For the first time since the creation of NATO, the United States has been thwarted in the attainment of a self-imposed priority goal: membership for Georgia and Ukraine. This was the most significant outcome of the Bucharest summit that future generations will see as a historic setback, but which most media commentators have curiously ignored. This summit can perhaps therefore be considered as revealing an increase in tension between the United States and Russia, along with new European divisions that have been curbing the Union’s room for manoeuvre. The EU has been thwarted by a new East-West crisis that finds its most acute manifestation in Russia’s recent recognition of the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

Priorities of the Largest Summit in NATO’s History:
Enlargement and Afghanistan

Between the second and the fourth of April 2008, the Romanians had the honour of hosting ‘the largest summit in the history of NATO, in Bucharest with no fewer that 3,000 senior delegates, 3,500 journalists and about 7,000 military personnel⁽¹⁾ In addition to the 26 member nations of the Alliance, the 23 countries that make up the Partnership for Peace also participated, as did international financial contributors such as Japan and the leaders of the EU and the UN. The Russian President also attended, and this was therefore the first time Russia genuinely participated in an official NATO summit, whose top agenda items were enlargement and Afghanistan. The primary aim of the United States was to achieve official candidate status for Ukraine and Georgia, in other words the participation of these two countries in a Membership Action Plan (MAP). This process usually lasts four years, two years to satisfy the requirements of the MAP followed by two years to enable the Alliance to officially invite the country to join the organization. Membership for Macedonia, Albania and Croatia was also on the agenda. Croatia and Albania were invited to join NATO in about a year’s time, but Greece opposes membership for Macedonia as long as the latter refuses to change its name.

The United States would usually ‘pre-brief’ its allies some two or three months in advance of summits on the decisions that it would like to see taken. For the Bucharest summit, the US Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, sent an open letter to Germany nine months before it was to be held in which he criticised Berlin for basing its troops in the north of Afghanistan while US and British troops were dying in the conflict zones in the south of the country. As we shall see, the two priorities of the Bucharest summit, enlargement and Afghanistan, are here linked by Germany, which would play a key role in the refusal to grant candidate status to Ukraine and Georgia, a decision that had already been taken a month before the summit during the preparatory meeting held on 6 March. A report to the US Congress published shortly before the summit prepared public opinion for failure: ‘Indications are that the European allies will concentrate their efforts during this time in improving their relations with Russia. Some allies in particular consider that improvements in energy security must come first before any Alliance membership invitations can be issued to new candidates.’