Column | NATO expanded, the Russians let it happen

For years, the Russians have been crying shame about broken Western promises after the Cold War. NATO was not going to expand “not an inch eastwards,” they were said to have been promised. With Sweden and Finland on the way, the alliance will soon double its membership compared to 1989 (to 32); each time the border shifted towards Moscow. Has geopolitical breach of word been committed here?

In a war that is not only fought on the battlefield but also with historical stories, it is a perfect moment to study that offending sentence. Last year the exciting Not One Inch was released. America, Russia and the Making of Post-Cold War Stalemate by Yale historian ME Sarotte. She reconstructs the accords and missed opportunities from the years of Bush Sr. and Gorbachev (1989-1991), then Clinton and Yeltsin (1993-1999), based on decades of archival research and countless interviews. Better is not available.

The title refers to the hypothetical deal that Bush’s Secretary of State James Baker presented to Gorbachev in the early 1990s: would the Soviet leader give the green light to German unification (which could block the Soviet Union as a victorious power in WWII) if NATO would move “not one inch” east in return? Baker and his German colleague Hans-Dietrich Genscher suggested this several times.

Chancellor Helmut Kohl was also willing to make such promises for the sake of German unification, but Bush convinced him that this was not necessary at all. In two 1990s summits with Kohl, who outsmarted him, Gorbachev gave everything away in exchange for only economic and financial support, without asking for any security guarantees – such as Germany’s exit from NATO or a nuclear ban. He didn’t have the power for it. Bewildered, Gorbachev’s advisers looked on, one (Falin) writing that he was left with nothing but “putting himself across the track” and another (Achromeev) participating in the failed conservative coup of 1991 and then committing suicide.

So formally, the Russians cannot rely on anything. There’s nothing on paper. Their scenarios were propelled by ministers and other leaders, but Chief Executive Bush made no commitment.

It is fascinating to read in Sarotte how the Ukraine case also dates from these years. Already in 1991 Gorbachev tried furiously to prevent the US president from doing business with Kiev. Being of mixed Russian-Ukrainian descent, he wanted to prevent the two countries from falling apart. And all this good guy ‘Gorby’ told Bush that Ukraine’s borders were untenable; local party bosses had added Donetsk and Luhansk, and his predecessor Khrushchev had just transferred Crimea from one Soviet republic to another.

In the 1990s there was another weak Russian leader, in this case the drinker Yeltsin (1991-1999), who needed economic support so badly that he could not stand up to NATO enlargement. Initially, America’s President Clinton wanted to spare his Russian friend Boris, in favor of diplomatic relaxation and disarmament. But from late 1994, the pressure on Clinton increased. The Republican opposition won the mid-term election. At the same time, the brutal Russian (first) war in Chechnya, in which at least 20,000 were killed, showed that Central European fear of Russian aggression was not mere paranoia. Although he dutifully waited until after Yeltsin’s re-election (1996), Clinton opened NATO’s doors to Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic and made it clear that even former Soviet republics such as Estonia could follow. As a consolation, Russia got billions of dollars of Western support and membership in the G7, which became G8.

Twice, then, a weak Russian leader – Gorbachev impractical, Yeltsin drunk at key moments – who made promises that the entourage regretted. The third, Putin, has drawn a line since 2000, sees a breaking point in the NATO promise to Ukraine and Georgia under Bush Jr. in 2008 and is adding deed to its threat with the current invasion. But even his firm political will cannot compensate for all Russian weaknesses, as the course of the battle shows.

Of course, NATO expansion is far from the only storyline to the war. For example, the 2013-2014 Maidan uprising in Ukraine revolved around President Yanukovych’s refusal to make rapprochement with the EU. And the Kremlin cites many other grounds for the war.

War arises where stories, perceptions and world views diverge so far that parties no longer understand each other, not infrequently, as Sarotte also shows, in an interplay of misunderstanding, chance and ill will. Peace once again requires the beginning of a shared story.

Luke of Middelaar is a political philosopher and historian.

Newsletter NRC Europe Exclusively for subscribers

Europe editors update you on the most important developments in the EU

A version of this article also appeared in the newspaper of May 25, 2022