January-April 1998

Nato Expansion:

Who Profits and Who Pays?

Following our July 1997 campaign raising questions about the expansion of NATO, the Mainstream Media Project organized a second wave of media outreach in the spring of 1998. As prominent Senators postponed a vite in the issue and called for a full national debate on the plan's costs and consequences. While President Clinton was pushing for admission of up to a dozen former Eastern bloc nations over the coming decade, we got foreign policy experts from left, right, and center on radio programs raising pointed questions about the plan.

Our guests addressed the following questions:

• Who would profit and who would pay the tens or hundreds of billions required to modernize antiquated Eastern European armies?
  
  
• How would Russia respond to a move that many experts viewed as needlessly antagonistic?
  
  
• Why did opposition to expansion unite politicians and analysts across the political spectrum?

Guest Speakers

Gen. Sir Hugh Beach (ret), U.K. Signatory, Statement on Nuclear Disarmament

Ted Galen Carpenter, Vice-President for Foreign Policy Studies, CATO Institute

Adm. Eugene Carroll (ret.), Deputy Director, Center for Defense Information

Ben Cohen, Founder, Ben & Jerry's; President, Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities

David Cortright, Director, Fourth Freedom Forum

Jonathan Dean, Former Ambassador; Senior Adviser, Union of Concerned Scientists

Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR), Congressman

Ralph DeGennaro, Executive Director, Taxpayers for Common Sense

Susan Eisenhower, Chairman, Center for Political and Strategic Studies

Ivan Eland, Director, CBO Study of NATO Expansion Costs, CATO Institute

Daniel Ellsberg, Peace Advocate; Nuclear Weapons Expert

Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), Congressman; Author, Measure to Cap U.S. Share of NATO Expansion Costs

John Lewis Gaddis, Professor of History, Yale University; Cold War Historian

Morton Halperin, Twentieth Century Fund

Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA), Congressman

Sen. Gary Hart (ret. D-CO), Former Senator

Bill Hartung, Senior Fellow, World Policy Institute

Sen. Gordon Humphrey (ret. R-NH), Former Senator

Katrina Vanden Heuvel, Editor-In-Chief, The Nation magazine

Fred C. Ikle, Former Under-Secretary of Defense

John Isaacs, Executive Director, Council for a Livable World

Dave Knight, Chair, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, U.K.

William Lind, Director, Free Congress Foundation

Edward Luttwak, Center for Strategic and International Studies

Michael Mandelbaum, Johns Hopkins University

Jack F. Matlock, Former U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union

Dr. Jiri Matousek, Former Director, Czechoslovak NBC Defense Research and Development

Jack Mendelsohn, Deputy Director, Arms Control Association

Alistair Millar, British-American Security Information Council (BASIC)

Sen. Sam Nunn (ret. D-GA), Former Senator; Former Chairman, Senate Foreign Relations Committee

Daniel Plesch, British American Security Information Council (BASIC)

Dr. Miroslav Polreich, Former Czechoslovak Arms Negotiator

George Rathjens, Professor, MIT; Secretary-General of the Pugwash

Nicholas Rey, Former U.S. Ambassador to Poland

Susan Shaer, Executive Director, Women's Action for New Direction (WAND)

Sen. Bob Smith (R-NH), Senator

John Steinbruner, Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution

Sen. Paul Wellstone (D-MN), Senator

Dr. Alla Yaroshinskaya, Advisor to President Yeltsin