In a little more than a month from now, President Bush will head to Bucharest, Romania for a major NATO summit. The gathering is being billed as a potential “make-or-break” moment for the future of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, whose lackluster performance in southern Afghanistan has been a source of increasing tension within the alliance.

But South Asia won’t be the only thing on the agenda at Bucharest. The summit will also tackle the potentially divisive question of how much, and how fast, NATO should expand. Although three longstanding NATO aspirants--Albania, Macedonia, and Croatia--are widely expected to secure invitations to join the alliance this April, the bigger test case is likely to be Ukraine and Georgia, both of which are petitioning NATO for a “Membership Action Plan,” or MAP, at the summit.

Getting a MAP is no guarantee of future NATO membership for Ukraine or Georgia; on the contrary, it’s just an aid package that will help these countries’ democratically-elected governments tackle the various political, economic, and security reforms that, if successfully implemented, will help them qualify for NATO membership down the line.

The United States and most of its major allies are in favor of offering a MAP to Ukraine and Georgia, but several European states--most notably Germany--are still iffy. Their opposition isn’t substantive: rather, they are frightened first and foremost about pissing off Russia, which is loathe to see a closer relationship between NATO and its former satellites.

Despite Moscow’s saber rattling, a source tells the WEEKLY STANDARD that the vote count among NATO member states has gotten more favorable for Georgia and Ukraine in the past few weeks. What’s needed now is a strong diplomatic push on the part of the Bush administration--which, not so coincidentally, is precisely what Senator McCain, Senator Lieberman, and a bipartisan, bicameral group of Senators and Congressman urge Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to do, in a letter they sent to Foggy Bottom yesterday. Here’s the excerpt:

As you know, the enlargement of NATO has been a critical element in the unprecedented democratic peace that has unfolded across Central and Eastern Europe over the past fifteen years and that stands as one of the greatest bipartisan successes in the history of American foreign policy. In our view, however, the consolidation of this extraordinary accomplishment requires the active and continuing integration of emerging democracies across the broader region into the flagship institutions of the Euro-Atlantic community.

In particular, we believe that it is in the vital national interest of the United States to dispel gathering fears that a new dividing line may be descending across Europe—a new boundary beyond which countries are constrained or forbidden from integration into the Euro-Atlantic community, regardless of their democratic desires or shared values.

Both Georgia and Ukraine have made clear their determination to enter into a Membership Action Plan with NATO. Last month, Georgia held a referendum on NATO in which more than 76 percent of voters supported their country’s integration into the Atlantic Alliance. Also in January, Ukraine’s top three democratically-elected leaders--the President, the Prime Minister, and the Speaker of the Vekhovna Rada--sent a letter to NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer formally requesting a Membership Action Plan.

Both Georgia and Ukraine are young democracies that continue to face many challenges and whose futures remain uncertain. In our view, however, this makes the case for a Membership Action Plan for these countries all the more urgent and compelling. Although a MAP does not guarantee membership in NATO, it does provide a proven toolkit of resources that will help Kyiv and Tblisi as they pursue vital reforms in the areas of defense, democracy, and human rights.