SHOULD NATO EXPAND EAST?

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CAGING THE BEAR

SHOULD NATO EXPAND EAST?

Ralph Peters

Putin: Russian bully wants veto over who can join NATO alliance.

April 3, 2008 -- OF all the issues to be discussed at this week's NATO summit in Bucharest, from troop levels in Afghanistan to anti-missile defenses, none is as contentious as extending membership to Ukraine and Georgia.

President Bush wants them in. Russian strongman Vladimir Putin wants them kept out. And Europe is divided.

Old Europe's bureaucrats fear antagonizing the Kremlin; they'd be perfectly happy to countersign deeds returning Ukraine and Georgia to Russia's real-estate portfolio.

The states of New Europe - who felt the Russian yoke first-hand - feel solidarity with Ukraine and Georgia (and want as large a buffer as possible between themselves and Muscovy).

Plus, new members tend to side with the United States in NATO sessions - and France and Germany don't want their influence diluted any further.

So far, the case sounds clear-cut: Let 'em in and make 'em welcome. Unfortunately, the question's more complicated.

On moral grounds, the right response is plain: The West should show solidarity with the people of Georgia and Ukraine as they struggle to recover from centuries of Kremlin oppression. They're learning the difficult art of democracy and should be supported.

Yet practical considerations matter, too: Ukraine's a divided country, with a European western half (much of which used to be Poland) and a backward eastern portion populated by seldom-sober Russian- speakers. (When they drew Ukraine's expansive boundaries, the old men in the Kremlin never imagined their empire would collapse.)

Western Ukrainians vote for freedom and democracy. Eastern Ukrainians routinely vote for servitude to Russia. Those caught in the country's middle are swing voters. We can't know whether a future Kiev government and its military would be fully supportive of NATO or would become a Russian cat's paw.

If we could integrate only the western, civilized part of Ukraine into NATO, the answer would be a no-brainer. NATO membership would help the forces of democracy and encourage responsible government. But you can't get the west without the east, and Ukraine remains a country torn by grave internal issues.

That said, the Western Europeans get it terribly wrong when they allow Moscow the least illusion of a voice in the matter. Russia has no right to dictate the fate of its neighbors - and European trembling about Russian retaliation only whets the Kremlin's appetites. You can't appease a bully.

Personally, I side with President Bush and would like to offer Ukraine a NATO Membership Action Plan (MAP) - a do-these-things-first guide to eventual membership. Putin can go sit on a vodka bottle.

The matter of Georgia is easier morally but tougher geographically. On the upside, Georgians are overwhelmingly pro-American and hate Russians the way mortgage brokers hate plain English. On the downside, Tbilisi's a long way from Brussels - or even Bucharest.

Embedded between the Greater and Lesser Caucasus ranges on the far side of the Black Sea, it's a beautiful, seductive land that's culturally as European as Greece and far more western in outlook than NATO-member Turkey. But Georgia lies trapped in Asia.

Despite painful setbacks, Georgians deserve credit for the progress they've made toward a healthy democracy. Nonetheless, Georgia would be a security consumer, not a security provider. Russia's proxies already have taken several bites out of this small state's territory - and the Kremlin's mischief-making isn't going to stop anytime soon.

Given the logistics involved in a military defense of Georgia, a NATO response to Russian aggression would have to be largely asymmetrical, potentially escalating to a greater conflict than any party intended - the sort of effect that French and British guarantees for Polish independence had in 1939.

So what should we do?

The realist in me says, "Not so fast, big boy." The idealist says, "Welcome Georgia to NATO and celebrate freedom." And my Russia-hand persona insists, "Contain the Kremlin now, before it's too late."

Russia respects strength and resolve, no matter how much its apparatchiks complain. A NATO failure to keep the door open to Ukraine and Georgia would be read in the Kremlin as an acceptance of Russia's "right" to dominate any former possessions of the Soviets and the czars.

Given the situation's complexity, the best approach for now would be a touch of ambiguity in Bucharest - a promise to consider future membership for Kiev and Tbilisi, if their political, military and economic reforms continue. Faced with a diplomatic Alamo, our president should try a Texas two-step.

And, in the end, membership in the world's most vital club (sorry, G-8) does have to be earned.

But when all is said and done (in NATO, a great deal more is said than done), neither Ukraine nor Georgia is the problem here. The skunk at the garden party is Russia. Those blue-nosed bureaucrats in Paris, Berlin and Brussels shouldn't be too anxious to stroke the critter lifting its tail over by the open bar.

Ralph Peters' eyewitness account of the Soviet collapse, "Looking For Trouble," hits stores July 4.

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