Yet, it was understood during the Cold War that if a NATO ally like Norway, West Germany or Turkey, which bordered on the Soviet Union or Warsaw Pact, were attacked, America would come to its defense.
Can any sane man believe the United States should go to war with a nuclear-armed Russia over Stalin's birthplace, Georgia?
Two provinces of Georgia, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, have seceded, with the backing of Russia. And there are 10 million Russian-speaking Ukrainians in the east of that country, and Moscow and Kiev are at odds over which is sovereign on the Crimean Peninsula.
To bring Ukraine and Georgia into NATO would put America in the middle of these quarrels. We could be dragged into a confrontation with Russia over Abkhazia, or South Ossetia, or who owns Sebastopol. To bring these ex-republics of the Soviet Union into NATO would be an affront to Moscow not unlike 19th century Britain bringing the Confederate state of South Carolina under the protection of the British Empire.
