by hilzoy
In this post, I want to develop an argument I've been making sporadically in comments.
I think it is a wonderful, wonderful thing that it has become unthinkable that Russia would invade Western Europe. It wasn't always that way: certainly not in the immediate aftermath of World War II; arguably not until the 70s or so. And while there were many things that led it to become unimaginable, NATO protection is surely one of them.
I supported the expansion of NATO to include Eastern European countries back in the 1990s. I did so because I thought that this would secure those countries' independence from Russia, and that this was a wonderful thing to do. I did not, of course, imagine that Russia would not be able to harass them in various ways -- of course it could. I just thought that the US should do what it could to take invasion, in particular, off the table. I was, of course, aware that Russia did not want NATO to expand, and that it might reasonably (if wrongly) feel threatened by the entry of former Warsaw Pact countries into NATO. But I thought that locking in their independence was worth it. Similarly, I supported some of the later expansion, though I think it was probably excessive. (Albania?)
The reasons why I support some expansion of NATO, but not all possible expansions of NATO, ought to be obvious. First, the sort of change in the world that occurs when it becomes unimaginable to invade a country takes time. It also involves a serious commitment to defend that country, and since we have finite resources, it's really not possible to realistically commit ourselves to the defense of the entire globe, all at once. This sort of thing therefore has to proceed bit by bit. Moreover, if the goal is to convince one country that it should not regard invading those you've taken under your protection, then it matters not to give that country reason to feel encircled or threatened.
This last bit, I imagine, will be criticized by some conservatives. Ooh, they might say: so solicitous of Russia! Eager not to give offense to an amoral, dubiously democratic country that apparently does not blink at invading its neighbors! Any moment, you'll be suggesting we all sit down and sign 'Kumbaya' together -- after we finish the Russian group therapy sessions, that is!
To which I say: oh, please. I think of dealing with countries like Russia in sort of the same way I think of dealing with some unpleasant person at work who has a considerable amount of power to make my life and the lives of others miserable. I think it would be wrong to decide never ever to do anything that might annoy such a person, but it would be insane to decide that it was never worth thinking about what that person thought, and how she might react. (And even more insane to think, as some conservatives seem close to thinking, that it would be good policy to provoke her for no reason at all, just to show how tough we are.) If there are two ways of doing something, one of which will really anger her and one of which will not, of course you choose the one that won't. Moreover, even when there's only one way of doing something and it will anger her, you need to ask whether doing that thing is worth the cost. This is especially true when, as in this case, you are not the person most likely to suffer from her anger.
This seems to me to be pure common sense.
If I thought it was never worth doing anything that would really upset Russia, I would not have supported the expansion of NATO. If I supported some sort of 'spit in their faces whenever possible' policy, I suppose I'd be for offering NATO membership not just to Georgia, but to any bit of Russia that wanted it. (Chechnya, anyone?) I try to take an intermediate view: Russian reactions are real consequences of our actions, and should be weighed along with everything else, but they are not necessarily (or even often) decisive.
This is especially true in the case of NATO expansion. Again: the point, as far as I'm concerned, is to take invading certain countries off the table for the foreseeable future; to make invading those countries unimaginable, the way it is now unimaginable that Russia should invade, say, the Netherlands. That absolutely requires (among other things) Russia's coming to believe that the independence of those countries is not a threat. And that means that I cannot just not pay any attention to what Russia thinks. Changing what Russia thinks is part of the point.
So: the reason I do not support expanding NATO to include Georgia isn't just that Georgia has outstanding territorial disputes with Russia and a leader who is willing to start wars over those disputes. That would be enough of a reason:
"Nowhere in what I have read of the comment on this small but important war has it been explained why neither Georgia nor Ukraine should belong to NATO. They carry with them ready-made wars that NATO neither can nor should be expected to deal with. They are both ethnically and culturally divided nations whose histories are of struggle between or among their component parts.
In Georgia it is between the linguistically distinct enclaves that in the past were Russian and wish again to be Russian, and the majority of Georgians who want to be part of the West, but are also determined to dominate their rebellious territories.
If they would peacefully renounce those territories, an ethnically and culturally united Georgia would have every right to demand NATO membership. But as things are now (or were, until the last few days), Mikheil Saakashvili wants his country inside NATO to protect him from the consequences of forcing those dissident territories to remain under Georgian domination. NATO has no business doing such a thing, and as Russia supports the rebel enclaves, NATO membership for Georgia has war with Russia built into it. As we have just seen."
But I also think that allowing Georgia to join NATO, under any circumstances that remotely resemble the present, would make people wonder: are the United States and the other NATO countries really willing to go to war to protect Georgia? And the reason it would make people wonder is that it is not, in fact, even the least bit clear that we would, still less that we should. And that means that admitting Georgia to NATO would badly damage NATO's status as a credible defensive alliance.
It's really important to recognize this. If one does not, one might think: why not take a chance for Georgia? But if the cost is: damaging NATO's status as a credible defensive alliance, then we need to recognize that that's a cost will be borne by the other countries that are NATO members, and that are close to Russia. It is NATO that protects them. And it is NATO's status as a credible defensive alliance -- which means, other people's belief that if some NATO member were invaded, we would go to war to defend them -- that allows that protection to take the form of not being invaded, rather than the much less desirable form of having us roll in the tanks in response to a Russian attack.
Likewise, someone who didn't recognize the costs of admitting Georgia to NATO itself might be inclined to think: hey, why not extend NATO membership to Georgia, and gamble on the proposition that if Georgia were a NATO member, Russia would not invade? That line of thinking is not just (imho) inexcusably cavalier about the prospect of a shooting war with Russia; it also neglects the extent to which we cheapen our promises by overextending them. If we made a promise that it seemed very unlikely that we would follow through on, it would not carry anything like the weight it would have had we given it out more sparingly. And, as I said before, to the extent that similar promises are protecting other people, by degrading our word, we also harm them.
So I completely reject the idea that my unwillingness to support Georgian membership in NATO means that I am insufficiently sensitive to the need to protect Russia's neighbors. On the contrary: I worry not only about getting into a shooting war with Russia, but also about the credibility of the protection we have offered to other Russian neighbors. My disagreements with the people who say these sorts of things do not concern our views about the importance of protecting small countries with large neighbors, but our beliefs about the options we have available to us, and the consequences of various courses of action we might take.
Judgments about foreign policy are often high-stakes judgments with enormous amounts of risk. If I am wrong on this one, then by simply offering NATO membership to Georgia, we could protect it against invasion, and start the process by which it too might become a country it's just unimaginable for Russia to invade. But if people like John McCain are wrong, then letting Georgia join NATO would not only risk getting us into a war with Russia (and a war in which it would have a huge logistical advantage); it would also put at risk the peace and stability of Russia's other neighbors, and the survival of NATO as a credible defensive alliance.
These are very serious costs. They are worth discussing seriously. Reflexive statements about the need to stand up against Russian aggression and the "weakness" of whoever does not agitate the loudest are not serious, and do our country and our allies an enormous disservice.
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