Russia Roars, NATO Purrs

Alliance needs to step up and protect Eastern Europe
By Kevin Spak,  Newser Staff
Posted Aug 22, 2008 7:51 AM CDT
Russia Roars, NATO Purrs
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, right, meets Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in the Moscow Kremlin on Wednesday, Aug. 13, 2008.    (AP Photo)

Russia had better watch its back. NATO has proven that if it goes around invading its neighbors, the world’s mightiest alliance will take action and…er… cancel the next NATO-Russia Council meeting. That’s the lone consequence NATO put forth in its statement on the “situation in Georgia,” a document that Charles Krauthammer of the Washington Post finds “almost comically evenhanded.”

The statement dares not even say, for example, who invaded whom. “We deplore all loss of life,” it reads, as if the attack were a bus accident. It’s a ridiculous display because the stakes are so high. If Russia unseats Georgia’s government and NATO does nothing, it will demoralize Eastern Europe and signal a return to Russian power. Today’s Russia has geopolitical pressure points. Why aren’t we pushing them? (More Russia stories.)

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