The membership of Georgia and the Ukraine has just been delayed. What happens when it joins and say Russia recognises Abkazia or South Ossetia against the wishes of Georgia. Does NATO intervene?
Perhaps they will be recognised before this ever happens since a recent article in Moscow News Weekly mentions Kosovo as a precedent for recognising them. (This seems a bit surprising since I understand Russia takes the view that Kosovo should not be recognised.)
http://www.mnweekly.ru/news/20080403/55321439.html
--- Chris Doss <lookoverhere1 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> That's part of it. The EE countries are I think
> trying
> to use the Russia card as leverage to get the US to
> back them against "Old Europe." Germany and France
> are
> pretty much against NATO enlargement, as far as I
> know
> (as is 65% of the population of Ukraine). Germany is
> after all very dependent on Russian gas and is a
> Russophilic country in general. It's not as if the
> Baltic States have any other card to play.
>
> It is indeed symbolic. NATO is pretty much useless,
> and the benefit to taking in a country like Georgia,
> perched as it is constantly on the edge of civil
> war,
> or Ukraine, which could easily perch on the edge of
> civil war and the population of which is against
> NATO
> membership, is not obvious.
>
> --- Wojtek Sokolowski <swsokolowski at yahoo.com>
> wrote:
>
> > >
> >
> > [WS:] Possible. But do not forget the Russophobia
> > of
> > the new members of NATO and EU in Eastern Europe.
> > One
> > possibility is that the "old Europe" wants to
> > placate
> > these "little pissant countries" (to borrow a
> > memorable quote from Richard Milhous Nixon) in the
> > area where it does not matter that much (e.g.
> > useless
> > and largely symbolic military alliance), while
> > curbing
> > their influence where it actually counts (i.e. the
> > economy and institutonal blueprint or EU).
> >
> > My hunch is that the West wants that Baltic
> pipeline
> > and trade with Russia badly, so to overcome the
> > opposition from the pissant EE countries like
> Poland
> > or the Baltics, it throws them the crumbs via
> NATO.
> >
> > Wojtek
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
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> Mataiotes mataioteton, eipen ho Ekklasiastes,
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>
>
>
>
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