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Croatia and NATO: Moving Toward Alliance Membership

NATO's “Open-Door” policy continues to generate much enthusiasm from aspiring countries across eastern and southern Europe. This paper examines Croatia's efforts to meet NATO's membership standards and assesses its reforms and policy changes across three issue areas, including civil-military relations, military modernization, and recent foreign policy directions. Our research suggests that Croatia has made significant improvements in moving toward NATO's political and military standards. While it still faces reform challenges due to its historical legacy under Franjo Tudjman and low public approval ratings for NATO, recent policy developments still indicate that NATO's willingness to expand produces a powerful incentive for ongoing reform.