NATO Expansion Follies, Part ∞

ABC releases some snippets of the Palin interview:

GIBSON: Would you favor putting Georgia and Ukraine in NATO?

PALIN: Ukraine, definitely, yes. Yes, and Georgia.

GIBSON: Because Putin has said he would not tolerate NATO incursion into the Caucasus.

PALIN: Well, you know, the Rose Revolution, the Orange Revolution, those actions have showed us that those democratic nations, I believe, deserve to be in NATO.

Putin thinks otherwise. Obviously, he thinks otherwise, but…

GIBSON: And under the NATO treaty, wouldn’t we then have to go to war if Russia went into Georgia?

PALIN: Perhaps so. I mean, that is the agreement when you are a NATO ally, is if another country is attacked, you’re going to be expected to be called upon and help.

But NATO, I think, should include Ukraine, definitely, at this point and I think that we need to — especially with new leadership coming in on January 20, being sworn on, on either ticket, we have got to make sure that we strengthen our allies, our ties with each one of those NATO members.

We have got to make sure that that is the group that can be counted upon to defend one another in a very dangerous world today.

GIBSON: And you think it would be worth it to the United States, Georgia is worth it to the United States to go to war if Russia were to invade.

PALIN: What I think is that smaller democratic countries that are invaded by a larger power is something for us to be vigilant against. We have got to be cognizant of what the consequences are if a larger power is able to take over smaller democratic countries.

And we have got to be vigilant. We have got to show the support, in this case, for Georgia. The support that we can show is economic sanctions perhaps against Russia, if this is what it leads to.

It doesn’t have to lead to war and it doesn’t have to lead, as I said, to a Cold War, but economic sanctions, diplomatic pressure, again, counting on our allies to help us do that in this mission of keeping our eye on Russia and Putin and some of his desire to control and to control much more than smaller democratic countries.

His mission, if it is to control energy supplies, also, coming from and through Russia, that’s a dangerous position for our world to be in, if we were to allow that to happen.

Where to begin…?

Sarah Palin is a quick study, a sharp pupil. Too bad she’s learning from some of the most dangerous people with the most pernicious ideas about foreign policy.

I know I’m a one-note kinda guy, but see Fukuyama:

If Cheney and McCain were really serious about protecting Georgia’s territorial integrity, why wait for NATO? We protect plenty of countries like Korea and Japan through bilateral arrangements, and could decide to deploy a battalion or two of American ground forces, or some squadrons of F-16s, to Georgia tomorrow.

Why not? Because if we could find the forces ready to go fight given our other global commitments, there would be no way to stop Russia from overwhelming them short of threatening nuclear war.

I don’t know if Palin’s thought through this with any amount of care, but that’s what her gambit boils down to: a nuclear standoff over Georgia and the Ukraine.

All while we’re trying to:

• contain Iran’s nuclear ambitions;
• deal with a deteriorating situation in Pakistan;
• if Kim Jong Il dies, contain the mess in North Korea;
• assure “victory” in Iraq, whatever that means.

This isn’t a criticism of Palin, of course. I’m assuming she’s just been indoctrinated. It’s a criticism of McCain’s reckless foreign policy which continues to scare the hell out of me.

[Edit: added the bullets. It was late and my writing was as clear as mud.]