Enlargement of NATO
As of 2018, NATO officially recognizes four aspiring members: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Macedonia and Ukraine. The Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina within Bosnia and Herzegovina has expressed willingness to join NATO, however, it faces consistent political pressure from Republika Srpska, the other political entity in the country, alongside its partners in Moscow. Macedonia has been prevented from joining the alliance by Greece, one effect of the Macedonian naming dispute. Future expansion is currently a topic of debate in several countries outside the alliance, and countries like Sweden, Finland, and Serbia have open political debate on the topic of membership, while in countries like Ukraine, support and opposition to membership is tied to ethnic and nationalist ideologies. The incorporation of countries formerly part of the Eastern Bloc and the Soviet Union has been a cause of increased tension between NATO countries and Russia.
Foreign relations of Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan has been a member of NATO's Partnership for Peace since May 27, 1994.
In October 2014 Kazakhstan and NATO marked 20 years of cooperation within the Partnership for Peace. To that end, from October 6 to 10, 2014 a NATO delegation visited Kazakhstan to take part in a series of public diplomacy events. Among meetings with Kazakhstan's officials, the delegates also visited the Nazarbayev and the Gumilyov Eurasian National universities in Astana, where they delivered lectures explaining NATO's engagement with partners in the Central Asian region and briefed audiences on the key outcomes of the recent NATO Wales Summit, with particular focus on NATO's partnership policy and Afghanistan.