Hello everybody and thank you for tuning in to the weekly report.

When the Bush administration announced in 2008 that Ukraine and Georgia would be eligible

for NATO membership, I knew it was a terrible idea.

Nearly two decades after the end of both the Warsaw Pact and the Cold War, expanding NATO

made no sense.

NATO itself made no sense.

Explaining my no vote on a bill to endorse expansion I said at the time, NATO is an organization

whose purpose ended with the end of the Warsaw Pact.

This current round of NATO expansion is a political reward to governments in Georgia and Ukraine

that came to power as a result of US-supported revolutions, the so-called orange revolution

and the Rose Revolution.

Providing US military guarantees to Ukraine and Georgia can only further strain our military.

This NATO expansion may well involve the US military in conflicts unrelated to our national

interests.

Unfortunately as we have seen this past week, my fears have come true.

One does not need to approve of Russia's military actions to analyze its stated motivation.

NATO membership for Ukraine was a red line, it was not willing to cross.

As we find ourselves at risk of a terrible escalation, we should remind ourselves that

it didn't have to happen this way.

There was no advantage to the United States to expand and threaten to expand NATO to Russia's

doorstep.

There is no way to argue that we are any way safer for it.

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