That's the result of living in illusions.
"The Great Russian Bubble" alias "Too great to fail" 

President Bush threw the NATO summit meeting here off-script on Wednesday by lobbying hard to extend membership to Ukraine and Georgia, but he failed to rally support for the move among key allies.
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Mr. Bush’s position — that Ukraine and Georgia should be welcomed into a Membership Action Plan, or MAP, that prepares nations for NATO membership — directly contradicted German and French government positions stated earlier this week. It also risked upsetting efforts to get Russia to soften its opposition to positioning a missile defense array in Eastern Europe.
Mr. Bush failed to win over a consensus of NATO members in a debate at a dinner of NATO leaders, a senior German official said Wednesday night, with at least seven countries lined up against him.
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As Mr. Bush did more often early in his presidency, he expressed his views candidly despite warnings from allies that he was complicating efforts to find diplomatic solutions.
Normally, summit meetings like this are prescripted, but Mr. Bush’s comments added some extra interest while annoying Germany and France, which had said they would block the invitation to Ukraine and Georgia.
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Some German officials described the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, as upset and even angry on Wednesday. She and Mr. Bush have talked repeatedly about the issue in the past two months.

The US has been spying on German Chancellor Angela Merkel's mobile phone since 2002, according to a report in Der Spiegel magazine.

Georgia's oil pipeline is key to U.S. support
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Georgia's pipeline: It allows the West to reduce its reliance on Middle Eastern oil, bypassing Russia and Iran
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There is more than meets the eye to the frantic U.S. efforts Friday to talk Russia and American ally Georgia out of war over an obscure mountain tract most Americans have never heard of.
A look at the map and your gas credit card bill shows why.
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The breakaway province of South Ossetia is claimed by Georgia, a former Soviet republic that cast its lot with the United States and the West to the eternal irritation of Moscow. But South Ossetia has resisted Georgia's rule and has been under Russia's sway for years.
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A U.S.-backed oil pipeline runs through Georgia, allowing the West to reduce its reliance on Middle Eastern oil while bypassing Russia and Iran.
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The pipeline that crosses Georgia can pump slightly more than 1 million barrels of crude oil per day, or more than 1 percent of the world's daily crude output. The 1,100-mile pipeline carries oil from Azerbaijan's Caspian Sea fields, estimated to hold the world's third-largest reserves.
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Most of the oil is bound for Western Europe, where gas prices are even higher than the $4 and more a gallon that U.S. consumers are now paying. With only so much oil to go around, what the pipeline carries affects prices elsewhere. The United States also hopes it will be a model for other development projects that could have a more direct effect on the U.S. market.
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U.S diplomats refer to these neighborhood squabbles as "frozen conflicts," a euphemism that belies the long-recognized threat that seemingly petty disputes can easily provoke a wider war.