This is from today’s Guardian:
Russia’s foreign minister said Moscow was open for talks with the US president-elect, Donald Trump, and praised him for pointing to Nato’s plan to embrace Ukraine as a root cause of the war. Sergei Lavrov said at his annual news conference that any prospective peace talks should involve broader arrangements for security in Europe, and Moscow was open to discussing security guarantees for Kyiv. Trump said a week ago that Russia regarded it as “written in stone” that Ukraine’s membership in Nato should never be allowed, but the Biden administration had sought to expand the military alliance to Russia’s doorstep. Trump echoed Moscow’s rhetoric justifying its “special military operation” in Ukraine launched in February 2022. Lavrov claimed that Nato had “expanded to our borders” in violation of agreements. Nato leaders insist no such agreements have ever been made or put on record. Since 2004, the only Russia-bordering states to join Nato have been Finland and Sweden – both in response to Russia invading Ukraine.
The bold is in the original.
A few points. Notice the standard propaganda; Trump is “echoing Moscow’s rhetoric”. It goes further; they are trying to suggest that Trump was behind the special operation. I may have missed it but I think he said that that he could see Russia’s point of view about having NATO on their “doorstep”. [1] In this comment at least I don’t think he said that this justified the special military operation. The liberal media endlessly tries to smear and sabotage the elected President of the United States. On whose behalf we can ask?
Let’s turn to the question of whether NATO promised not to expand after the fall of the USSR and the reintegration of Germany. The Guardian, claims, in bold: “Nato leaders insist no such agreements have ever been made or put on record”, What is the truth of this matter? I have read several accounts by historians and journalists with a deep interest in Russia-West relations. It seems that the truth is that the West did not put anything concrete in writing, but they suggested that they would not expand further, and allowed Russia to form this conclusion. This is scholar Richard Sakwa, Honorary Professor at the University of Kent:
This was accompanied by verbal assurances that the alliance would not move to the east to absorb former Warsaw Pact countries and that it would be transformed to reflect the end of the Cold War.24 However, there was no clear prohibition on NATO adding new members. There was no formal agreement prohibiting further expansion, yet by any normal standards a promise is a promise, and it is an exercise in bad faith to suggest otherwise. The perceived betrayal permanently poisoned relations between Russia and the West. However, numerous Western leaders promised that NATO would remain largely as it had historically taken shape, which clearly implies no enlargement, although this was nowhere formulated in formal terms. It was a commitment but not a formal promise. [2]
This is British-Russian journalist Owen Matthews:
At a press conference in December 2021 Putin would claim that the West had repeatedly promised Russia that NATO would not expand, then broken their word. ‘They cheated us vehemently, blatantly. NATO is expanding,’ Putin said. He claimed that US Secretary of State James Baker had told Mikhail Gorbachev in 1990 that ‘NATO will not move one inch further east.’ There is no trace of any such official assurance in a slew of US State Department records of multiple meetings between Russian and US officials that were declassified in 2018, though Baker has never explicitly denied that he said it privately. But the US was nonetheless clearly playing a double game. There was no formal, public promise that NATO would not expand – but apparently plenty of assurances were made that the expansion would not pose a threat to Russia. In 1997 veteran US diplomat George Kennan denounced NATO expansion as ‘the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-Cold War era’. [3]
This is Peter Kenez, a Professor of History at the University of California:
Contrary to the promises of the Gorbachev era, NATO expanded to the east. Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic joined in 1999, and they was followed in the era of Putin in 2004 by the Baltic states, Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia. Five years later even Albania and Croatia were admitted. Not only had the Warsaw Pact, envisaged as a meager counterforce to NATO, ceased to exist, but also the states that had constituted it were now in an alliance system that, from the point of view of Moscow, could have no purpose other than to keep Russia in check. Policymakers in Moscow saw such policies as the violation of the explicit and implicit agreements that were constructed in the heady days of 1989–91. When the cold war ended, there were no attempts made to reintegrate Russia into the international scene and recognize its legitimate interests. [4]
This is Professor of International Relations, John Mearsheimer:
The Russians believed their Western counterparts understood their fears and that the alliance would not expand toward the Soviet Union. [5]
It seems that nothing concrete was put in writing, but an impression was given. This could have been, and it seems it was, taken as a verbal assurance. The present-day NATO assurances repeated unquestioned by the Guardian appear to be a continuation of this act of bad faith or “double-game” as Matthews put it.
The Guardian continues: “Since 2004, the only Russia-bordering states to join Nato have been Finland and Sweden – both in response to Russia invading Ukraine.” This part made me laugh. As selective citing of facts goes this is a peach. In reality; since 2004, 4 countries have become members of NATO, not counting Sweden and Finland! But since the end of the Cold War up to the end of 2004, Czechia, Hungary, Poland, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia have become members of NATO, of which 4 have direct borders with Russian territory. [6] Many of these were former members of the Warsaw Pact. By arbitrarily picking 2004 the Guardian tries to give a false impression about NATO’s expansion towards Russian borders!
This is a nice example of how, on the one hand, we have something approximating to “truth”; the views of scholars, who have studied the question, (and at least in some cases presumably looked at primary sources), and come to a balanced view which reflects reality, and, on the other we have “NATO leaders” with their false tales about how the war is nothing to do with Russia’s fears about NATO, but all about Putin’s imperialism. (Blinken gave just this explanation recently). And, where does the Western media stand? On the side of objective, historical, reality? Or, on the side of superficial and history-free fake narratives? Disappointingly, it is clear where the media pitches its tent. This is because the Western media and military-financial-corporate elites are all part of the same conglomerate.
Notes
- Biden said no, they should be able to join Nato. Well, then Russia has somebody right on their doorstep and I could understand their feeling about that
- Sakwa, Richard. The Lost Peace: How the West Failed to Prevent a Second Cold War (p. 48). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition.
- Matthews, Owen. Overreach: The Inside Story of Putin and Russia’s War Against Ukraine (p. 72). HarperCollins Publishers. Kindle Edition.
- Kenez, Peter. A History of the Soviet Union from the Beginning to Its Legacy (p. 326). Cambridge University Press. Kindle Edition.
- Mearsheimer, John J.. The Great Delusion: Liberal Dreams and International Realities (Henry L. Stimson Lectures) (p. 172). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition.
- https://www.nato.int/cps/ie/natohq/topics_52044.htm
