Ishaan Busireddy
NATO. A towering alliance of thirty-two member states, it has grown to dominate the realm of international affairs. In its crusade to contain its main adversary Russia, NATO has swiftly expanded eastwards, now finding itself near Russia’s doorstep.
And thus, NATO and its de facto leader, the United States, have encountered a predicament. With Russia invading Ukraine, a country that has very recently elicited Western sympathies, America and NATO had to decide whether and how to support Ukraine. Ultimately, they decided not to directly intervene so as to not risk escalation into a wider war but rather opted to provide material and fiscal aid. Yet, fear still lingers as a result of the uncertainty of the war’s outcome. Analysts dispute which side holds the advantage, but Russia continues to control roughly 18% of previously Ukrainian territory. Additionally, aid for Ukraine has been extremely taxing for the West, and reluctance to grant further monetary support is rapidly growing in the United States with Congress frequently gridlocking on the subject since the war escalated in 2022.
Although the Ukraine crisis is a debate still to be solved, the international community has another lesson to learn. The U.S. and NATO must realize that they still need to further contain Russia while they are preoccupied with Ukraine. If not, within a few years or so, we will have another Ukraine. It increasingly appears that U.S. policymakers may opt to pull out of Ukraine, which is already struggling to maintain the frontlines. Therefore, it is time to pivot toward preventative strategies, that being, the further enlargement of NATO beyond Ukraine.
Still at the Russian border remains a sovereign state at the threat of invasion. Western-oriented, democratic, capitalist, and–albeit barely–European: the country of Georgia. U.S. and NATO must push for Georgia’s accession into the alliance before the Ukrainian crisis repeats itself.
Beyond NATO, countries throughout the former-Soviet sphere in Eastern Europe and the South Caucasus have liberalized and shifted towards the West, adopting capitalist and democratic systems. Amidst this three-decades-long development, Russia has taken a more aggressive approach as its former puppets slip permanently out of its grasp. In several instances, Russia—due to its repeated diplomatic failures—has resorted to violence to sustain its influence, both directly and indirectly. In 2023, Russia flagrantly allowed Azerbaijan to circumvent its Russian “peacekeepers” in Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh), thereby serving as a facilitator to Azerbaijn’s ethnic cleansing of all Armenians from their indigenous lands. In terms of direct involvement, one may immediately think of the 2022 Invasion of Ukraine, or even the preceding 2014 Annexation of Crimea, as an example of Russian belligerence. However, the notable and successful 2008 Russian Invasion of Georgia evidenced Russia’s tendencies at a much earlier date, fourteen years before an equivalent invasion of Ukraine. Russia utilized ongoing internal disputes among Georgian minorities—Abkhazians and Alanians—as pretense for an invasion. Sound familiar? The Kremlin based its later invasions of Ukraine on similar reasoning, alleging that the pro-Western Ukrainian state abrogated the rights of its Russian minority—a minority Russia feels has an obligation to protect.
While Ukraine displayed internal conflict and doubt over whether to favor NATO or Russia throughout the 2000s and 2010s, Georgia has remained committed to European and Western integration since its 2003 Rose Revolution, which was something of a Georgian Euromaidan. Georgian politics then shifted convincingly to a Westwards orientation by popular demand. However, NATO did not proceed quickly enough, and Russia invaded Georgia just five years later, splitting off two regions–Abkhazia and South Ossetia–which continue to remain heavily under Russian influence, if not dependence. As Russia and its aforementioned proxies do not entirely control the disputed territory, the uncertainty creates grounds for further conflict. Given this delicate situation, the West must learn from the Ukraine disaster and expedite the process of Georgian admission.
On the question of whether Georgia truly aspires to join, the people of the country have spoken for themselves. Similar to Eastern Europe’s spike in interest in joining NATO in 2022, in 2008, following Russia’s invasion, 77% of Georgian citizens voted to join NATO in a non-binding referendum. Furthermore, NATO promised to let Georgia eventually join at the 2008 Bucharest Summit; if it truly aims to prevent Russian expansion, NATO cannot afford to allow that to become a false promise. Considering similar sentiments regarding Russian aggression, Finland and Sweden were hastily admitted in 2023 and 2024, respectively, with the latter feeling threatened while not directly bordering Russia by land. Georgia on the other hand has been invaded once, with more possibly forthcoming lest NATO acts.
A counter argument may manifest that Georgian accession to NATO would provoke Russia into another invasion rather than deter it. Firstly, Russia is preoccupied with Ukraine and likely cannot afford an additional entanglement—creating the ideal opportunity for Georgian admission into NATO. Still, more critically, this same line of thinking—that fear of NATO expansion will somehow provoke Russia—is what landed the world into the Ukraine dilemma. Appeasement does not work. Concrete deterrence does work. Putin has proved himself willing to violate multilateral agreements and neutrality. He failed to hold his end of the deal in Ukraine, claiming that he would not violate Ukrainian sovereignty; instead, he duped the West into slowing and stopping Ukraine’s process for joining NATO, creating the perfect circumstances for a Russian invasion. Rather than play ill-conceived diplomatic and appeasing games that Putin has been anyways winning, the U.S. and its NATO allies must swallow the difficult truth: Putin only fears all-out-war against every NATO country at once. Such is a situation even a dictator would not risk. Hence, if de-escalation fails, then escalation must be made an impossible choice.
If the United States and NATO cannot learn from their mistakes in dealing with Putin’s Russia, their apparent mission of containing Russian influence can never be realized. Using NATO enlargement, the West must finally complete the “Diamond Curtain”, a democratic ring of containment, that it has been building for the last three decades around Russia to confine it and prevent its aggression once and for all. If they wait until it is too late, war will reign once more in Europe.
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