The Heritage Foundation: “NATO Summit 2014: An Opportunity to Support Georgia”

Georgia’s ascension to NATO is an ongoing debate that has been around for many years and will continue in the future, writes Luke Coffey of The Heritage Foundation.

While Georgia won’t be offered a Membership Action Plan (MAP) – a definite move to enlarge the Alliance – at the upcoming NATO Summit in Wales next month, the event would provide an opportunity for Georgia’s efforts to be formally recognised.

Coffey penned an article for The Heritage Foundation website, published on August 13, which noted Georgia’s unwavering commitment as a NATO partner, the challenges Georgia faced as it moves closer to NATO and action the US and NATO can take to ensure Georgia continued on its path to Euro-Atlantic integration.

Georgia was promised eventual membership at the NATO summit in Bucharest in 2008. Since then not all members of the Alliance have been supportive,” Coffey wrote.

"This is especially true of those countries inside NATO that have a uncomfortably close relationship with Russia. Some NATO members are concerned that Georgia’s entry into NATO would trigger an automatic war with Russia over South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Georgian officials say they are happy to accept a NATO membership arrangement or compromise that excludes the two occupied territories … [and] to demonstrate its commitment, Georgia made a ‘non use of force’ pledge regarding the occupied territories, which Russia has failed to do.”

Read the full article at: www.heritage.org