Word: moscow
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Washington hawks insist that the remedy to Russia's military humiliation of Georgia is to expedite the smaller country's incorporation into NATO. After all, Moscow might think twice about attacking any nation able to trigger the Atlantic Alliance's Article 5, which obliges all member states to respond militarily to an attack on any one of them. President Bush, in fact, toured Europe last spring to stump aggressively for Georgia and Ukraine to be granted Membership Action Plans, the first step toward joining the Alliance. But despite Bush's high-profile campaigning, the proposal was rebuffed at NATO...
...Afghanistan, where they are managing only to tread water against mounting odds. Other arguments against confrontation: much of Western Europe is wholly dependent on Russian energy supplies, and European negotiators believe there is little chance of a diplomatic solution to the Iran nuclear standoff without committed support from Moscow...
...appeals of Senator McCain - and his Democratic opponent, Senator Barack Obama - the events of the past week have more likely placed Georgia's NATO membership in the deep freeze for the foreseeable future, even if the Alliance remains rhetorically committed to the idea in principle. If so, Moscow can count what has transpired as a major victory: it has prevented the advance of a rival military alliance into Russia's backyard...
...Russia's very purpose in its "punishment" of Georgia has been to warn neighbors inclined to challenge Moscow from under a Western security umbrella that if a storm is provoked, that umbrella offers precious little protection. The conflict was never simply about Georgia and its restive minority regions; it was always about NATO, as well as the regional balance of power between Russia...
...Despite the events in Georgia over the past week, it was business as usual between the U.S. and Russia on the Western front. The Bush Administration on Thursday signed a deal with Poland to build a missile-interceptor base there, despite bitter opposition from Moscow, which sees the plan as aimed at blunting its own nuclear deterrent - a charge the Pentagon dismisses. But in light of Russia's heavy-handed action in Georgia and the missed signals and conflicting reports surrounding it, this may not be the most auspicious moment to further enrage the neighborhood bully by deploying a dubious...