Nato in a spin over its former enemies: The alliance has to decide how far east it wants to extend, Andrew Marshall writes from Brussels

NATO will this week take the first steps towards 'redefining European security for a generation or more', according to senior alliance diplomats in Brussels. Defence ministers meet in Travemunde in Germany on Wednesday and Thursday to consider vital issues about Central and Eastern Europe, the US-European relationship, and peace-keeping. They are preparing for a special alliance summit in January.

One of the most important issues on the agenda is how to help stabilise the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, the alliance's erstwhile enemies. Controversy has been stirred by the determination of some Nato members - in particular Germany - to press for possible Nato membership for Central European states.

Boris Yeltsin recently sent a letter to some Nato members arguing against membership. The parliamentary rebellion against him underlined the case for not antagonising Russia by admitting its neighbours. But the letter has not frozen debate on enlargement, officials say, though it has made any firm decision in January less likely. One official compared it to a 'Scottish shower,' saying that it had encouraged opponents of enlargement and discouraged supporters.

The US is not entirely adverse to the idea of admitting new states to Nato, but considers this is only one part of a far more complex question, according to officials in Brussels. 'There are going to be more members at some point and what we are determining now is who, when and how,' said the diplomat.

The problem is not so much giving security guarantees to Central and Eastern Europe, said the diplomat, since there is no credible external threat. Instead policy should centre on reassuring Central and Eastern Europe in other ways. 'The best protection over time is a non- hostile environment,' he said.

Ultimately this meant creating a new set of structures by extending the reach of a range of European institutions eastwards. 'The big issue is whether the things in society, in the economies and polities of the West that have created the European civil space can be extended eastwards, even to include Russia. That is the big game,' he said. This echoes President Bill Clinton's strategy of turning the traditional US policy of containment of Russia into one of enlarging the community of liberal democratic and market-oriented states.

The Yeltsin letter can be read several ways, diplomats add, and is not necessarily a decisive argument against enlargement. 'It was more a plaintive cry to be included,' said the diplomat. So one of the main focuses of the meeting will be considering how to include Russia in the West's planning. 'You have to avoid kicking them when they are down,' said the diplomat. Moscow has proposed that both Nato and Russia should offer security guarantees, but this has been largely rejected in Eastern and Western Europe.

The second important issue that will be covered at Travemunde is the relationship between the US and Europe. The US says that its commitment to Europe has now been decisively proved. Some Nato officials, however, are concerned about the recent US bottom-up review of its forces. Les Aspin, the US Defense Secretary, will face some hard questioning.

'The US seems to have written off the idea of a reconstituted Russian threat,' said one alliance source. 'It seems the main point of Europe is as a jumping-off point for trouble spots elsewhere, like the Middle East. People want reassurance from Aspin,' he added.

The US now accepts enthusiastically the creation of a European security and defence identity through the Western European Union, the EC's defence partner. It also has some reservations. Security consultations must be handled through Nato, the US has made clear, and it will remain the place the significant issues are dealt with. The US continues to prefer that Nato gets first refusal if there is a big security task. And it wants any European units to be 'separable but not separate' from the alliance's force structure so that Nato is not undermined.

The third topic is peace-keeping. In the absence of an agreement in Bosnia, there is unlikely to be much progress on deciding on Nato's contribution to a force there. But the subject will be discussed with a view to incorporating it far more into structures of the alliance. 'At the moment, peace-keeping in practice has moved ahead of peace-keeping in theory,' said the diplomat. Another senior alliance source said there would be discussion of whether Nato's Strategic Concept, its guiding principles, needed to be amended. 'Nato is now much more a question of putting ad hoc coalitions together,' he said.