Cheap Talk

Here’s something that must be confusing to officials in Tblisi. Georgia has been trying to get into NATO for some time now, thinking that a small country next to Russia could really use the kind of security guarantees that NATO membership provides. At the Bucharest Summit earlier this year, NATO decided not to offer Georgia a Membership Action Plan that would have fast-tracked Georgian NATO membership. But that was primarily because of French and German opposition, the United States favored fast-tracking Georgian NATO membership.

So if I’m in the Georgian government and I see that by far the largest and most powerful NATO country wants us to be a member — wants to extend an Article V security guarantee to us even though they are well aware that this will infuriate Russia and that we have ongoing disputes with Russia over Abkhazia and South Ossetia — then maybe I reason that if our ongoing disputes with Russia over Abkhazia or South Ossetia heat up, that the U.S. will be willing to intervene. After all, if the U.S. isn’t willing to intervene on our behalf in case of a heated up conflict with Russia, then why is the U.S. eager to support our bid for NATO membership?

Now of course it turns out that the U.S. — quite properly — has no particular desire to intervene on Georgia’s behalf in their quest to regain control over their breakaway provinces. But given that we don’t want to back Georgia in these situations, then why were we so eager to support Georgia’s bid for NATO membership? John McCain’s top campaign officials on national security issues, Randy Scheunemann, actually worked as a lobbyist for the Georgian government so that’s his excuse for not thinking this through more thoroughly. But how about everyone else?