The MAP is something like an official NATO "road map" by following which and obeying all the road signs potential candidates eventually reach the gates of NATO headquarters in Brussels.
Well, Ukraine and Georgia have not yet embarked on that road, according to a NATO decision taken on March 6, in the run-up to the April summit in Bucharest.
NATO, it has to be said from the start, has not given up plans to bring Yushchenko's Kiev and Saakashvili's Tbilisi into the alliance. It has just put them on hold. In practice this means that the two countries will not draw closer to NATO for at least another year and will not become members for another four years.
The numbers are very simple: it usually takes a year or two to meet the Action Plan's requirements, and a further two years after the official NATO invitation, usually issued at the annual summit.
There are several reasons for NATO's decision. Although the U.S. is pressing for early admission, NATO old-timers such as France and Germany are urging caution in order, to quote a German diplomat, "not to further antagonize Moscow, with which the relations are bad enough due to the Kosovo precedent, quarrels over the new missile defense systems in Poland and the Czech Republic and differences over conventional arms control in Europe."
The "old NATO" European diplomats declare that it would be a serious mistake to alienate Russia further in order to please Tbilisi and Kiev, especially when a new president, Dmitry Medvedev, is taking over the reins of power in Moscow. For some reason he is widely perceived in Europe to be a pro-Westerner, unlike Putin. His accession to power is thus held to offer an opportunity to "restore" relations with Moscow, which have greatly deteriorated over the past four years.
This line of reasoning makes sense. However, there is one other consideration that outweighs all the rest. That is the forthcoming NATO summit in Bucharest in April. The allies are approaching it with such a luggage of differences that they have little appetite for squeezing such "trifles" as Georgia and Ukraine into the agenda.
The summit has to be a success. It is intended to be the biggest summit in NATO's history. It will be attended by all the 26 heads of state and government. All the non-NATO countries that are members of the anti-terrorist coalition in Afghanistan, international financial donors such as Japan, the UN and EU leaders have been invited; and the outgoing Russian president, Vladimir Putin, is also to attend Bucharest. The media are already stressing the historical significance - this will be the first time that Russia has attended a NATO summit.
The main issues on the agenda are Afghanistan, particularly, the strengthening of the NATO contingent there, and NATO enlargement by admitting new Balkan members: Macedonia, Albania and Croatia. And that is where the problems begin.
Germany may do a lot to spoil the party in Bucharest. The U.S. and Britain are having a hard time persuading Berlin to send Bundeswehr units currently on duty in the relatively calm north of Afghanistan to the far more volatile south. So far Angela Merkel has argued that the Bundeswehr cannot "be torn between different parts of Afghanistan." That is disingenuous. Nobody expects the Bundeswehr to "tear itself apart": NATO (Washington) wants it to send additional battalions to the south. But how can it do so if, as the latest polls suggest, 86% of Germans back home are opposed to any participation of their soldiers in combat operations? Merkel's Grand Coalition is not doing very well on the economic front, and the very thought of what would happen if it yielded to U.S. demands gives the coalition the jitters.
The biggest pressure on the Germans comes from Washington. While previously the U.S. used to turn on pressure on wavering allies two or three months ahead of major NATO meetings, this time around it started to "grind away" at them nine months before Bucharest. Defense Secretary Robert Gates sent an open letter to Berlin admonishing the Germans for sitting it out in their barrack rooms even as Americans and Britons were being killed in southern Afghanistan.
Nor are things entirely smooth with NATO expansion in the Balkans. The Greeks may throw spanners in the works with a problem that may appear laughable to anyone but the true Greek patriots. The Greeks refuse to approve the admission of the Republic of Macedonia to NATO until that republic changes its name. As the Greeks have been arguing all along, historical Macedonia, the birthplace of Alexander the Great, is part of northern Greece, and no one will be allowed to take that glorious name away from Athens.
The Greeks bullishly held their ground at the latest March meeting in Brussels, although they were reminded that bringing in Macedonia was very important for NATO strategically, and that after Kosovo's independence it should help the bloc to strengthen its presence in the Balkans for the sake of stability in the area. But the Greeks are adamant.
In general, from whatever angle you look at it, the NATO summit in Bucharest, though historic and the biggest ever, will also be the most difficult ever.
The opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.
