MOSCOW -- In this election year for both Russia and the United States, a major conflict is under way in Russo-American relations: the debate over the expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Created to contain the Soviet Union during the Cold War, NATO had to redesign itself following the demise of the Red Empire.
To invigorate the alliance's role in post-Communist Europe, U.S. President Bill Clinton and his Western European counterparts chose to expand it eastward by incorporating three former Soviet satellites -- Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic.
After these three joined the club in 1999, seven more Eastern European countries were invited to join by May 2004. That was a groundbreaking decision; for if Slovenia, Slovakia, Romania and Bulgaria had belonged to the outer ring of Moscow's influence, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia had been part of the Soviet Union proper.