Would Georgian NATO membership have prevented Russian military action?
COLUMN
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By Raimo Väyrynen
The war between Georgia and Russia will inevitably lead to a re-evaluation of the nature and mission of NATO. NATO has defined itself as being in a state of change. In recent years the emphasis has been on the alliance being more of a crisis management organisation, and possibly only secondarily a traditional defence alliance. This way of thinking was also seen in the NATO report published by the Finnish Institute of International Affairs last December.
The key question from the point of view of the existence of NATO is its credibility as a traditional military alliance. The cornerstone in this is the obligation of the member states to provide aid in the event of an attack - something which is contained in Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty.
However, the obligation is less binding than is generally imagined. Redeeming political security commitments is not automatic: it depends on strategic and tactical situational assessments.
Traditional theories of military alliances cannot be applied to the war between Georgia and Russia. Instead, one needs to ponder how the crisis would have developed if Georgia had been a member of NATO.
The United States has taken a positive view of the NATO membership of Georgia and Ukraine. NATO’s new member states have given their support to the idea, whereas many countries of “Old Europe”, primarily Germany, have favoured more cautious advances.
Let us assume that Georgia had been a member on August 8th, 2008, a date that Minister for Foreign Affairs Alexander Stubb has seen as a turning point in international relations. Would Georgia have acted differently in that case?
Membership in a military alliance limits political choice. Although the United States has supported Georgia militarily, it has also seriously warned it against starting military action against South Ossetia. Preventing the crisis in advance failed because of the haphazard and short-sighted policy of President Mikhail Saakashvili. Would the warning from the United States been more effective if Georgia had been a member of NATO?
One of the key tasks of a military alliance is to establish a deterrent against possible attackers. The basic idea is to convey to the other side the information that it would face powerful countermeasures if it starts behaving in an aggressive manner. The purpose of deterrence is to avoid a military clash by threatening the other side with costs that outweigh the benefits.
Would Georgian membership in NATO have prevented Russia from initiating massive military actions even if the alliance would not have succeeded in preventing the action by Georgia’s present government?
I would say that Georgia’s membership in NATO would have reduced the likelihood of a war. On the other hand, it is strange that supporters of Georgia’s NATO membership have forgotten that the country has unresolved and acute regional disputes with Russia. Security commitments are not usually granted to such countries, because unresolved problems heighten internal difficulties within an alliance.
One of the key dilemmas of alliance politics is entrapment. Although the leading member state (or states) of an alliance might want to give the allies a sincere security guarantee, the costs of implementing it can be too great. For that reason, a counterstrike resulting from the failure of deterrence is mitigated by an additional deterrence of sorts.
If Georgia had been a member of NATO, and if the internal control policy of the alliance had failed, and if deterrence against Russia had not worked, would the United States and the other NATO countries been ready for a significant conflict with Russia?
The clash would have meant that significant states would have been at war with each other for the first time since the Second World War. In the final sense, it is unlikely that Georgia would have been worth a major war, especially considering that the country’s own policies since the early 1990s have left room for much criticism.
If the United States and NATO would not have been ready to take revenge on Russia against that country’s oversized military actions for the strengthening of its own geopolitical power sphere, the security dilemma of the member states would have been realised: abandonment in a moment of emergency.”
Each of the minor members of the alliance need to take into account that the leader of the alliance is not necessarily willing to provide assistance in a war that is of secondary importance from its own point of view, especially if the war was started by the alliance partner. This is the strength of a military alliance: it prevents member states from engaging in policies that are unwise. On the other hand, it could draw countries into attacks that they do not want to embark on.
What does this mean from NATO’s point of view? Expansive policies force the alliance to respond. The political and military support that the United States has given Georgia gives pressure to take more action. NATO certainly denounces Russia’s actions and will disengage from political cooperation, as Moscow has done for its own part.
In fact, an incredible political sense of defiance predominates in Moscow, and it can be seen in the form of new missile tests and trade actions, among others. NATO countries will undoubtedly increase their economic and humanitarian aid to Georgia.
However, the end result will be negative from Georgia’s point of view, if it has seen NATO membership as its primary foreign policy goal. The dilemmas of the military alliance will get most member countries to note that taking Georgia on as a member in the foreseeable future would be too risky.
NATO countries are unlikely to be willing to take on a member a state that has openly said that it plans to take back the breakaway regions that formally belong to it, but which are supervised by Russia - South Ossetia and the more important Abkhasia. It seems that at its next summit meeting in December, NATO will give Georgia support without real political or military commitments.
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 1.9.2008
The writer is the Director of the Finnish Institute of International Affairs.
Helsingin Sanomat
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| 2.9.2008 - THIS WEEK |
 Would Georgian NATO membership have prevented Russian military action? |
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