US NATO Rep Boosts Russian Membership in Alliance

This proposal is actually good policy, as Russia continues to see, with no small justification, NATO as a military institution directed against it.

That being said, she doesn't really mean it:

"Speaking as a mom and as a strategist and a lifetime student and friend of the Russian people, I would love to live in a world where Russia wanted to be a NATO member and Russia had met the very high standards that NATO sets for openness, democracy, reform, rule of law that new NATO members must meet," Victoria Nuland said in an interview with RIA Novosti and the Argumenty i Fakty weekly.

What she's saying is that she wants Russia to be more like western nations, and then she would consider it.

When one considers the fact that at least two NATO nations, Greece and Turkey, spent much of their time in the cold war under military rule from a Junta, I would think that Russia has already met that standard.

Seriously though, Russian membership in NATO would go a long way towards easing relations.

As I've said before, the eastern expansion of NATO following the collapse of the Berlin wall was a bad idea, and this is one of the few ways to undue the damage done.

As to why the original NATO members enthusiastically expanded eastward, I think that it was two things, uncritical euphoria at the fall of the Warsaw Pact, and the desire for arms sales in the newly liberated countries.