Politico's Ben Smith takes us inside the Bush administration during the Russia-Georgia war. We learn, not surprisingly, that they contemplated using military force to aid Georgia but wisely rejected it. Smith then brings up the debate over whether the Bush administration should have pushed harder to get Georgia into NATO. Georgia's NATO bid was ultimately back-burnered during a summit in Bucharest because of European reticence, but not after the U.S. signaled its strong support for Georgia. Smith reports:
The message out of the NATO meeting in Bucharest was "as good a deterrence message as voting them intoâ? a formal path to membership, said Hadley. Vladimir â??Putin was under no illusions about our commitment to Georgia and our commitment to Saakashvili. Weâ??d been sending Putin a message about Georgia ever since Saakashvili was elected president."
Let's unpack this a bit. First, we know from Smith's report that the Bush administration, including its most hawkish hawks, decided that Georgia was not worth fighting a war over. Yet despite the fact that Washington had no interest in courting World War III over Georgia, it nonetheless pushed to admit the country into NATO which would have legally obligated the United States to go to war over Georgia if they were attacked.
Am I the only one confused by this?
Now implicit in Hadley's quote is the idea that the very act of being admitted into NATO would have stayed Russia's hand. It's obvious that Hadley was wrong in his statement above, there was no deterrence for Russia after Bucharest (and perhaps just the opposite). Instead, they attacked.
This not only demonstrates the lack of understanding regarding Russia's intentions, but a casual, indeed reckless, disregard for the seriousness of NATO. We know, contrary to Hadley's erroneous belief, that Russia was not deterred by Washington's high-minded expressions of support for Georgia. But what if Russia was not deterred even after Georgia had been granted a path to formal NATO membership? What if Russia decided to roll the dice even after Georgia was admitted into the alliance?
We would then be in the crazy position of either having to fight Russia over Georgia for the sake of NATO credibility, or stand down and watch a 60 year old alliance crumble over a single foolish decision. You don't enter into mutual defense treaties because you're just hoping it will all work itself out and that you'll never be called on it. You forge them out of strategic necessity.
And indeed, the Russian invasion laid bare the cynicism and sheer recklessness of even contemplating NATO membership for Georgia. It was a cynical gesture because it subverts the original intention of NATO - which was to provide common defense for Western Europe and to give the U.S. a strong role in Western European security affairs. It's clear neither consideration led the administration to strongly push for Georgia's inclusion in NATO, but nonetheless, they used Georgia's membership as a means to hem in Russia.
It's reckless because it's obvious no one believed Georgia was vital to the security interests of the United States or even the West, and yet there were people who wanted to put the alliance's credibility (and the lives of NATO members) on the line on a gamble that Russia would grudgingly swallow Georgia's entry into NATO just as it put up with earlier rounds of alliance expansion. But it's worse than that: Either the Bush administration did not seriously discuss Georgia and its value to the United States before they publicly proclaimed support for the country (convincing its leaders and its people that Washington had their back when we clearly didn't), or they just didn't think they'd ever be called to account for their rhetoric.
(AP Photo)
