We repeatedly give assurances first to Soviet and then Russia leaders starting in the first term of Bill Clinton that we had no wish to expand NATO yet repeatedly did. Now, watch how quickly Europe backs down from supporting Georgia even if they will be joining NATO in 2009. (With their gas pipeline, Russia has old Europe by its proverbial gonads.) As philosophically abhorrent as it is even to me, realpolitik will prevail, and that we decided to extend our sphere of influence into regions not historically of our concern nor which we were willing to support will show the amateurishness of this current State Dept.
Ask the central Europeans if they are naturally in the Russian sphere of influence (required to kowtow to Moscow) and you will find that they actually consider themselves free peoples. Go figure.
The Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, Hungarians, etc. entered NATO not because we are trying to force Russia’s borders, but because they do not want to be left out in the cold to deal with an aggressive Russia on their own.
NATO expansion did not take off until Moscow headed back toward totalitarianism. At which the free people in central Europe and the Americans (to our credit) saw a window of opportunity to provide a measure of safety to them. Had they not been included in NATO when they were, I’m sure that we would already be seeing well funded militant movements throughout these countries.
The Russians/Soviets may be paranoid, but that doesn’t excuse their behavior. We extended the olive branch and more to the Russians after ‘91 and they chose instead to climb back within the dark paranoia of the past.