Ukraine, Georgia, and Macedonia will not be joining NATO in the immediate future, but Croatia and Albania will:
National security adviser Stephen J. Hadley put the situation in a positive light. Although Georgia and Ukraine did not get what they sought, they are "clearly on the way to their membership in NATO," he told reporters. He said the resolution will instruct NATO foreign ministers to reassess the situation at a meeting in December, when the two nations might be given formal membership roadmaps.
The schism overshadowed the decision taken formally Thursday to admit two new members, the Balkan states of Albania and Croatia. Their addition is NATO's first expansion in six years as it renews its push to integrate Europe under a common security umbrella. The alliance rejected a third applicant, Macedonia, after Greece vetoed the bid due to a long-standing dispute over the former Yugoslav republic's name.
The Macedonia issue continues to hinge on Greek intransigence, based on the (silly) notion that the name Macedonia is a threat to Greek territorial integrity. It's particularly silly because Macedonian democracy is probably more stable than either Croatian or Albanian. NATO operates on a decision principle of unanimity -- side payments are usually enough to induce cooperation across the alliance -- but the Greeks really do feel very strongly about the issue. In any case, the other news is that France will send about a thousand troops to Afghanistan, with Poland adding 400 and Rumania adding a few on top of that. Regarding these latter it's important to note that such foreign deployments come at the expense of funds dedicated to NATO transformation, and as such constitute a genuine hardship for the countries concerned.
The other big news is that NATO endorsed the deployment of the missile defense shield to Poland and the Czech Republic. I think that this was done in part to paper over the differences on Georgia and Ukraine, and in part because NATO as an institution can't really do a lot about the BMD system; as Poland and the Czech Republic are on board, it's pretty much a done deal.
--Robert Farley