PRO-North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) advocates usually argue that every country has the right to freely decide its security policy and that NATO has not expanded, but only accommodated countries that wanted to join it.

Of course, sovereign states have such a right. But the important question is: how freely did the 10 former Warsaw Pact members, who are now NATO members, actually decide? NATO has given them promises about Euro-Atlantic integration, trained their forces, carried out security sector reform work and invited them to the Partnership for Peace, to exercises, meetings, etc.