VP Biden On Cheer-Up Tour of Georgia, Ukraine

Vice-President Joe Biden is heading overseas for a visit to two of our Eastern European allies, Georgia and Ukraine. The context for the visit is basically to tell them not to worry, that even while the United States is trying to 'reset' relations with Russia, we won't forget about them and their desire to join NATO. But supporting their NATO ambitions now is exactly the wrong thing to do.

First, it violates (again) a pledge that the United States made to the newly-independent Russia just after the end of the Soviet Union back in the 90’s when the countries of Eastern Europe were clamoring for NATO membership: don't worry, we won't let NATO expand into the former Soviet Union. It's a promise that the US has already broken by supporting the membership of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. (And if you want to know why US-Russian relations are in a bad state, broken NATO promises are a big reason).

But second, promises aside, neither Georgia nor Ukraine deserves NATO membership, at least not now. NATO membership has been one of the 'rewards' to Eastern/Central European countries for making the transition from Communism to Democracy. But the governments of both Ukraine and Georgia are a mess. Ukraine has been paralyzed by political infighting for almost two years; their parliament just ended its session this week with a fistfight among some of its members. Meanwhile in Georgia, protesters have occupied parts of Tbilisi for three months now, charging that President Mikhail Saakashvili has become exactly the same kind of petty autocrat that he helped depose during Georgia's much-celebrated 'Rose Revolution'.

Biden's also going to Georgia to tell them (and Russia) that the US supports their 'territorial integrity' and their claim to the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia that Russia has recognized as independent countries. Of course in May during his own 'reset' mission to Serbia, Biden told the Serbs that the United States did recognize the independence of their breakaway region Kosovo, that Kosovo was gone and the Serbs needed to stop their crying about it. Mix messages Mr. Vice-President?

Meanwhile European officials are delaying the release of a report into last summer's conflict between Georgia and Russia over South Ossetia because the report, apparently, will put a lot of the blame on the Georgian side by suggesting they started the fighting - a move that's not politically popular with the British (or the US for that matter), who want the blame for the war to fall squarely on Russia. EU officials say they don't want to release the report now because they're worried about raising tensions in the region.

Like Biden's visit isn't going to do that, especially given Biden's penchant for, shall we say, going off script? I expect there's a good chance that Biden's visit will undo all the progress that Presidents Obama and Medvedev made in mending US-Russian relations two weeks ago in Moscow.