Understanding NATO Enlargement

Abstract: NATO as an institution always kept the interest on many theorist and researchers. NATO enlargement as a process has become subject of analysis, especially after the Cold War. This is because, the existence of the NATO Alliance before this period was only seen as a creation balancing the Soviet Threat. With the end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the USSR, NATO transformed itself gradually. Since, the Soviet threat in not present any more, the researchers were and still are analyzing the NATO enlargement in terms what is the current threat that makes these countries willing to become part of NATO, and what is NATO interest in further enlarging. The concerns have been raised in some studies, but no one seems to have solved the puzzle. In this article I would make and analysis and try to explain this concerns. This would be done by analyzing and comparing the countries that had been admitted until know. Based on the indicators revealed by the analysis, alternative explanations based on the realism and neo- liberal institutionalism would be provided. I conclude that NATO is still a complex process that should be further analyzed in order the process to be clear. But as interesting points revealed in this study are that NATO enlargement is not based only on the criteria and requirements that the aspirant countries should fulfill. Aside form these requirements, the relations on the bilateral level, and the events and the relations on the international level seem to have a huge influence on the NATO enlargement.