SUMMIT-TIME BLUES

By Michael Kramer

They met, they talked and they accomplished almost nothing -- a classic case of low expectations barely met. Indeed, the only real drama at last week's Moscow summit involved a series of security and computer snafus. Some loftily titled Americans, including Secretary of State Warren Christopher, were denied entry to important meetings because they lacked the proper credentials, or so some overzealous Russian bodyguards said. Then just before last Wednesday's joint press conference with Boris Yeltsin, Bill Clinton was left without his prepared opening statement. A speechwriter's floppy disk had failed. But that too was small beer since no one wings it better than Clinton.

What of the substance? It could have gone worse, but not by much. Given America's sorry record of failing to seriously protest Moscow's brutal repression in Chechnya, it wasn't surprising that Yeltsin ignored Clinton's human-rights lecture. An internal matter, Yeltsin fumed at the press conference before asserting that the conflict had ended anyway -- a lie Clinton lamely let pass. As for the cash-starved Russians' desire to sell nuclear technology to Iran, the issue was referred to a commission, which may or may not resolve the question to Washington's satisfaction -- a good result, said the White House, despite its earlier insistence that only the deal's immediate cancellation would be acceptable.

The most important and time-consuming matter discussed by the two leaders was European security. Russia's baby-step concession to join the Partnership for Peace is something, but the continuing divergence of views regarding the U.S. plan to admit new members to NATO is truly troubling. Of the many areas of dispute between Washington and Moscow, NATO's expansion has the greatest potential to rupture relations between the two countries at exactly the moment when the course of Russian democracy (if it can be called that) is on the line.

NATO's future is, admittedly, not something most people worry about. There are probably more Americans whose dna resembles O.J. Simpson's than can name the 15 other NATO nations the U.S. is sworn to defend. But that doesn't mean the question isn't vital. It is.

With Moscow reflexively fearful of any scheme it can't dominate -- "They're world champions at improving on nightmares," says Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott -- Washington is walking a tightrope of incoherence. Clinton swore again last week that nato will expand, but slowly, so as to avoid a "differently divided Europe." Yet that, of course, is exactly what an enlarged NATO would mean.

With both nations facing presidential elections next year, there's posturing everywhere, but the merits of enlarging NATO can be considered nonetheless.

Proponents of expansion offer two arguments. Talbott focuses on NATO's ability to foster democracy, much as it did in West Germany following World War II. "The mere prospect of nato membership," he says, "has already had a salutary effect on Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic [the nations most likely to be the first to join an enlarged alliance]. It has made them behave better among themselves and with respect to their own peoples. If you now tell them they can't belong, then you consign them to a security vacuum that can provoke paranoia and cause them to cut deals that can foment problems in the area where the two World Wars began." Henry Kissinger focuses on Russian imperialism. "Moscow congenitally favors expanding its reach," he says. "The best way to retard that tendency is to admit to NATO those very nations Russia may some day seek to bring back into its orbit."

Those opposing enlargement fear aiding Russia's ultra-nationalists. "Why give the anti-American forces of darkness ammunition?" asks Johns Hopkins professor Michael Mandelbaum. Besides, he adds, "if Kissinger is right, and I think he's wrong (I see him as the Charles Murray of geopolitics -- in their genes they must expand), then we've got time. If it's really 'Weimar Russia,' then we're only at 1932. NATO can enlarge when the threat gets real."

Perhaps. But if nato worries about provoking a weakened Russia now, why assume it will find the resolution to risk provoking Russia when it's strong? Moreover, early enlargement may prevent a conflict from arising in the first place. Were the Central Europeans in NATO, even a menacing Russia would be less tempted to threaten them. "The way to stop Russia's bad guys is to firmly delineate how far Moscow can go,'' says Harvard's Samuel Huntington. "Like it or not, spheres of influence exist. The task is to proscribe them. Moscow must be told that it can't even think about re-establishing its control over Central Europe. nato's purpose is to prevent a resumption of the cold war. Enlargement can help that goal."