by Sanford Levinson

I can still vividly remember when I met my first Albanian: It was at a gathering of lawyers in Hungary, in 1991, following the collapse of the Soviet empire, and nothing symbolized that more than actually encountering a living, breathing person from Albania. Albania had long symbolized the Other, whether because of the exotic name of Albania's former King Zog or the because of the peculiar malevolence of their longtime Communist leader Enver Hoxha, the only Eastern European to remain loyal to China in the Russo-Sino split within the Communist world. I confess that there is still something special about meeting someone from Albania, as happened last week when I was at an international conference on constitutional law in Athens. Though Tirana is "only" a twelve-hour drive from Athens, it still seems like a world away. Yet Albania was much in the news last week, first as the site of a triumphant visit by President George W. Bush, and then as a proposed new member of NATO. I was told by the Albanian lawyer I met in Athens that the overwhelming popularity of Bush has nothing to do with him personally, but, rather, represents the absolute gratitude of Albanians for American support regarding Kosovo, which of course should be primarily attributed to Bill Clinton. It was Clinton, after all, who made the basically unilateral decision to engage in humanitarian intervention and go to war against Serbia. But Albanian devotion to all American leaders isn't what leads me to devote this week's Open University posting to Albania. Rather, I am motivated by what strikes me as the almost bizarre--and certainly politically unserious--suggestion that Albania join NATO. Why is this bizarre? The answer is simple: A military alliance--assuming that NATO continues to be describable as such, given that the central rationale for NATO disappeared in 1991--is a solemn commitment to engage in blood sacrifice for those outside one's immediate political community. World War II, after all, formally began when Great Britain lived up to its commitment to Poland and declared war on Germany following the German invasion of that hapless country. This was not a "patriotic" gesture as one ordinarily defines the term. Rather, it was a decision to spend the blood of British soldiers to protest the German aggression against the Poles. It might have made sense in 1948 for the original countries of NATO to pledge the lives of their citizens as "collateral" against the possibility of an attack by the Soviet Union. Americans might in fact have been willing to be sacrificed in order to save Berlin (or Bonn) from the Soviet menace. But that was many years ago. What would it mean, precisely, to welcome Albania into NATO today? Would it represent a genuine belief on the part of citizens of the US (and of France, etc.) that Tirana is so important to them that they would gladly lay down the lives of themselves and their children in order to protect Tirana? But what threatens Tirana? Surely not an attack from Russia. Perhaps the real point is that there is no plausible military opponent of Albania today. This would suggest that there is basically zero cost to bringing Albania into NATO because it is unimaginable that blood sacrifice would ever be demanded from any NATO member other than Albania itself, which would feel some pressure, as is the case right now, to join in supporting US military adventures in Iraq and elsewhere. Albania has also proved willing to accept certain Uighurs, from China, formerly detained at Guantanamo. So I can understand why the US might be glad to have a lackey in a NATO that is made up of too-independent countries not willing to accept American "leadership." Why would any other member of NATO want Albania in it? Tom Friedman made what I thought were a lot of solid arguments attacking the unseemly haste by which the Clinton Administration insisted on adding Poland, Hungary, and Romania to NATO, but at least one could make a serious geo-political argument that Western interests would be genuinely aided by those additions. If any such arguments are present with regard to Albania I have missed them. I have no animus against Albania, and on the basis of the Albanians I've met, I wish them well. I assume I speak for most Americans in this statement. But unless one is an incurable sentimentalist and doesn't take seriously the meaning of military alliances, how does this add up to supporting what, on paper at least, is the commitment for America to go to war to prevent aggression against Albania? And what do we get out of the commitment of Albania to help the US should we be attacked?