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"Russia's opposition to NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia is both emotional and based on perceived strategic concerns about the impact on Russia's interest in the region. ... While Russian opposition to the first round of NATO enlargement in the mid-1990s was strong, Russia now feels itself able to respond more forcefully to what it perceives as actions contrary to its national interests."
We don't know whether Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice read Burns' prescient remarks, but Lavrov's warning clearly fell on deaf ears. On April 3, 2008, the NATO summit in Bucharest issued a formal declaration that "NATO welcomes Ukraine's and Georgia's Euro-Atlantic aspirations for membership in NATO. We agreed today that these countries will become members of NATO."
Now, with events quickly spinning out of control in Ukraine, some policymakers need to tell President Obama that there can be even bigger trouble ahead, if Russia's national security interests are not taken into account.
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