18 September 2008 : AFP
LONDON (AFP)--The North Atlantic Treaty Organization must not play "Russian roulette" with Moscow as it considers how to respond to its "disproportionate" use of force in Georgia, a leading think-tank warned Thursday.
The International Institute for Strategic Studies questioned whether the U.S.- led alliance should "lock horns" with Russia, given its strategic need for support from Moscow in flashpoints like Afghanistan and Iran.
Presenting its annual report in London - where NATO defense ministers were due to discuss the Russia-Georgia conflict in informal talks Thursday and Friday - IISS chief John Chipman downplayed the risk of a new Cold War.
"The Russia-Georgia crisis...doesn't usher in a new Cold War," he wrote in an introduction to the Strategic Survey 2008, the prestigious London think-tank's annual review of global geopolitical security.
He added: "The West must decide whether, given its wider global agenda, and the specific need for collaboration with Russia over such issues as Afghanistan and Iran, locking horns with Russia is necessary.
"NATO must not transform its expansion policy into a game of Russian roulette, " he said.
NATO, which took in seven ex-communist countries in 2004 including three ex- Soviet Baltic states, has reaffirmed its pledge of eventual NATO membership for Georgia and Ukraine after the Russia-Georgia conflict last month.
But the IISS chief said NATO risks divisions over its expansion plans - and also called into question the responsibility of Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili, blamed by critics for unnecessarily provoking the conflict.
"Georgia's apparent decision openly to reject the demands of its U.S. patron not to seek to recover South Ossetia by force was clearly irresponsible," he said.
"It raises the legitimate question as to whether, as a prospective...member of a Western military alliance system, (Georgia) would be a responsible member."
Given those doubts, he said, "There is a high risk that the momentum of NATO enlargement policy will divide the West."
He called Moscow's reaction "disproportionately strong," adding that the spread of its army throughout Georgia was "unjustified" and the destruction of Georgian infrastructure was "vindictive," while establishing multiple checkpoints was "excessive."
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