European security and, to a considerable extent, global security live presently through an especially critical and complicated period: the end of the Cold War and the demise of the Soviet Union entailed elimination of the old system which was based on a two-polar balance. It used to be, in its own way, quite a stable system, yet, existing under permanent confrontation pressure. As a result, unbelievable as it may seem, now Europe exists virtually without any security system. This area may be described as a construction-site covered with fragments of the old system. Additionally, given the irregularity of destruction of the old installation, the whole structure remains in disbalance. Certainly, this situation cannot be acceptable in the long-term or even middle-term perspective. The system itself (or, rather, lack of it) based on irregularity, cannot be stable.

Naturally, under these conditions the states of Europe (here Europe is meant in a broad sense of this word, from Vancouver to Vladivostok) are actively seeking ways for establishing-on terms acceptable to these states-a new balance. It should be noted that principled approaches of various European nations to the novel, prospective basis of security have not been mutually excluding. However, it is hard to call these approaches totally compatible. This provides for additional predicament and significance of the present moment in a complex, as always, development of the continent.

The task for Europe to construct a new security system, or-as it has been called lately-a new architecture of security, is extremely critical, since the way how it is being dealt with will determine the character of co-existence of the nations in the 21st century. Certainly, Belarus cannot remain a detached observer of this process and is interested in making its contribution which would be compatible with Belarus's national goals and constructive in content. First, the complexity and tragic moments in the Belarusian history in recent decades and centuries have made it impossible for Belarus to take an easygoing approach to establishing the security system for the next century. In this respect, our state supports cautious and well-calculated rather than haphazard approach to settlement of all related issues. Secondly, Belarus believes that the new security system in Europe should be based on well-thought and genuinely universal principles that would provide for stability and justice of the new European security system. Something different from that is fraught with collapse. After having lost one-third of its population under the debris of the Versailles, the League of Nations and Munich deals, Belarus does not want the come-back of the past.

To pursue these goals, working on appropriate principles and in all political and geographical directions-from the CIS to NATO,-Belarus is prepared for equal interaction and partnership. Located at the sensitive strategic cross-roads of the continent, our state needs borders of openness and co-operation, not those of confrontation.

Now Europe is at a critical cross-roads. The success or failure in constructing genuinely common, indivisible security architecture of the 21st century in this region depend on the road that Europe is going to choose.

The importance and role of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation in this choice are, undoubtedly, objectively prominent. The reality is that NATO is the only effective security structure that remained after the Cold War. This provides the Alliance with the immediate advantage of being a centre of coagulation in an amorphous space of the unsettled security. Moreover, NATO brings together a group of the most important-in military and economic terms-states of the world. The countries of Central and Eastern Europe, including Belarus, are "doomed" to co-operate with these states and their institutions and organisations in economic and other areas. Belarus cannot "pack its things" and leave Europe, stop interaction with its economic system, which to a considerable extent controls global trade and economic flows.

At the same time, it would be naive to see NATO only in the shining perspective of the rising sun. With the significant changes in the European landscape, NATO has found itself in crisis which, to a detached observer, perhaps did not have such dramatic characteristics like those of the Warsaw Treaty break-up or the end of the Soviet Union. Nevertheless, this crisis is of a principled nature, since under the new conditions, with the threat from Eastern Europe fading away, NATO has-to a great extent, if not entirely-lost its raison d'etre . In this respect, NATO is also a "victim" of the break-up of the previous foundations of European and global security, like other organisations that have become part of history now. This factor is seen as important, since it pulls NATO and other nations together in their search for a new security system, the one which would provide a new rationale for the Alliance. This is the basis for extremely important internal transformation of NATO.

Without such a new rationale NATO would face erosion leading to the loss of its effectiveness and, probably, its end. The expansion of the NATO area of responsibility-both in geographical and political terms-has been seen by a good many Western leaders as the way out of NATO's internal crisis. Many analysts, however, do not agree that the driving force of the NATO expansion is the need to protect its new members from a threat to their security. There is no such a threat, and this is admitted by all objective observers, including those in the West. Suffice it to mention M. Mandelbaum, prominent American political scientist, and G. Kennan, whose works have already become classic. Hence, it is natural to suggest that the genuine purpose of the NATO expansion is not underpinned by security concerns, but motivated by political aim of drawing new member states into the political orbit and system of values of the Western world. The driving force here is the need for new raison d'etre for NATO, and, to a considerable extent, internal political considerations.

In fact, under the present security situation in Europe, the enlargement means a radical change in the main contextual fundamentals of the NATO existence, those which were laid as foundation of the organisation at its inception and had for decades been cementing it. The shift of emphasis in the Alliance's raison d'etre from threats to the matters of accommodation of the new members to a new system of political values and orientations, provides the basis for further transformation of NATO from military-political to primarily politico-military organisation.

On whether NATO will take this path of internal transformation which would turn it into an organisation with new contents, and how far it will go, depends, to a great extent, the character of the new security system which is being formed in Europe-should it be a system based on the balance of competing interests or that of indivisible, mutually conditioned, and intertwined security on the continent and across the space from Vancouver to Vladivostok.

Is the expansion of NATO the best, the most balanced and wise response to objective security demands under the new conditions? Many people, not only in Belarus and Russia, have serious and well-grounded doubts about this. One should point out that many today's advocates of the NATO expansion, including politicians, have had serious doubts about the idea of the Alliance's expansion when it was put forward. This idea has brought about the major concern that its implementation could lead to the emergence of the new dividing lines or re-emergence of the now shifted old ones, replicating the security system based on confrontation instead of guaranteeing integrity and indivisibility of the new security in Europe.

However, theoretical discussions about shortcomings and advantages of the enlargement are over. At the NATO summit in Madrid were named the states which got invitations to start accession talks with the Alliance. Those states are scheduled to join NATO in 1999. This move is subject to ratification by the parliaments of all NATO member states. However, the current political trend shows that the parliaments are unlikely to reject the ratification. Even the position of sceptics in the parliaments is mainly determined by possible financial consequences of this decision.

Therefore, the Alliance's enlargement has become a fait accompli in political terms. In politics, as is known, facts are the first thing to take account of. The task of statesmen from both sides of the expansion issue is to play their parts so that the establishment of a stable and fair new security in Europe could be facilitated and new confrontation prevented. On this path one may determine a number of consecutive objectives.

First of all, the NATO expansion should be carried out so that it would not damage other nations' security. Otherwise, common security on the continent and, accordingly, the level of security of the NATO member states would be jeopardised. This is a critical and challenging task for both parties. Russia's aspiration to settle this issue through negotiating the document formalising a new positive level of relationship and interaction with NATO, is a step forward in the right direction.

This is exactly what reflects the NATO-Russia Founding Act signed last spring.

Successful implementation of this task will make it possible to achieve the following objective: to transform the changing NATO from a closed military bloc into an important building block in the new structure of European security that would turn to be post-confrontation security. This task seems quite attainable provided that right balance is found and right level of interaction within the existing, yet disorderly, system of political and intergovernmental organisations responsible for various aspects of regional and European security.

The success in moving in this direction will provide for security not only within the continent. This will also become the most important step forward towards the renewing and strengthening of the global security. There will emerge absolutely new opportunities for providing for common European interests. With its solution apparently seen in the long perspective, this task is of a strategic character, because, in the context of providing for the global security of the 21st century, Europe, as a community of states, is to respond to a number of new and increasingly urgent challenges.

It is this exactly these, third-level objectives are obviously touched upon in the recent proposals by W. Christopher, the former U.S. State Secretary, and W. Perry, the former Secretary of Defence, on extending the area of responsibility of NATO from the European region onto the global basis. This idea was put forward several years ago, when the earliest efforts to overcome the internal NATO's crisis were made through the debate on various scenarios for the transformation of the Alliance.

In general, however, the success in implementing this idea or in filling it with a positive content will depend on the early provision of the indivisible and equal security in Europe that would be mutual and not based on the increase of security of some states at the expense of that of others. If Europe remains divided, the vision of W. Christopher and W. Perry will not become a reality.

To achieve the mentioned goals, which are really vital, European states should agree on the principles of building of the common system of European security and then strictly follow these principles. They should also agree on mechanisms of security in order to start building such mechanisms.

At the meeting of the leaders of NATO countries and Partners in Madrid last July, Belarus put forward its proposal on such principles. Among the most important are the universal nature of the new security system; involvement of all interested states, without any exceptions; respect of justified security interests of all countries concerned; renunciation of the old and new dividing lines. One could hardly disagree with these principles. In their declarations, the states support these principles. However, it is important to see the political agreement transformed into practical one through the system of consistent with these principles actions in developing NATO and improving the functioning mechanisms of interaction.

Particularly, in terms of the development of defence, such a transformation should lead to the scaling down of the domination of the military component of the Alliance while providing for the increasing importance of the political one for the latter to become a core of the transforming NATO. The Alliance might be interested in following this line under the new post-confrontational conditions, since it meets the demand for changing its raison d'etre and provides for positive perceptions of NATO as newly forming factor of the regional and global security by other states. Secondly, the military infrastructure which is being built in the new member states should not give rise to objective concerns of the neighbours. The other approach towards military construction in the new NATO regions would be extremely counter-productive for the purposes of the common and indivisible security in Europe, since objective concerns of the states, which will border on the enlarging NATO, underpinned by historical subjective perceptions, will be a natural basis for political rejection of the processes of transformation. Taking this into account, it would be extremely desirable to see a clear readiness of NATO and those joining the Alliance for discussions about general and particular concerns of the neighbours with regard to the forthcoming enlargement process.

Clearly formalised commitment of NATO not to deploy nuclear weapons on the territory of those European states, where there is no such weapons now, would be a positive contribution to the right defence development. Hopefully, with NATO enlargement over, this issue would not be dealt with with jealous reactions of the new partners with regard to their expected status, political responsibility and courage would grow so that the Cold War and confrontation dogmas could be given up, leading to the agreement on well-adjusted mechanisms of non-deployment of such weapons. Otherwise, in the end everyone would loose, and, first of all, common security in Europe.

As far as mechanisms of the new security system are concerned, Belarus has made it clear at international forums that it is interested in the 21st century's architecture of European security that would be based on the achievements of the already existing organisations, such as the Organisation for Security and Co- operation in Europe (OSCE), the European Union, Council of Europe, NATO.

In our opinion, the developing mechanisms of security should be open to public scrutiny, predictable and meet individual and collective security requirements.

While admitting inalienable right of the states to freely choose methods of guaranteeing their security, including the right to enter into agreements and alliances, people in Belarus, on evident grounds, put special emphasis on issues of security of those states that are not members of military alliances. Obviously, before these states a particular responsibility lies with the states and groups of states that make part of such alliances. Security of the states which are not members of military alliances should be guaranteed through necessary set of all-continental and subregional measures. These measures should be both active-lowering of the levels of armaments and, in some cases, their elimination, or non-deployment according to certain parameters,-and passive-political and international law instruments providing for security guarantees.

The idea of "co-operative security," put forward by the European Union, together with that of defining capability of the OSCE in conflict prevention and resolution in the OSCE area, are close to Belarus as this country is a member of a number of subregional European organisations (the CIS and Central European Initiative, in particular) which regard multi-component security problem as the most important. Undoubtedly, the priority is the widest co-operation and co-ordination of actions of all European and transatlantic organisations, perhaps without formalising them hierarchically, but under systematising role of the OSCE as the most universal in terms of its membership and range of issues it deals with-from disarmament and settlement of conflicts to social and economic problems. The mechanism of interaction among security-related regional organisations, proposed by the European Union, seems to be worthy of support. This mechanism envisages transparency, exchange of information on crisis-response measures, regular meetings of representatives of the organisations and special consultations, establishment of contact offices, joint actions and division of responsibilities.

Supporting this idea, Belarus maintains that no state or organisation has any precedence in terms of responsibility for peace-keeping in European region, or the right to claim any part of this region as the sphere of its influence. Belarus favours, if necessary, the introduction of new instruments of confidence. Particular attention should be paid to the issues of interaction so that no party concerned be excluded from this process.

The extremely important component of the new mechanisms for providing future security should be the development of relations with the main states on the periphery of the enlarging NATO, particularly with those who have not declared that they would be interested in the membership in the immediate or foreseeable future. These relations have to be of necessarily special character.

This view is presented not because Belarus is clearly falling into such group of states. Such an approach seems to be objective for several reasons. First, those states which set the goal to join NATO cannot-by definition-perceive the Alliance's enlargement as negative factor for their individual and regional security. Correspondingly, there appears no objective need for a special settlement of their relations with the enlarging NATO. Secondly, the states that have no intentions to join NATO, but geographically are quite far from its new frontiers, find themselves geopolitically in a situation different from that of those contiguous to the enlarging NATO.

Because of the particular situation and particular concerns of the latter group of states their special relations with the enlarging Alliance should obviously be extended beyond quasi-universal Partnership for Peace and the Euro- Atlantic Partnership Council (EAPC). It seems natural that such an approach does not deny the necessity and expediency of their practical involvement in the Partnership for Peace under respective Individual Partnership Programmes and in the EAPC. Rather, along with this involvement, special status presupposes legal formalisation of the character and mechanism of the relationship and mutual guarantees for providing for common security. However, it should be stressed that the term "special status" does not imply that this status is something of the same contents for every case. Its subject matter should vary according to specific conditions-military-political, geographical and others.

By now, Belarus has shown more initiative, far-sightedness and political courage than NATO in its intentions and readiness to resolve matters related to providing genuinely mutual security, including through special relationship. Having been among most firm opponents of NATO enlargement for years, Belarus, being fully aware of the factor of reality, called on the Alliance to start negotiations on a charter on co-operation and partnership.

This proposal is not a political fashion move, and not a sort of belated regret for its principled position. This is a contemplated, conditioned by time and internal dynamics proposal aimed at providing for maximum security for the country under new geopolitic conditions. As mentioned earlier, NATO is the only and quite significant military-political alliance in Europe, which also plays, due to objective factors, an important role in the whole world.

The position of Belarus is not one-sided or narrowly egoistic. It is conditioned by not only Belarus's interests, but also by mutual security interests along the NATO-Belarus axis.

It seems that NATO-not less than Belarus-could be interested in reaching the adequate level of special, extending beyond the PfP and EAPC, relations with this country for a number of reasons. One could mention, among others, the following reasons. Belarus, like Russia and Ukraine, is one of the three most important-in military terms-former Soviet republics. Belarus is going to have almost the longest border with the new, enlarging NATO in the region. The strategic location of Belarus makes this country unavoidably prominent factor in any military-political calculations and balances. Lack of balance in the level of formal settlement of relations with Belarus vis-a-vis Russia and Ukraine could lead to transformation of this country in a sort of corridor for circumvention or undermining NATO's agreements with Russia and Ukraine. Finally, postponement of the settling of the relations through negotiations would mean politicisation of the problem of security, which is counter-productive from the point of view of the creation of indivisible system of European security.

It seems natural that not only NATO itself but-because of the same reasons-all Europe should be interested in NATO-Belarus relations being converted into a building block in the basis of the new security architecture rather than in an element of tension weakening the whole construction. If, for speeding up the process of formalisation of the special relationship between NATO and Russia the status of nuclear superpower of the latter mattered most, or, as in the case of Ukraine- political considerations, one could hope that sound analysis, interests of common security, states' contemplated approaches that are free from seeking immediate benefits, should be among the main reasons for Belarus and NATO to move faster towards formalising their special relationship. Belarus, offering NATO co-operation in the interests of creating genuinely stable security system in the region and whole Europe, shows precisely such approach.

NATO leaders repeatedly stressed that, with the changes of the latest years, the Alliance is being transformed into an "absolutely new NATO." There is no doubt that really new and evolving internally NATO has nothing to divide with the new Belarus. Their common goal is to build, together with neighbours, the common security system in the subregion and on the whole continent.