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Are They Ready?

By David J. Smith
Tuesday, April 1
The 26 heads of NATO governments will decide at their Bucharest Summit meeting this week whether Georgia will soon get an alliance Membership Action Plan (MAP). The last meeting of NATO’s governing body ahead of the Summit adjourned last week without reaching consensus on this matter. “The momentum is slightly in favor of there being more countries in favor of granting MAP,” said one diplomat who participated in the meeting, “but NATO works with full consensus.” A single country could block Georgia’s way.

Although press reports identify a number of skeptical NATO member states—Belgium, France, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal and Spain—all eyes are on Germany. That is because just two days after German Chancellor Angela Merkel dashed to be the first western leader to meet with Russian President-elect Dmitry Medvedev, she tossed a grenade across Georgia’s path to NATO. Countries “enmeshed in regional conflicts,” Merkel said, “should not try to become members.”

Speaking before the General Staff of the German military, she continued, candidate members “should be able to make qualitative and meaningful contributions to the group.” The Chancellor seemed unaware that she will come under fire in Bucharest for using her army for social projects in the relatively peaceful north of Afghanistan while leaving the fighting in the south to other allies.

By the way, Georgia has a company plus a platoon of soldiers under NATO command in Kosovo and it contributed troops to the surge of NATO forces for the 2004 presidential election in Afghanistan. Discussions are underway for Georgian soldiers to return to Afghanistan—without the kind of debilitating restrictions on the use of those soldiers that too many allies have imposed.

Along with an impressive reform record, Georgia’s will to contribute meaningfully to NATO has earned support for its MAP bid among many allies. “I believe that NATO benefits with a Georgian membership,” said US President George W. Bush after a March 19 meeting with Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili. “It's a message I'll be taking to Bucharest soon.”

The following day, charter NATO member Canada plus nine former Soviet or Warsaw Pact NATO members wrote to alliance Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer to urge MAP for Georgia and Ukraine.

On March 27, Summit host Romanian President Traian Basescu urged NATO to support MAP for Georgia and Ukraine, roundly rejecting the notion of offering these countries some kind of half-measure, as some NATO diplomats have discussed of late.

NATO diplomats euphemistically dub objection to MAP for Georgia as “skepticism,” and skeptics usually add some vague explanation like, “They are not ready.” Never mind the non sequitur that MAP, by definition, means that the candidate country is not ready because MAP is an action plan to help it get ready. If anyone were suggesting that Georgia is ready, we would be discussing membership, not MAP.

In reality, the NATO countries that drag their feet on MAP for Georgia are unready—unready to look Russia in the eye. (It is unfortunate that many of them neglected to consider this during their unseemly rush to poke Russia in the eye with Kosovan independence.)

Aware of this, as the Bucharest Summit and a decision on MAP for Georgia and Ukraine approached, Moscow aggravated the conflict in the Georgian territory of Abkhazia and directed a propaganda offensive toward the west.

On March 6, Russia lifted the eleven-year-old Commonwealth of Independent States trade, economic, financial and transport sanctions on Abkhazia, abandoning one of the final pretenses that Moscow really recognizes Abkhazia as Georgian territory. “Most alarming is the prospect that Russia’s withdrawal from the sanctions could lead to arms transfers to the separatists,” Zalmay Khalilzad, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations remarked on March 11.

“As soon as Georgia gets some kind of prospect from Washington of NATO membership, the next day the process of real secession of these two territories from Georgia will begin," Russian envoy to NATO Dmitry Rogozin retorted, referring to Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

“We are not happy about the situation around Georgia and Ukraine,” Medvedev told the Financial Times on March 21. “No state can be pleased about having representatives of a military bloc to which it does not belong coming close to its borders.”

The same day, the Russian Duma passed a resolution calling on the Kremlin to consider “the expediency of recognizing the independence” of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. This is how Moscow promotes “skepticism” of MAP for Georgia among some NATO allies. Amazing is that most western leaders accept Moscow’s histrionics uncritically. Instead, they should ask two matter-of-fact questions.

First, apart from your unhappiness and displeasure, please tell us exactly how Georgia and Ukraine moving toward NATO will affect Russian interests. That way, we can effectively use the NATO-Russia Council to allay your concerns.

Second, we know that you largely control developments in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, so will you join us in a diplomatic effort to resolve these conflicts? If the NATO allies can muster the courage to face the nub of the problem, then MAP for Georgia would be a foregone conclusion. Are they ready?

This commentary was first published in the Georgian newspaper 24 Saati on March 31.

David J. Smith is Director, Georgian Security Analysis Center, Tbilisi, and Senior Fellow, Potomac Institute for Policy Studies, Washington.