NATO: The Limits of Expansion

By Henrik Larsen
Denmark

The pressure on NATO as a military alliance has increased significantly since the Georgia crisis, which revealed how easily the so-called frozen conflicts in post-Soviet countries could break out into full-scale war between two countries. Within NATO, the Georgia crisis has resulted in an increase of the already existing divisions between member states in favour or in disfavour of eastwards expansion, especially concerning Georgia and Ukraine. At the NATO summit in Bucharest in April, it was concluded that Georgia and Ukraine will have a long-term membership perspective. But unlike the usual procedure for pre-accession to NATO, the countries were not granted MAP (Membership Action Plan) as an expression of the doubts that were set forward, especially by France and Germany.

The exposure of these internal disagreements has now become the source of external weakness for the Alliance. The military confrontation between Georgia and Russia, which followed several months of skirmishes on the de facto borders of the break-away republics Abkhazia and South Ossetia, came as a surprise to most Western political actors and observers. Not since the collapse of the USSR had Russia used military force to exert power in her “sphere of influence” in neighbouring countries. In this way, Russia effectively demonstrated her position as the dominant power in the Caucasian region, which Moscow later underlined by the official recognition of both Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent states.

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Dealing with the budget process problems: Leak-plugging or Re-piping?

The September 27, 2008 editorial of the Philippine Daily Inquirer entitled “Plugging the Leak” gave us an insight on some of the realities surrounding the budget process of the country. It implied that while the “power of the purse” remains with the Congress, the “power over the contents of the purse”, the way and how much should be spent where, still remains with the President.

As the editorial notes: There is no disputing the President’s complete control of the current budget process. It is one main source of her continuing hold on Malacañang; it explains in large measure her continuing political relevance despite a three-year-long crisis of legitimacy. She has learned to keep most of her political allies happy, through a judicious mix of open budgets (open to congressional insertions, that is) and tight control of fund releases.

The editorial also surmises that “[i]f the proposed 2009 budget is any indication, she has even learned to provide for her political future by padding the proposal with billions of pesos in potential election-spending funds.” This is because “the political class (not just President [Gloria] Arroyo alone) found loopholes in the law, and widened them.” An example is the provision on savings found in Article VI, Section 25 (5) of the Constitution which is being used by the President thus “[leading] us down the road, ultimately, to the wonderland of rolled-over budgets”.

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