President Vladimir V. Putin, after meeting with NATO members in Bucharest on Friday, bluntly declared that an expansion that included Ukraine and Georgia, former Soviet republics with deep historical links to Russia, would constitute a threat.NATO rebuffed pleas by Mr. Bush and some other NATO allies to extend a preliminary “membership action plan” to Ukraine and Georgia, a major step toward full membership. Many have seen the move as a result of Russia’s warnings.
The obvious move is to invite Russia into NATO, because an alliance that includes your likeliest enemy is no alliance at all. Which seems to be the aim of "sophisticated" Europeans. They'll continue to surrender their liberty, chunk by chunk, rather than confront any threat to it. Not surprising, in that they evidently haven't the faintest idea what liberty is.
