According to EurasiaNet’s Joshua Kucera, President Bush really is committed to leaving Bucharest with Membership Action Plans (the last step before you get the NATO secret handshake) for Ukraine and Georgia. If you look at where the internal faultline lies, it’s pretty much England & New Europe for, and Old Europe (led by France and Germany) against. Remind you of anything? One official called it the “. . .success of the Gazprom foreign policy.” Turn it around, though, and it can be seen as the failure of the “With us or against us” policy. Either way, what’s surprising is how [...]
George W. Bush completed his first (and probably last) trip to Ukraine as president this week. Although the two countries signed a Trade and Investment Cooperation Agreement and other bilateral accords during the visit, Bush’s public meetings in Kiev were dominated by questions concerning both governments’ desire for Ukraine to strengthen ties with NATO, despite strong opposition from other alliance members, Russian leaders, and many Ukrainians themselves. “Your nation has made a bold decision, and the United States strongly supports your request” for a NATO Membership Action Plan (MAP), Bush told a news conference following talks with Ukrainian President Viktor [...]
In a March 26 interview at the White House with foreign journalists, U.S. President George W. Bush said he had accepted an invitation from Russian President Vladimir Putin to discuss bilateral issues at Russia’s Black Sea resort of Sochi on April 6. Remarking that “It’s important that we have good relations with Russia,” Bush characterized the summit as “a follow-up” to the March 17-18 meeting between senior U.S. and Russian national security officials in Moscow. That “2+2” meeting — which included Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates on the American side, and Foreign Minister Sergei [...]
