Quote Originally Posted by badtux View Post
Finally, regarding NATO, treaty obligations, and so forth, treaties are worth the paper they're signed on in the real world. Nations uphold things like mutual defense treaties when it is in their national interest to do so. If it is not in their national interest to do so, they say "Sorry, you're on your own." That is real world, as vs. fantasy land. I have been thinking hard and cannot think of any NATO state that would see going to war against Russia over Georgia as being in their national interest. Even if Georgia had actually been a NATO member, the response of many major NATO states would have been "Sorry, but you incited this by shelling Tskhinvali, so you're on your own," which, given that NATO actions require unanimity, would have tabled any NATO response.
That's not an entirely accurate reading of Article 5 of the NATO treaty, which doesn't require any unanimity at all for individual member states to take action. However, the treaty doesn't require armed force in response to an armed attack, but rather "such action as [each state] deems necessary."

Treaty obligations, i would argue, have somewhat more weight than simply transitory self-interest, for a variety of reasons: the create incentives to demonstrate credibility, they modify public and international expectations, and they create webs of institutional interest and interaction that modify the ways situations are analyzed and interests are perceived within government. NATO membership, for example, has profoundly changed the way that the Canadian military, the Canadian government, and the Canadian public view the world.

Indeed, its precisely because most NATO members see the Treaty and alliance as something more than a fiction that most were opposed to Georgian membership.