History, grand strategy and NATO enlargement

Some principles of strategy are so basic that when stated they sound like platitudes: treat former enemies magnanimously; do not take on unnecessary new ones; keep the big picture in view; balance ends and means; avoid emotion and isolation in making decisions; be willing to acknowledge error. And yet, the Clinton administration's single most important foreign-policy initiative - NATO enlargement - somehow manages to violate every one of these principles. Perhaps that is why historians so widely agree that NATO enlargement is ill-conceived, ill-timed, and ill-suited to the realities of the post-Cold War world.