RUSSIA: Russia can only lament its military decline as seven former Warsaw Pact states are welcomed into NATO this week, writes Daniel McLaughlin
A swathe of the former Warsaw Pact states celebrate joining old enemy NATO this week, little troubled by the futile sabre-rattling of their Soviet-era masters in Moscow.
President Bush welcomes the prime ministers of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Bulgaria and Romania to Washington today, and a welcoming ceremony is planned for Friday, at NATO headquarters in Brussels.
For Russia, there is little to do but lament the decline of its military might and political punch, and hope that the new NATO will take its portentous warnings seriously and demur from biting further chunks from the Kremlin's shrunken sphere of influence.
Russia long ago realised it could not stop NATO bumping up against its western border, and has gritted its teeth as the Baltic States - where Moscow's 50-year hegemony is still deeply resented - revel in a confidence borne of their new-found sense of safety.
Estonia expelled two Russian diplomats last week, prompting Moscow to order two Estonians to leave their embassy in Russia in a tit-for-tat move reminiscent of Cold War spats. Last month, Lithuania threw out three Russian diplomats for spying.
Estonia also complained last week of repeated incursions by Russian military aircraft into its airspace, and reminded Moscow of the imminent deployment of NATO aircraft to guard the Baltic skies where Soviet aircraft patrolled less than 15 years ago.
Four NATO fighter jets will begin guarding the region today, a move condemned by Russia's new Foreign Minister, Mr Sergei Lavrov.
"If it's a defensive posture, the question is, against whom are they defending themselves?" he asked last week.
Moscow has complained about NATO using aircraft and powerful listening stations in the region to keep tabs on its military, and one of the country's most important naval bases is in Kaliningrad, a Russian enclave now marooned in NATO territory.
"It is clear that such plans directly threaten Russia's security," Mr Alexander Yakovenko, a Foreign Ministry spokesman, said recently, warning that Moscow could take "corresponding measures" if necessary.
Russian Defence Minister Mr Sergei Ivanov, a hawkish and very close ally of President Vladimir Putin, put scant flesh on the bones of such warnings last week.
"If NATO continues to keep to its offensive military doctrine, then Russia's military planning and the principles of Russia's military procurement - including in the nuclear sphere - will be re-evaluated in the appropriate way," he said.
He has also suggested that Russia might boost its troop numbers close to the border with the Baltic nations, a move that would be popular with many generals who are reluctant to abandon Cold War doctrine and allow streamlining of the bloated military.
NATO chiefs are keen to play down talk of a bubbling enmity with Russia, and Mr Lavrov is set to attend Friday's gathering of NATO foreign ministers in Brussels.
"The discussions we have had with Russia have been quite straightforward and quite non-polemical," Mr Nicholas Burns, US envoy to the block, said last week.
"There is no sense of crisis at all between NATO and Russia over enlargement," he added.
While NATO and Brussels have clashed over intervention and security in Kosovo, where Moscow habitually sides with its Slav allies in Belgrade, analysts say the main bone of contention will be future membership of other former Soviet states.
Mr Ivanov has said that, with this week's enlargement, NATO "begins to operate in a zone of vital interest to our country," and neighbours like Georgia and Ukraine openly state their wish to join to join the alliance.