NATO Must Put its Foot Down

Ronald D. Asmus, Transatlantic Center | August 18, 2008

NATO foreign ministers are meeting tomorrow in Brussels to decide on further actions regarding the crisis in Georgia. ++ To prevent further instability, they should reassure those members who fear Russia that atlantic mutual-defence commitments are real and make new defense arrangements that would deter Russia. ++ They must also speed up the enlargement process and bring in Ukraine and the southern Caucasus: NATO must embrace countries whose survival is at stake, even if they don’t fulfil the usual membership criteria.