Let Russia join NATO

Anti-Russian fervor threatens to hit fever pitch in Washington this week. In the wake of Russia's military incursion into Georgia, Barack Obama is suddenly doing his best to parrot John McCain's Russophobia. Indeed, the cries to shove Moscow back into the cold are coming from both sides of the aisle: Kick Russia out of the G-8, lock it out of the European Union and the World Trade Organization and, by all means, boycott Vladimir Putin's pet project, Sochi 2014 -- the Winter Olympics slated for a Black Sea venue a short drive from the disputed territory of Abkhazia. On Tuesday, NATO said that continuing normal relations with Russia was impossible and moved to all but scrap the NATO-Russia Council.

Let no one be deceived: Putin has drawn a dangerous new line. Russian troops have trespassed into a sovereign nation for the first time since the dissolution of the Soviet Union. But all such retributive Western campaigns are misguided and, like every attempt to twist Russian arms since the end of the U.S.S.R., sure to backfire.

There's really only one lever left: Invite Russia to join NATO.

This is not a new idea. Once upon a time, it was openly entertained in diplomatic circles East and West. In late 1991, the final days of the U.S.S.R,, Boris Yeltsin stunned a NATO meeting by sending a letter with this unilateral declaration: "Today we are raising a question of Russia's membership in NATO." "A long-term political aim," Yeltsin called it then, as he threw down the gauntlet before the West. NATO ministers, as Tom Friedman reported for the New York Times at the time, were "too taken aback ... to give any coherent response." In the ensuing years, as Yeltsin with characteristic bravura continued to raise the prospect, the West kept fumbling for a reply.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-meier20-2008aug20,0,1714241.story

This is about as likely as OPEC letting the US join. :rofl:

Russia is NATO 's reason for existing. As the OP points out, Russia has asked to join several times.

Edit: but you are right, it's not likely.

I also always thought of NATO as only existing because of Russia.

He's destroyed the freedom of speech and press, and their elections are a sham. He's a lot like Bush, actually, only more successful at taking away the freedom of speech. (If we were in Russia, we on this website would all be jailed.) If they went back to their Democratic ways, I'd think they should be welcomed into NATO.

Clinton allowed Russia to join NATO as a "non-voting member" around '99 or 2000 (much to the GOP's outrage and the confusion of much of the rest of the world).

and it only happens in Political Science fantasy scenarios. Ukraine will eventually get into NATO. As will Georgia.
Both will be fighting tooth and claw to get either into the E.U. or get some kind of "priveledged partnership" with the E.U.

Personally I would love to see Turkey in the E.U.....would be great for that part of the world.

give Abkhazia a Kosovo style quasi independence. Georgia will be a bit smaller but then at least the fighting would stop. (hopefully)

that Georgia attacked the citizens of S. Ossetia and killed many civilians, many Russian citizens. Surely Obama knows this too. Why he is running more scared than McCain I cannot fathom. He is also running from the ideals which got him the nominee position.