Ukraine and Georgia to Nato?

A friend writes (after forwarding this article, discussing the Bush Administration's push to expedite NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia):

Not only does this alienate our European allies, who view us as crazy, but it also alienates (further) Russia--all the while knowing full well that Russia has Germany and Poland, amongst others, by the balls due to their gas and oil reserves. Then, in slightly different foreign policy contexts, we expect our European allies and the Russians to back us when negotiating sanctions against Iran and we expect NATO allies to put in more troops into Afghanistan. We can't even get our NATO allies to commit troops under fully NATO leadership without any conditions as to where they'll go and we expect to have their help if Georgia and Ukraine are invaded?

I agree that this is an absolutely terrible plan. There's no legitimate strategic reason to give a military guarantee to Georgia, particularly after the revelations that the events this summer were started by Georgia, and not by Russian aggression. They aren't strategically located, don't have any kind of natural resources, don't provide us with much in the way of military help, there's no significant ethnic Georgian population in the U.S., etc. Yes it's generally good to aid smallish, somewhat democratic countries against larger, somewhat-less-democratic neighbors... but let's look at the overall situation here. By far, it would be a greater moral tragedy for the U.S. to become embroiled in a war with Russia - in which hundreds of thousands could die, and the possibility of nuclear holocaust would be very real - than it would to allow Georgia to lose some chunk of its territory (largely filled with ethnic Russians) to Russia.

Not every land-grab by a larger country of a smaller country's territory is Munich all over again. Russia has no designs on world domination- they are simply looking to exert influence in their historic sphere of influence in the same manner that we've done in the Western hemisphere for hundreds of years and have continued to do in the recent past (see Panama and Grenada). I'm not saying I approve of Russia's actions, but that we need to think of them in a larger context.

I can see more reason for bringing Ukraine in- it's a more clearly "European" country and is accessible through Poland, an ally and a country supporting bringing Ukraine in. It also is a much more likely candidate for EU membership somewhere down the line. Georgia on the other hand is essentially down in the Middle East, and never has been traditionally part of cultural Europe. This is more an argument for slowly bringing Ukraine in, along perhaps with EU membership, over maybe a 10 or 15 year time-frame. No need to rush it.

Granted, Russia is going to be weakened in the forseeable future because of the declining prices for oil and gas, which should decrease its appetite for foreign adventurism. That's still not a good reason for pushing this issue now.