What made me smile was the image of NATO and EU ascension: Ukraine ascending into the realm of eternal life in NATO and EU, like Jesus's ascension into heaven.

God, of course, is looking more more true believers in His benevolent omnipotence to join Him in his empyrean. His current archangels in NATO are sometimes unreliable.
Paul Cossins | 02.15.08 - 1:01 pm | #

Whether you call it ascension, accession, joining, or whatever, it's a bad idea. In Foreign Affairs (Jan/Feb '0, Ronald Asmus argues for steps to tie these countries more closely to NATO without necessarily making them members, or at least not immediately. His premise is that Georgia and other countries "in the wider Black Sea region" need the West's security umbrella "as much, if not more, than the countries of Central and E Europe did." (p.102) This strikes me as baloney, since (1) it was never demonstrated convincingly that the countries of c. and e. Europe "needed" NATO membership, and (2) Asmus certainly fails to produce anything approaching a convincing argument that Georgia and other countries in its region "need" NATO membership. Regardless of all the fancy arguments about institutional binding, democratic influence, organizational inertia etc etc etc, I still think a good case can be made that NATO lost its reason for being when the USSR and the Warsaw Pact ceased to exist. It should have been dissolved and they should have started over with an organization explicitly designed to deal with the challenges of the current period, rather than keeping NATO and expanding its membership with no apparent limit. If nothing else, what about the old textbook platitude that the more members, the more intractable collective-action problems become?
LC | 02.15.08 - 2:35 pm | #

Sorry, that should read Jan/Feb 2008 -- the smiley face was unintentional.
LC | 02.15.08 - 2:36 pm | #

NATO: An anti-Russian alliance, whatever Russia's stripes.
Nur al-Cubicle | 02.16.08 - 12:57 am | #

Despite the odd teleological connotation, "ascension" is used with remarkable frequency to refer to joining NATO.

http://www.google.com/search? q=N...GL_enUS203US203

It does appear to be a misuse, but it's very common.
Maia | Homepage | 02.17.08 - 7:30 pm | #