2006/06/23 [bpŠļK
http://www.economist.com/world/europe/displaystory.cfm?story_id=7064507
Georgia, Ukraine and NATO
Surrounding Russia
Jun 15th 2006 | MOSCOW
From The Economist print edition
Russian worries about Western encirclement are premature
IT IS a decidedly odd race. Mikhail Saakashvili and Viktor Yushchenko,
leaders respectively of Georgia's groseh and Ukraine's gorangeh
revolution, are both eager to join NATO, despite grim warnings from Moscow
about the dire consequences. The Georgians are desperate to get in, but are
nowhere near ready. The Ukrainians look more eligible—except that most of Mr
Yushchenko's countrymen do not much want to join.
Recent events in Crimea have encapsulated Mr Yushchenko's predicament.
Multinational military exercises supposed to take place around the peninsula
this summer do not in fact fall under NATO's auspices; similar ones have
occurred for most of the past decade. Yet, after hysterical rumours were
spread about the unloading of poison gases and about NATO coup plots, a
ragtag mob of Communists and Cossacks blocked preparations for the exercises
by a group of American reservists. The Americans left—and the latrines they
came to dig remain undug.
Even in a country as wacky as Ukraine, Crimea is unusual: many of its
Russian-speaking inhabitants would prefer it to be, as it was until 1954,
part of Russia. Sebastopol is home to Russia's Black Sea fleet. The protests
were also a by-product of the wrangle over forming a new government in Kiev,
which has been going on ever since Ukraine's parliamentary election in
March. NATO membership is a sticking-point in the political negotiations.
For all that, it seems clear that most Ukrainians do not want to join the
NATO alliance. gSoviet brainwashing,h retorts Anton Buteiko, a deputy
foreign minister; yet Mr Yushchenko would struggle to carry a mooted
referendum on accession. Apart from that hitch, its faster progress in
military reform, better hardware and more troops ought to put Ukraine
comfortably ahead of Georgia in the membership stakes. The Georgians have
made progress, though often more on paper than in reality. They have also
tried to ingratiate themselves by helping out in Iraq. But Mr Saakashvili
faces a deal-breaking problem of his own: that bits of his country are, in
effect, under occupation.
As Alexander Rondeli of the Georgian Foundation for Strategic and
International Studies puts it, Georgia is handily located on the Black Sea,
gbetween oil-rich Russia and the oil-rich Islamic world.h It was once a
conduit for narcotics and a refuge for terrorists. But geography also points
to Georgia's main flaw. Two separatist enclaves, Abkhazia and South Ossetia,
fought their way to quasi-independence in the 1990s, and have been sustained
ever since by Russian support. Mr Saakashvili and Vladimir Putin, Russia's
president, who have been trading insults for months, met in St Petersburg
this week; but agreement on the enclaves is remote.
Mamuka Kudava, who leads Georgia's NATO campaign, says optimistically that
joining NATO and sorting out the enclaves will go together. But Vyacheslav
Nikonov, a Kremlin-friendly analyst in Moscow, declares that, if Georgia
ever joins, it gcan forget about South Ossetia and Abkhazia.h The
Georgians complain that to make the enclaves a decisive factor in their bid
would be to give the Russians a veto. Mr Kudava likens the situation to the
border disagreements with Russia that Baltic members of NATO brought with
them. But taking Georgia into NATO in its current shape might look more like
offering insurance for a broken-down car.
In fact, bellicose Russian noises about Georgia and Ukraine joining are
partly tactical. Statements last week by the Russian government and in the
Russian parliament about the grave danger of Ukrainian accession may have
been aimed, in part, at the coalition negotiations in Kiev. Mr Yushchenko
detected a gthird forceh at work in the Crimean brouhaha. Some Russian
parliamentarians, behaving more like comedians, were indeed at the scene.
Still, Russia's worries are partly genuine, and not altogether unreasonable.
America would be concerned, argues Mr Nikonov, if Mexico and Canada were to
join a military organisation led by Russia. Seen from Moscow, NATO expansion
is beginning to look endless: the drive to gsurround Russia with NATO,h
says Dmitri Peskov, a Kremlin spokesman, will demand gcounter-measuresh.
The Kremlin worries about the future of its Black Sea fleet, should Ukraine
get in. But even more important than bases, says Dmitri Trenin, of the
Moscow Carnegie Centre, would be the sense that NATO membership had
permanently reoriented Ukraine out of Russia's sphere of influence.
The Kremlin need not panic yet. The Americans want to bring in both Georgia
and Ukraine, but other NATO governments are less gung-ho. One reason is that
some of the democratic sheen has come off both revolutions. Another is that
many Europeans feel that the alliance is already big enough, and that some
newer members joined too soon. Some members also do not want NATO to move
further and faster than the European Union. And a few are against because
they fear antagonising the Russians. (gWho cares about Georgia?h asks Mr
Rondeli, gloomily.)
Mr Saakashvili and Mr Yushchenko are looking for a concrete foreign-policy
achievement. For both, NATO membership looks more attainable than early
entry into the EU. Mr Buteiko asserts that Ukraine might still join in 2008.
But both countries may well find themselves lapping each other on a
jargon-littered circuit of gdialogueh and gaction plansh for a lot
longer than that.