Russia's Other Neighbors

Hilzoy makes a necessary point:

I also think that allowing Georgia to join NATO, under any circumstances that remotely resemble the present, would make people wonder: are the United States and the other NATO countries really willing to go to war to protect Georgia? And the reason it would make people wonder is that it is not, in fact, even the least bit clear that we would, still less that we should. And that means that admitting Georgia to NATO would badly damage NATO's status as a credible defensive alliance.