Study Shows Lower NATO Growth Costs

A NATO study on the cost of absorbing Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic into the Western military alliance has concluded that Clinton administration estimates of about $30 billion were much too high and that any extra burden for NATO budgets will be less than $2 billion over the next decade. The study, prepared in advance of next month’s meetings of the alliance’s defense and foreign ministers, vindicated the “enlargement on the cheap” views of European governments. Faced with the need to cut budget deficits to qualify for a single European currency, they have objected to U.S. demands that Europeans bear most of the costs of enlargement.