NATO eastward enlargement: Strategic implications for Eurasia

The enlargement process deeply influences the impact of NATO involvement and activities in the respective areas of interest and responsibility and significantly strengthens the capacity of the organization to more effectively cope with the new security threats. Involving new members with their national interests, strategic goals and historic experience, NATO enhances its understanding of south East Europe, Black sea area, and even Russia. NATO eastward enlargement is also a key element in the process of the Alliance’ s evolution and transformation. Since the 1990s NATO has consistently evolved into an organization whose main functions are crisis management, collective security, and peace and stability operations. With the enlargement towards CEE NATO has seized to exist as a military-political block with a restricted mission to contain potential aggressors against the territory of its members. NATO has been transformed into a system of security for the Euro-Atlantic space of democratic nations.