Georgia, naturally, sharply disagreed with this view on the very reasonable grounds that as an independent country, they had the right to chart their own foreign policy and that they wanted to become closer to the U.S. and Europe. For Georgia accepting Russia’s sphere of privileged interest would have meant giving Moscow veto power over Georgian foreign policy. The notion of spheres of privileged interests for Russia was also clearly rejected by western powers who shared Georgia’s view, not only with regards to Georgia, but with regards to all countries. Critics of U.S. foreign policy have, not without reason, pointed out that the U.S. rejection of the spheres of privileged interests does not stop the U.S. from believing it has its own spheres of privileged interests, but that has not prevented the U.S. from strongly disagreeing with Russia on this.