EDITORIAL: NATO lays down the Law to Russia

EDITORIAL

NATO lays down the Law to Russia

“I made it clear that NATO insists on full respect of Georgia’s territorial integrity and sovereignty.  We have long ago taken the decision that Georgia and Ukraine will become NATO members.”

–NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen to Echo of Moscow radio during his first visit to Russia

Last week, the head of NATO visited Russia and spit in Dima Medvedev’s eye.  He repudiated Medvedev’s call for a new European security pact, fully embracing the continuing role of the United States in European security, and he openly demanded that Russia release both Georgia and Ukraine to the embrace of Europe both economically and militarily.

The crazed propagandistic lie promulgated by Russia’s KGB dictators that Europe secretly loves Russia and despises the United States were blown to smithereens, right along with the parallel fantasy that Europe will stand idly by and watch a neo-Soviet juggernaut roll back into former Soviet space.

EDITORIAL: Georgia, Ukraine and NATO

EDITORIAL

Georgia, Ukraine and NATO

Russia is either dramatically misjudging NATO’s attitude towards Georgia and Ukraine, or else it is sinking even deeper into a miasma of propaganda and becoming utterly blind to basic reality.

At their meeting in Brussels last week, NATO ministers

reiterated a commitment that Georgia and Ukraine will eventually join the trans-Atlantic alliance, but held off on granting the two countries formal Membership Action Plans at this time. The Western allies also agreed to gradually resume contacts with Russia, which were frozen after Moscow’s war with Georgia in August, but stopped well short of a full-fledged revival of the suspended Russia-NATO Council, a forum that manages the relationship.

Yet, Russia reacted as if it had secured some type of victory just because formal MAP status was not immediately awarded to the two former slave states. That is really quite insane. Any number of recent NATO members have been accorded full treaty rights without ever being placed in MAP status, and NATO strongly reaffirmed the U.S.-sponsored plan to install a ballistic missile defense shield in Eastern Europe as well as refusing to normalize relations with Russia and guaranteeing that both nations will ultimately join NATO.  Just days ago, NATO carried out another successful test of the missile shield technology.