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Tim Weiner's new book The Folly and the Glory, on US/Russian political warfare since 1945, makes a compelling case that it was not inevitable at all. Most of Eu

Tim Weiner's new book The Folly and the Glory, on US/Russian political warfare since 1945, makes a compelling case that it was not inevitable at all. Most of Europe was opposed to the idea, and the only enthusiastic supporters were the US and the Germanies. Russia was virulently opposed, and according to the book, West Germany paid Russia $2T to remove all of its soldiers from East German territory. The book makes the case that the reunification of Germany is one of the foundations of Russian resentment towards the US, since the Bush I administration gave them categorical assurances that the borders of NATO would not move "an inch Eastward."

UweSchmidt 6y ago
Source on the $2T?
- rolandm 6y ago
  Not in the trillions, but more like "25-40 billion euros or $31-50 billion" https://www.dw.com/en/how-kohl-and-gorbachev-sealed-the-deal-on-german-reunification/a-5788998 https://www.dw.com/en/how-kohl-and-gorbachev-sealed-the-deal... Helmut Kohl negotiated a very good deal. Money was not an issue for Germany but speed and total withdrawl of the Russian troops. Germany would have paid much more. A year later and it might be too late for the reunification (Gorbachev was kicked out of the Kremlin).
  - kmonsen 6y ago
    Is not like the Soviet Union has a really long life ahead anyway. They had gotten the mortal wound, the question was mostly how long the bleeding out would take. I guess they could have gone down in flames if they wanted to choose that instead. The rest of the world owes them a huge thanks for accepting defeat gracefully. And for beating Hitler of course.
- markvdb 6y ago
  https://archive.is/J6Hkj https://archive.is/J6Hkj The Washington Post mentions 14 * 10^9 DEM, or ~7.210^9 EUR or ~910^9 USD at the time.
  - _ph_ 6y ago
    Your last number is off, 7 billion Euros would be like 9 billion USD.
    - markvdb 6y ago
      Than you for spotting this. The HN layout engine mangled that bit I'm afraid.
- AlexCoventry 6y ago
  Here's the relevant paragraph from The Folly and the Glory. It does not provide a supporting citation for the $2T claim, as far as I can tell. > Kohl would shoulder the lion’s share of the costs for extracting 546,000 Red Army troops from Germany—an exodus requiring fifty troop trains a day, fifty-five cars each, for more than three years—and building bases to house them once they were home. The immediate cost of the buyout, or the bribe, was measured in tens of billions, then hundreds, a spectacular use of economic power in political warfare. Its immensity matched the importance of the moment. Over time, *the bill for unification would come to more than two trillion dollars.*
bryanrasmussen 6y ago
>is one of the foundations of Russian resentment towards the US surely one of the reasons for continuation of Russian resentment, not a foundation?
pram 6y ago
Yeah that fact about the Russian soldiers blew my mind when I stumbled across it. Germany also provided money for housing when the soldiers got back. It was basically bribery haha. They didn’t leave until 1994 iirc
Synaesthesia 6y ago
What about the fact that Stalin offered the West a unified Germany in 1953, on the (reasonable) condition that she not join a hostile alliance. (Stalin note)
older 6y ago
> the Bush I administration gave them categorical assurances that the borders of NATO would not move "an inch Eastward." Where you are quoting from? As far as I know such promises were never given and not even discussed at that time.
- ivan_gammel 6y ago
  Here’s more information on this topic, unfortunately only in Russian (you can use Google Translate): https://ru.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Вопрос_о_существовании_договорённости_о_нерасширении_НАТО_на_восток https://ru.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Вопрос_о_существовании_догов...
- w0de0 6y ago
  A better source than Russian Wikipedia: https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/russia-programs/2017-12-12/nato-expansion-what-gorbachev-heard-western-leaders-early https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/russia-programs/2017...
- Someone 6y ago
  https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/nato-s-eastward-expansion-did-the-west-break-its-promise-to-moscow-a-663315.html https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/nato-s-eastward-e...: After speaking with many of those involved and examining previously classified British and German documents in detail, SPIEGEL has concluded that there was no doubt that the West did everything it could to give the Soviets the impression that NATO membership was out of the question for countries like Poland, Hungary or Czechoslovakia. On Feb. 10, 1990, between 4 and 6:30 p.m., Genscher spoke with Shevardnadze. According to the German record of the conversation, which was only recently declassified, Genscher said: "We are aware that NATO membership for a unified Germany raises complicated questions. For us, however, one thing is certain: NATO will not expand to the east." And because the conversion revolved mainly around East Germany, Genscher added explicitly: "As far as the non-expansion of NATO is concerned, this also applies in general." Shevardnadze replied that he believed "everything the minister (Genscher) said." Edit: https://books.openedition.org/ceup/2759?lang=en https://books.openedition.org/ceup/2759?lang=en says: In the session with Baker on February 9, 1990, Gorbachev discussed various forms of German unification and association with NATO. Although he could not accept it publicly, he agreed with Baker’s argument that the presence of U.S. troops in Europe was a factor in overall European stability, which implicitly meant accepting the idea of Germany’s eventual membership in the Western alliance. It was during this conversation that Baker offered Gorbachev guarantees (that is the word used in the Russian memorandum of conversation—garantii) that NATO would not “spread an inch eastward,” and the Soviet leader accepted the statement as sufficient on the basis of the trust he felt had been built between him and the U.S. leadership—never asking for a written pledge. Gorbachev’s reasoning could partially be explained by the domestic dilemma he faced: how could he tell the Politburo that he had asked for written guarantees that NATO would not expand to the territories of the Warsaw Pact while the Pact was still in existence? That would have meant he had already accepted the idea that the socialist alliance was on its deathbed. In this conversation, Baker was not trying to mislead Gorbachev in any way; he was merely expressing the official position of the U.S. government at the time, which was fully shared by other Western leaders, talking specifically about the NATO presence on East German soil, but by implication also about any future expansion. However, the Bush administration would change that position very soon—without providing any notification to Gorbachev.
_ph_ 6y ago
If I remember correctly, the number was rather 30 billion Deutsche Mark. But still, it was a good deal for the Sovjet Union. Personally, I think that Gorbatchew was very aware of the pure financial state of the Sovjet Union and this was the ability to get rid of the DDR not only at no costs, but having all costs of relocating the military covered by the west. Still, he managed to delay the collapse of the Sovjet Union only by a few years.
cpleppert 6y ago
The $2T cited in the book does not refer to the direct costs paid to Russia but to the total amount spent on reunification which came out to something like $100 billion per year for twenty years. The opposition of the rest of Europe and Russia has to be put in context. Russia would not have been able to support the East German economy nor would it have been able to afford to maintain a pointless troop presence that would no longer have local support. The rest of europe might have been opposed because of historical reasons having to do with security but not allowing unification would have created a massive roadblock for the european economy. Short of reunification, there was not an acceptable legal regime to end Germany's limited sovereignty(which the rest of europe supported). Given that Germany strongly supported reunification and the US was in support for obvious geopolitical reasons there was no way for any other power to stop the process. Russia could either be paid to leave or get nothing and spend money it doesn't have to maintain the troop presence to boot. Poor relations with Germany would have had a catastrophic impact on the Russian economy. The UK was never really serious about stopping reunification and barely tried to bluff. Similar reasons apply to France which could not oppose reunification and support European integration. For all these reasons I find the the focus on contingency to be rather overdrawn. It was not inevitable in the sense that it had to happen(you can come up scenarios where the soviet union continues into the 21st century) but given the collapse of the Warsaw Pact it's hard to understand how unification could have been ultimately prevented. You can see a similar dynamic taking place in South Korea where unification is broadly supported by the younger population in the face of titanic security and economic concerns. German unification has been supported for hundreds of years for comparable reasons.
- quietbritishjim 6y ago
  > UK was never really serious about stopping reunification Why would the UK have even pretended to want to stop it? Weren't their foreign policies, at least towards communism, heavily aligned with the US?
  - HeckFeck 6y ago
    Reunification meant that Germany's power in the EU increased. Becoming a bigger country with a larger population got more seats and pushed the bloc more in its direction. Thus reducing Britain's influence there.
gumby 6y ago
The Russians negotiated a three (or four?) year stand down. Allegedly the soldiers liked the German posting because of the chocolate and generally better life in Germany than in Russia. I remember back around '92 or '93 looking out from the window of an in-law who lived in the Harz mountains and seeing an old border watch tower. Then I commented that it looked like there were people up there. "Oh yes, those are the Russians" I was told. "Even though there is no border they keep up the procedures because they're afraid that if they just sit around they'll be sent home".
bjourne 6y ago
Thatcher and Mitterand expressed doubts and fears, but did not publicly oppose German reunification. Public opinion in Western European countries were strongly in favor of reunification so France's and Britain's leaders were hardly in any position to stop it.

UweSchmidt 6y ago

Source on the $2T?

rolandm 6y ago
Not in the trillions, but more like "25-40 billion euros or $31-50 billion" https://www.dw.com/en/how-kohl-and-gorbachev-sealed-the-deal-on-german-reunification/a-5788998 https://www.dw.com/en/how-kohl-and-gorbachev-sealed-the-deal... Helmut Kohl negotiated a very good deal. Money was not an issue for Germany but speed and total withdrawl of the Russian troops. Germany would have paid much more. A year later and it might be too late for the reunification (Gorbachev was kicked out of the Kremlin).
- kmonsen 6y ago
  Is not like the Soviet Union has a really long life ahead anyway. They had gotten the mortal wound, the question was mostly how long the bleeding out would take. I guess they could have gone down in flames if they wanted to choose that instead. The rest of the world owes them a huge thanks for accepting defeat gracefully. And for beating Hitler of course.
markvdb 6y ago
https://archive.is/J6Hkj https://archive.is/J6Hkj The Washington Post mentions 14 * 10^9 DEM, or ~7.210^9 EUR or ~910^9 USD at the time.
- _ph_ 6y ago
  Your last number is off, 7 billion Euros would be like 9 billion USD.
  - markvdb 6y ago
    Than you for spotting this. The HN layout engine mangled that bit I'm afraid.
AlexCoventry 6y ago
Here's the relevant paragraph from The Folly and the Glory. It does not provide a supporting citation for the $2T claim, as far as I can tell. > Kohl would shoulder the lion’s share of the costs for extracting 546,000 Red Army troops from Germany—an exodus requiring fifty troop trains a day, fifty-five cars each, for more than three years—and building bases to house them once they were home. The immediate cost of the buyout, or the bribe, was measured in tens of billions, then hundreds, a spectacular use of economic power in political warfare. Its immensity matched the importance of the moment. Over time, *the bill for unification would come to more than two trillion dollars.*

bryanrasmussen 6y ago

>is one of the foundations of Russian resentment towards the US surely one of the reasons for continuation of Russian resentment, not a foundation?

pram 6y ago

Yeah that fact about the Russian soldiers blew my mind when I stumbled across it. Germany also provided money for housing when the soldiers got back. It was basically bribery haha. They didn’t leave until 1994 iirc

Synaesthesia 6y ago

What about the fact that Stalin offered the West a unified Germany in 1953, on the (reasonable) condition that she not join a hostile alliance. (Stalin note)

older 6y ago

> the Bush I administration gave them categorical assurances that the borders of NATO would not move "an inch Eastward." Where you are quoting from? As far as I know such promises were never given and not even discussed at that time.

ivan_gammel 6y ago
Here’s more information on this topic, unfortunately only in Russian (you can use Google Translate): https://ru.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Вопрос_о_существовании_договорённости_о_нерасширении_НАТО_на_восток https://ru.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Вопрос_о_существовании_догов...
w0de0 6y ago
A better source than Russian Wikipedia: https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/russia-programs/2017-12-12/nato-expansion-what-gorbachev-heard-western-leaders-early https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/russia-programs/2017...
Someone 6y ago
https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/nato-s-eastward-expansion-did-the-west-break-its-promise-to-moscow-a-663315.html https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/nato-s-eastward-e...: After speaking with many of those involved and examining previously classified British and German documents in detail, SPIEGEL has concluded that there was no doubt that the West did everything it could to give the Soviets the impression that NATO membership was out of the question for countries like Poland, Hungary or Czechoslovakia. On Feb. 10, 1990, between 4 and 6:30 p.m., Genscher spoke with Shevardnadze. According to the German record of the conversation, which was only recently declassified, Genscher said: "We are aware that NATO membership for a unified Germany raises complicated questions. For us, however, one thing is certain: NATO will not expand to the east." And because the conversion revolved mainly around East Germany, Genscher added explicitly: "As far as the non-expansion of NATO is concerned, this also applies in general." Shevardnadze replied that he believed "everything the minister (Genscher) said." Edit: https://books.openedition.org/ceup/2759?lang=en https://books.openedition.org/ceup/2759?lang=en says: In the session with Baker on February 9, 1990, Gorbachev discussed various forms of German unification and association with NATO. Although he could not accept it publicly, he agreed with Baker’s argument that the presence of U.S. troops in Europe was a factor in overall European stability, which implicitly meant accepting the idea of Germany’s eventual membership in the Western alliance. It was during this conversation that Baker offered Gorbachev guarantees (that is the word used in the Russian memorandum of conversation—garantii) that NATO would not “spread an inch eastward,” and the Soviet leader accepted the statement as sufficient on the basis of the trust he felt had been built between him and the U.S. leadership—never asking for a written pledge. Gorbachev’s reasoning could partially be explained by the domestic dilemma he faced: how could he tell the Politburo that he had asked for written guarantees that NATO would not expand to the territories of the Warsaw Pact while the Pact was still in existence? That would have meant he had already accepted the idea that the socialist alliance was on its deathbed. In this conversation, Baker was not trying to mislead Gorbachev in any way; he was merely expressing the official position of the U.S. government at the time, which was fully shared by other Western leaders, talking specifically about the NATO presence on East German soil, but by implication also about any future expansion. However, the Bush administration would change that position very soon—without providing any notification to Gorbachev.

_ph_ 6y ago

If I remember correctly, the number was rather 30 billion Deutsche Mark. But still, it was a good deal for the Sovjet Union. Personally, I think that Gorbatchew was very aware of the pure financial state of the Sovjet Union and this was the ability to get rid of the DDR not only at no costs, but having all costs of relocating the military covered by the west. Still, he managed to delay the collapse of the Sovjet Union only by a few years.

cpleppert 6y ago

The $2T cited in the book does not refer to the direct costs paid to Russia but to the total amount spent on reunification which came out to something like $100 billion per year for twenty years. The opposition of the rest of Europe and Russia has to be put in context. Russia would not have been able to support the East German economy nor would it have been able to afford to maintain a pointless troop presence that would no longer have local support. The rest of europe might have been opposed because of historical reasons having to do with security but not allowing unification would have created a massive roadblock for the european economy. Short of reunification, there was not an acceptable legal regime to end Germany's limited sovereignty(which the rest of europe supported). Given that Germany strongly supported reunification and the US was in support for obvious geopolitical reasons there was no way for any other power to stop the process. Russia could either be paid to leave or get nothing and spend money it doesn't have to maintain the troop presence to boot. Poor relations with Germany would have had a catastrophic impact on the Russian economy. The UK was never really serious about stopping reunification and barely tried to bluff. Similar reasons apply to France which could not oppose reunification and support European integration. For all these reasons I find the the focus on contingency to be rather overdrawn. It was not inevitable in the sense that it had to happen(you can come up scenarios where the soviet union continues into the 21st century) but given the collapse of the Warsaw Pact it's hard to understand how unification could have been ultimately prevented. You can see a similar dynamic taking place in South Korea where unification is broadly supported by the younger population in the face of titanic security and economic concerns. German unification has been supported for hundreds of years for comparable reasons.

quietbritishjim 6y ago
> UK was never really serious about stopping reunification Why would the UK have even pretended to want to stop it? Weren't their foreign policies, at least towards communism, heavily aligned with the US?
- HeckFeck 6y ago
  Reunification meant that Germany's power in the EU increased. Becoming a bigger country with a larger population got more seats and pushed the bloc more in its direction. Thus reducing Britain's influence there.

gumby 6y ago

The Russians negotiated a three (or four?) year stand down. Allegedly the soldiers liked the German posting because of the chocolate and generally better life in Germany than in Russia. I remember back around '92 or '93 looking out from the window of an in-law who lived in the Harz mountains and seeing an old border watch tower. Then I commented that it looked like there were people up there. "Oh yes, those are the Russians" I was told. "Even though there is no border they keep up the procedures because they're afraid that if they just sit around they'll be sent home".

bjourne 6y ago

Thatcher and Mitterand expressed doubts and fears, but did not publicly oppose German reunification. Public opinion in Western European countries were strongly in favor of reunification so France's and Britain's leaders were hardly in any position to stop it.