ANALYSIS: NATO and Russia - in, out or friendly?

Apr 3, 2008, 16:00 GMT

Bucharest - Half a century ago, NATO's first secretary general, Lord Ismay, said that the alliance's purpose was 'to keep the Americans in, the Russians out and the Germans down.'

As NATO leaders debated on whether to offer Ukraine and Georgia the prospect of membership at a summit in Bucharest on Thursday, the alliance's new challenge was to decide whether it should try to keep the Russians out, or keep them friendly.

'There are clearly two schools of thought in NATO. For the first, with states such as the Baltics and Poland, Russia is clearly a re- emergent military threat,' Thomas Gomart, director of the Russia centre at the Paris-based IFRI French Institute for International Relations said.

'For Germany and France, it is clearly no longer a military threat - it's a difficult partner which has to be limited, but no longer a threat.

'And as long as you have a different threat perception, it will be very difficult to deal with Russia,' he told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

Ahead of the three-day summit of NATO leaders, which opened on Wednesday in Bucharest, the hottest debate in diplomatic circles was over the question of whether NATO should risk angering Russia by offering Georgia and Ukraine a plan for future membership.

The United States, Canada and NATO's former-Communist members in Central and Eastern Europe all lobbied strongly in favour of granting a Membership Action Plan (MAP), each country in its own way judging that the best way to maintain regional and global security would be to spread NATO's banner around the Russian border.

But France and Germany argued that offering the duo a MAP at the summit would both involve the alliance in unpredictable risks and ruin relations with Moscow at a time when the forthcoming inauguration of a new president offered a golden opportunity to improve the relationship.

Statements from Moscow supported that view, with Russia's spokesman to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin, warning that the offer of a MAP would be a 'point of no return' for NATO-Russia relations.

And the more conciliatory stance seemed to have won the day on Wednesday, with NATO leaders agreeing that there would be no MAP for either state.

Initially, analysts viewed that informal agreement as a victory for Russia.

But the position turned on its head on Thursday when NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said, 'We agreed today that (Ukraine and Georgia) will become members of NATO.'

Even more strikingly, he said that NATO foreign ministers would return to the issue of a MAP in December, and would be authorized to decide whether or not to offer MAPs on the spot - the first time that that power has been delegated by heads of state.

'It's subtle: without the delay, the decision (not to offer a MAP) could have been seen as a Russian victory,' Gomart said.

'NATO is getting a bit tougher, and saying that we're waiting a couple of months, but we're going to go ahead anyway,' Atis Lejins, head of the Latvian Foreign Policy Institute and an expert on Russian-Western relations, said.

Analysts say that the decision puts the ball in Russia's court, giving it the choice of criticizing the announcement on eventual membership or of welcoming the postponement of the MAP.

They also say that it buys NATO leaders time to try and convince Russia - and especially its president-elect, Dmitry Medvedev - that any enlargement into the former USSR is not aimed at Moscow.

And they further point out that a negative reaction from Russia could make it easier for French and German leaders to justify offering Georgia and Ukraine a MAP in December.

'There will probably be some changes in style under Medvedev when dealing with the West, but Russia will continue to be assertive ... It thinks that as long as NATO is weakening, it's a good way for Russia to regain what it lost in the last decade,' Gomart said.

That being the case, Thursday's announcement on Ukraine and Georgia looks more like the beginning of a diplomatic debate than the end of one.

And with just eight months to go before NATO foreign ministers convene in December, the pressure is now on for both NATO and Russia to forge a new relationship together - before they form one apart.