So Tymoshenko and Moscow win — but so, perhaps, does Ukraine, for the extreme pro-Western and anti-Russian positions taken up by Yushchenko were not wise. Moscow does not appear to harbor any ambition to regain the control over Ukraine that it had in Soviet and czarist times, but it would see a Ukrainian government that joined NATO as an enemy of Russia. Ukraine’s independence is probably safer outside NATO than it would be inside it. ~Gwynne Dyer

When half of the people in Ukraine do not want to join NATO, numerous NATO allies don’t want to bring Ukraine in, and the Russians don’t want them to join, what possible sense can it make to continue down the path to expansion? Yet this was exactly what Gates was proposing just a few days ago when he was visiting Estonia. Whatever else one might say in favor of Gates, his advocacy for another round of expansion ought to be a huge strike against any chance of his staying on in the new administration.