Sigh. Exactly the one I am trying to communicate in these comments...
equate the "hypothetical" of Georgia gaining entry to NATO to the "hypothetical" of Russia invading Suffolk
NATO was created to, and I quote, "Keep the Russians out."
Georgia and very influential people in America are lobbying, strougly, for Georgia to get NATO membership.
NATO countries are military allies.
That would make the US and Georgia military allies.
I don't know how I can state this to make it any clearer.
Georgia recently sparked a military conflict with Russia. Regardless who started it, who deserves the blame for it, I think there is a consensus that Georgian troops and Russian troops were shooting each other.
I suspect, based on logic, language comprehension, synthesis of information, that the author was saying it would be nuts to risk the two countries which have 95% of the world's nuclear weapons to find themselves face-to-face in a military conflict.
Is it chauvinist to say two little Georgian provinces are not worth blowing up the world to save? Fine. They aren't. But there is nothing in that statement that says, "But two little English provinces are." "Pretending that you already know the answer when you don't is not actually very helpful." ~Migeru.
Tomasky's hypothetical was Georgia gaining entry in NATO and then going to war with Russia. Methinks that's quite large a hypothetical: the war calculations would be radically altered, on both sides.
And you know, given his peculiar decision-making process last August, I'm not convinced that Saak would have conferred with NATO, had Georgia then been a member, before launching an attack on South Ossetia. Even despite not having the protection of NATO, he nevertheless seemed to assume that his Western allies would support him more explicitly then they did. And they did support him up to but not including our troops on the ground. So I'm not convinced NATO membership would have necessarily deterred him, unless there was something in the contract stating that Georgia's membership would be contingent upon not starting fights with Russia. Secondly, so far as Georgian NATO membership could have been a deterrent to Russia's response, well, yet, it might have. OTOH, it could also have been the last straw. People think Russia is on a hair-trigger alert now. Russia thinks it is being restrained and playing nice now. They were happy to teach Georgia a lesson. And they're eager to prove they can teach us things too. Why go there? "Pretending that you already know the answer when you don't is not actually very helpful." ~Migeru.
