Bucharest - Half a century ago, NATO's first secretary
general, Lord Ismay, said that the alliance's purpose was 'to keep
the Americans in, the Russians out and the Germans down.'
As NATO leaders debated on whether to offer Ukraine and Georgia
the prospect of membership at a summit in Bucharest on Thursday, the
alliance's new challenge was to decide whether it should try to keep
the Russians out, or keep them friendly.
'There are clearly two schools of thought in NATO. For the first,
with states such as the Baltics and Poland, Russia is clearly a re-
emergent military threat,' Thomas Gomart, director of the Russia
centre at the Paris-based IFRI French Institute for International
Relations said.
'For Germany and France, it is clearly no longer a military threat
- it's a difficult partner which has to be limited, but no longer a
threat.
'And as long as you have a different threat perception, it will be
very difficult to deal with Russia,' he told Deutsche Presse-Agentur
dpa.
Ahead of the three-day summit of NATO leaders, which opened on
Wednesday in Bucharest, the hottest debate in diplomatic circles was
over the question of whether NATO should risk angering Russia by
offering Georgia and Ukraine a plan for future membership.
The United States, Canada and NATO's former-Communist members in
Central and Eastern Europe all lobbied strongly in favour of granting
a Membership Action Plan (MAP), each country in its own way judging
that the best way to maintain regional and global security would be
to spread NATO's banner around the Russian border.
But France and Germany argued that offering the duo a MAP at the
summit would both involve the alliance in unpredictable risks and
ruin relations with Moscow at a time when the forthcoming
inauguration of a new president offered a golden opportunity to
improve the relationship.
Statements from Moscow supported that view, with Russia's
spokesman to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin, warning that the offer of a MAP
would be a 'point of no return' for NATO-Russia relations.
And the more conciliatory stance seemed to have won the day on
Wednesday, with NATO leaders agreeing that there would be no MAP for
either state.
Initially, analysts viewed that informal agreement as a victory
for Russia.
But the position turned on its head on Thursday when NATO
Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said, 'We agreed today that
(Ukraine and Georgia) will become members of NATO.'
Even more strikingly, he said that NATO foreign ministers would
return to the issue of a MAP in December, and would be authorized to
decide whether or not to offer MAPs on the spot - the first time that
that power has been delegated by heads of state.
'It's subtle: without the delay, the decision (not to offer a MAP)
could have been seen as a Russian victory,' Gomart said.
'NATO is getting a bit tougher, and saying that we're waiting a
couple of months, but we're going to go ahead anyway,' Atis Lejins,
head of the Latvian Foreign Policy Institute and an expert on
Russian-Western relations, said.
Analysts say that the decision puts the ball in Russia's court,
giving it the choice of criticizing the announcement on eventual
membership or of welcoming the postponement of the MAP.
They also say that it buys NATO leaders time to try and convince
Russia - and especially its president-elect, Dmitry Medvedev - that
any enlargement into the former USSR is not aimed at Moscow.
And they further point out that a negative reaction from Russia
could make it easier for French and German leaders to justify
offering Georgia and Ukraine a MAP in December.
'There will probably be some changes in style under Medvedev when
dealing with the West, but Russia will continue to be assertive ...
It thinks that as long as NATO is weakening, it's a good way for
Russia to regain what it lost in the last decade,' Gomart said.
That being the case, Thursday's announcement on Ukraine and
Georgia looks more like the beginning of a diplomatic debate than the
end of one.
And with just eight months to go before NATO foreign ministers
convene in December, the pressure is now on for both NATO and Russia
to forge a new relationship together - before they form one apart.
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