism as the greatest threat to peace in
Europe.  These forces, make clear an inescapable fact: despite the Cold
War's end, Europe still needs the active American involvement that has been
a necessary component of European peace for half a century.

The United States is working with European countries and Canada to build a
new European security structure.  These efforts focus on the U.S.
maintaining strong relations with Western Europe, consolidating democracy
in Central Europe and the nations of the former Soviet Union, and engaging
Russia as a responsible partner.  The Partnership for Peace is an important
tool for promoting this cooperation between NATO and its new partners to
the East.  It is also the best path to membership for countries willing and
able to join the alliance.

NATO remains the anchor of American engagement in Europe and the linchpin of
transatlantic security.  As Assistant Secretary of State Holbrooke said,
NATO has always been more than a transitory response to a temporary threat
-- it has been a guarantor of European democracy and a force for stability.
 Its expansion -- now being studied by the 16 allies in Brussels -- will
work to improve the prospects for wider peace on the European continent.

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