Straddling

In a similar vein at Rand James Dobbins muses about continued NATO expansion and, in my opinion, does a masterful job of mugwumpery, unwilling to oppose NATO expansion but convinced that the time for NATO expansion has long passed:

NATO’s expansion toward the Russian border has long antagonized Moscow. For many years Russia could do little about it. That has changed. In recent years, Putin has repeatedly demonstrated that Russia is capable and willing to use armed force to prevent further NATO encroachment on its borders. This is one reason why NATO’s open-door policy is an anachronism.

The other reason is the primacy accorded to the Chinese challenge by three successive American administrations. Commitments in Europe and the Middle East were supposed to be stabilized if not reduced in favor of rebalancing toward Asia. Undertaking to defend another of Russia’s neighbors over Russia’s vehement objections would indeed be a major new burden. Even increasing defense resources to Europe merely to hold open that possibility seems wildly inconsistent with settled and bipartisan American policy.

The dangers generated by NATO’s open-door policy are directed, in the first instance, at those who take the United States and its allies at their word. In 2008, at a NATO summit in Bucharest, the alliance’s leaders, prompted by President Bush, promised Georgia and Ukraine that they would one day become NATO members. It’s now 13 years later. Russia has invaded both countries and seized their territory either for itself or for Russian proxy regimes, leaving Ukraine and Georgia further from NATO membership than ever. Becoming a NATO member in waiting on the border of Russia leaves the aspirant in a most vulnerable position, provoking Moscow without committing NATO.

Yet even if one accepts that NATO’s open-door policy is anachronistic and dangerous, abandoning it under current circumstances could be more dangerous still. Closing the NATO door could save Ukraine from a Russian invasion and even enable it to recover some of its lost territory. Nevertheless, to adopt such a posture under Russian pressure would be interpreted, not least by the Ukrainians themselves, as an abandonment. Coming so soon after the U.S. and NATO withdrawal from Afghanistan, this would render such a devastating blow to American credibility and NATO cohesion that continuing to defend an outdated policy and an empty promise of future membership may appear preferable.

He rather clearly thinks that Ukraine and, presumably, Georgia should engage in a posture of studied neutrality, as Finland and Austria did during the Cold War.

The question remains why are we determined to expand NATO to include Georgia, Ukraine, and other former Soviet republics? Clearly, it is not to strengthen the alliance. If anything it does the opposite. It stretches the credibility of the alliance. Does anyone actually believe that Germany or Italy will send troops to defend Ukraine in case of attack? And it actually places the new recruits in danger as Mr. Dobbins observed.

My WAG is that it’s part of continuing expansion of the European Union or, said another way, Germany wants more markets for its goods.