Nato and Russia must draw a line

Russia feels that it is being encircled by Nato, and it is following centuries of tried and tested foreign policy by lashing out and using its army to reinforce its sphere of influence. It is clear that it thinks that Georgia and Ukraine are a step too far for Nato, and it is warning the two states, and any others which might follow, to think again about seeking Nato membership.

It has been enraged by the advances Nato made over the previous decade as it scooped up former Soviet Bloc states and has incorporated them into the Western alliance. The Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, Poland and Romania have already taken Nato boundaries well into what Russia sees as its sphere of influence.

However, there should be no doubt that the newly sovereign nations of the former communist bloc have every right to seek Nato membership. They should be able to do whatever they want to reinforce their national security, and finding the world's most powerful military allies is as good a way as any.

However, it is a different question when it comes to Nato's response. The alliance has to be clear about what it is doing, and at the moment it does not seem to have a strategic aim, other than get bigger by bringing in as many states as possible into the alliance.

In 1999, Nato celebrated its 50 years as a mutual defence treaty, whose sole purpose was to come to the defence of any member state. Nato had not launched any war, and had not conquered any territory. And its members were held together by their requirement for mutual security, and shared ideals of democracy.

Perennial problems

The collapse of the Soviet Union left the alliance without a large enemy against whom to ally. As a result, the Nato governments agreed to allow their troops to be used 'out of territory', which also had the benefit of solving the perennial problems that the United States was having with the United Nations when it wanted to be more interventionist than the UN would allow. Nato gave the US an efficient military organisation which would obey orders, and not be subject to limiting UN resolutions. This shift in purpose had a profound effect on the alliance as it got involved in Bosnia (which was at least in Europe) and then in Afghanistan. Nato ceased to be a purely defensive treaty, and became a tool for enforcing a Western view of how the world should be run, on other parts of the world.

As a defensive alliance, Nato needs to know where it will stop, and how it wants to handle the states on its periphery if they are not going to be full members. If Georgia can join, whose only territorial contiguity with Nato is a small border with Turkey, why shouldn't applications come from Syria or Iraq, which also border Turkey? At some point, Nato has to stop accepting members, but it should be ready to work with states on its borders to support their aspirations to security and democracy.

One vital starting point is that it should also only accept new members which have defined borders, otherwise Nato is giving any new member a blank cheque. If Georgia joins, then all 27 other members are duty bound to come to the defence of their fellow ally, which means that all Nato nations will be dragged into the wars over South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

Any new member of Nato should be required to solve its border problems before membership, which means that Georgia has to agree with Russia over its two enclaves, and Ukraine needs to get a solid agreement with Russia over the Russian-speaking Crimea peninsula and eastern Ukraine. If these agreements do not happen, then the two states should not join Nato.

Old-fashioned

Russia also has to wake up to the fact that old fashioned wars to establish sphere of influence will not do it any favours. Years of exceptional oil prices have hidden its economic woes, and given those sponsoring an aggressive foreign policy plenty of room for manoeuvre, but in the long term Russia will not be able to ignore the force of the global community.

It is still too small to go it alone completely. Its economy is ten times smaller than that of the US, and it is still struggling with moving from the former communist command economy to a free market system. The tight links between Russian oligarchs, politicians and the defence establishment make Russia work at the moment, but it is not a deeply rooted stable economy.

As a result, Nato should be tough over Russia's expedition into Georgian South Ossetia, as it should be over Abkhazia, and will need to be over the Crimea if that comes up. But Nato is not yet fighting another Cold War. It should focus on establishing its limits, and making sure that Russia accepts those limits.

Secure understanding of where Russia's allies and Nato's members meet on the map, and which is which, will allow all states to work on seeking prosperity and good relations across the divide. Globalisation will happen anyway, and the West and Nato are at its heart. Russia needs the West to get its economy on the move, and it has to remember this as its tests the water with its 19th century style adventures in the Caucasus.