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NATO foreign ministers will meet Aug. 19 to discuss responses to the Russian invasion of Georgia. The United States is pressing for immediate action — although what that really means is movement toward admitting Georgia to NATO, rather than actual action. The Germans have expressed support for Georgia’s membership in the alliance, but the French and Italians appear to be hesitating, not wanting to trigger the confrontation with the Russians that would likely result from such a move. The newer members of NATO, those who formally belonged to the Warsaw Pact, tend to want aggressive movement to include Georgia and Ukraine in NATO. They want to see NATO assert itself, in order to be assured that the alliance will do that.
The problem is not that NATO is incapable of moving rapidly to include Ukraine and Georgia; it is a matter of what it means to be part of NATO. NATO was originally an anti-Soviet military alliance. It consisted of well-armed and well-trained armies — British, West German, Dutch and others — all backed by massive U.S. power and nuclear weapons. An attack on Europe would have meant an attack on NATO, and the Soviets never tried that. Had they done so, they would have faced a very dangerous military situation. The risks were much higher than the gains.
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