Over at Foreign Policy, Joshua Keating assesses Azerbaijan’s NATO membership chances to be decent compared to other candidates’ which is kind of like the analytical equivalent of Evel Knievel attempting to jump Snake River Canyon. It’s a bold argument, but I’m playing the part of ABC Sports here and not buying it.
Keating jumps off from a EurasiaNet story on Azerbaijan’s NATO prospects in which an alliance official says that Azerbaijan is potentially a more attractive member than Georgia or Ukraine and may join before either of them. What Keating comes away with is that Azerbaijan’s prospects are better than Georgia’s or Ukraine’s because it has never expressed too much interest in joining, and that not trying too hard to join might be the easiest way to gain entry. This is absurd.
There are enormous obstacles to Azerbaijan becoming a NATO member. In fairness to Keating, he recognizes that these obstacles exist. But the downsides of bringing on Azerbaijan make it about as unattractive a member as either Georgia or Ukraine. The biggest difference is that because Azerbaijan hasn’t talked too much about wanting to join, Russia hasn’t spilled any bluster over bringing Azerbaijan and NATO members haven’t spent any time talking about how bad it would be to make Azerbaijan a member.
Comments on this entry are closed.