NATO Is Failing

From The Telegraph:

Worse, the grand project of expanding Nato has stalled. This will be the first summit since the collapse of communism that will issue no new invitations to membership. That is a tragedy.

Nato's enlargement has bolstered freedom and entrenched democracy across the continent. The summit in the Latvian capital is a powerful reminder: without the Nato membership they gained in 2004, the defenceless Baltic states would have been a dangerous security no-mans-land. Now they contribute to Nato – with symbolic troops, and vital electronic and human intelligence – and are anchored in the West.

The success of enlargement has proved Russia's doom-laden warnings wrong. But the Kremlin has now gained something that had eluded it since the end of the Cold War: a veto on Nato's expansion. In Ukraine, the pro-Russian ruling party that displaced the pro-Western (but deeply corrupt and incompetent) parties of the 2004 "Orange Revolution" has bluntly said that it has no interest in joining the alliance.

That, arguably, is Ukraine's own affair, though public opinion was poisoned against Nato by propaganda that portrayed it as a warmongers' cabal, rather than an alliance of successful and prosperous democracies.

Much worse is the case of Georgia, fast-reforming, ardently pro-Western, and crucially located at the crossroads of Europe and Asia. It is eager to join. But France, Greece and other pro-Russian countries say no. They swallow whole the Kremlin's bogus line that it feels its sphere of influence is being infringed. They never ask why the countries closest to Russia find its embrace so stifling.

Georgia has even been abandoned by its chief ally, America, which is desperate for Kremlin help against Iran and North Korea. It did not defend Georgia against a critical resolution at the United Nations and has dropped all objections to Russia's long-sought membership of the World Trade Organisation.

As America's power has receded, Russia's has grown. Russia does not just supply a quarter of Europe's gas. The Kremlin's monopoly of export pipelines has also created a stranglehold over supplies from Central Asia to eastern and central Europe. With oil, tanker deliveries can substitute for pipelines. With gas, a pipeline creates long-term dependency.

Russia's gas weapon is proving a far more potent means of subverting Europe than either communism or the Red Army. Murky intermediary companies spew out money for politicians, parties and officials that favour the Kremlin's line. Gerhard Schröder, who as German chancellor revelled in being Vladimir Putin's best friend in Europe, now heads – doubtless from the most honourable motives – the company building a pipeline on the Baltic seabed to link Germany and Russia.

Germany could try to get gas elsewhere – by building terminals for liquefied natural gas. Instead, it is deepening dependence on the authoritarian, kleptocratic regime in Russia. "We are the have-nots, and they are the haves," a defeatist top foreign-ministry official told bemused British visitors last week.

It is also making neighbouring countries like Poland even more vulnerable to Kremlin blackmail. When the Baltic pipeline is built, Russia will be able to supply its friends, while starving its foes. Poland, along with the Baltic states, is trying frantically to diversify sources of supply. But progress is painfully slow.