5 ms·

is there some specific memorandum of understanding or something with promise not to expand NATO east ?

croes 5y ago
It's complicated https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/nato-s-eastward-expansion-is-vladimir-putin-right-a-bf318d2c-7aeb-4b59-8d5f-1d8c94e1964d https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/nato-s-eastward-e...
- simplyaccont 5y ago
  in other words - no
  - croes 5y ago
    In others words they avoided it being written down like the germans avoided calling the Two plus Four agreement a peace treaty. Political trickery. That may have worked for the germans to prevent paying reparations to greece, but the NATO trick lead to the problems we now have with russia. Remember how the US reacted to some missiles in Cuba?
    - simplyaccont 5y ago
      problem with russia is not nato but putin's head. if you had listen to his speech yesterday, nato is just a pretext because people need enemy to unite against. in reality he wants ussr back (he was complaining yesterday that republics were allowed to leave ussr to easily and ukraine is not a real country but something made up by lenin and stalin). he wants back the glory of soviet empire.
      - croes 5y ago
        Things don't happen in a vacuum. Putin is a result of what happened under Yeltsin, where some people got very rich and the rest had to suffer.
- jmyeet 5y ago
  Relevant quote: > But the recollections of those involved aren’t always consistent. Roland Dumas, who served as the French foreign minister in 1990, would later say that a pledge was made that NATO troops would not advance closer to the territory of the former Soviet Union. But the U.S. secretary of state at the time, James Baker, has denied that any such promise was ever made – a claim that some of his own diplomats, however, have contradicted. Jack Matlock, who was the U.S. ambassador to Moscow at the time, has said that "categorical assurances" were given to the Soviet Union that NATO would not expand eastward. Even if you deny that such a promise was made (and broken), you should be able to understand how having a hostile military alliance literally on your border is unacceptable and the US would never accept it were the tables turned. That's the point. There are no good guys here. Go back to the Cuban Missile Crisis. There's a popular narrative of the US being provoked. But the truth is, the US instigated the Cuban Missile Crisis by deploying strategic nuclear weapons to Turkey (interestingly under the auspices of NATO, a "defensive" pact). Cuba was reciprocity. Those missiles in Turkey were quietly removed.
  - astine 5y ago
    "(interestingly under the auspices of NATO, a "defensive" pact)" According the grand strategy of the cold war, those missiles were defensive. Their presence was requested by Turkey and when they were removed there was a diplomatic stink about it because the Turks argued that this was the US no honouring their agreement. There was nothing "quiet" about their removal. This isn't comparable to Ukraine however. The US isn't trying to put nuclear missiles in Ukraine (and there aren't NATO nukes in any other former SSR either.) And it wouldn't matter if they were, because the range of ICBMs has increased since 1962. Russia isn't invading Ukraine to prevent nuclear weapons from being deployed on its doorstep; it's doing so to reestablish its control over its former empire.
    - croes 5y ago
      It's not about the range of weapons but about the reaction time of counter measures. And it is comparable. Ukraine is at Russia's doorstep and plays a major role for the access to the Black Sea. That's why Russia annexed Crimea in the first place.
cowwander 5y ago
This is a very well known agreement. Search for writing on HW Bush's Secretary of State James Baker agreeing to Gorbachev that NATO would expand "not another inch" eastward. Much has been written about this, and it is considered ~first principles~ level knowledge on the topic of Russia/Ukraine. Putin came of political age when that agreement was reneged, and it is speculated that this is weighs heavily on his list of grievances with the US.
- simplyaccont 5y ago
  can you please show me this agreement ?
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > This is a very well known agreement. It's a very well known non-agreement. > James Baker agreeing to Gorbachev that NATO would expand "not another inch" eastward That's...not how binding international agreements are formed.
  - cowwander 5y ago
    >That's...not how binding international agreements are formed. Thank you, this is exactly the point I arrived at as well. It's an admission that the primary tool of the US State Department is to make friendly, reasonable verbal agreements in front of the press and public, then do the dirty move they really wanted to do when the news cycle has moved past. This maintains the appearance to the US public that their foreign policy is always just, and never cynical or deceitful.
  - justsomehnguy 5y ago
    US: says one thing and do the other one EVERYONE: claps RUSSIA: says one thing and do the other one EVERYONE: gasps
    - darkarmani 5y ago
      Your false equivalence is around Russia INVADING a country after saying it was just doing military exercises.
avgcorrection 5y ago
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...
wazoox 5y ago
Not really. However the position of Russians has been absolutely constant. See these excerpts from talks between Gorbachev and James Baker, Baker and Chevarnadze, with the famous "verbal assurances": https://www.les-crises.fr/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Promises-no-expansion-NATO-eastward-USSR-1990-Gorbatchev-v1-en-2048x1595.jpg https://www.les-crises.fr/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Promise... Yeltsin in this telex to Bill Clinton from 1993: https://www.les-crises.fr/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/otan-expansion-65.jpg https://www.les-crises.fr/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/otan-ex... Reported in the NYTimes: https://www.nytimes.com/1993/10/02/world/yeltsin-opposes-expansion-of-nato-in-eastern-europe.html https://www.nytimes.com/1993/10/02/world/yeltsin-opposes-exp... Then came a promise from Secretary of state Christopher on 10/22/93 that there would be no extension: https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/document/16380-document-08-secretary-christopher-s-meeting https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/document/16380-document-08-secreta... However Richard Holbrooke changed his discourse, and Yeltsin complained in 94: https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/document/16385-document-13-official-informal-no-248-boris-bill https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/document/16385-document-13-officia... Then again: https://www.les-crises.fr/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/NT-front-page.jpg https://www.les-crises.fr/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/NT-fron... However, Yeltsine nearly died in 96, and his election relied entirely on manipulations at a large scale from the CIA. Therefore, Clinton thought he was free to proceed with NATO extension: https://www.les-crises.fr/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Perry-page1.png https://www.les-crises.fr/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Perry-p... But there was large disapproval from the Russian, like Gorbachev still in this Herald Tribune 1997 guest article: https://www.les-crises.fr/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/otan-expansion-61-2048x1905.jpg https://www.les-crises.fr/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/otan-ex... But in the US too, like George Kennan in the NYTimes, 1997: https://www.nytimes.com/1997/02/05/opinion/a-fateful-error.html https://www.nytimes.com/1997/02/05/opinion/a-fateful-error.h... and many others, Michael Mandelbaum,Richard T. Davis, John Lewis Gaddis, even Thomas Friedman thought extending NATO was a serious mistake. > Privately, though, a few more perceptive officials acknowledged that relations with Russia had not been handled well. In his memoir, Duty, Robert M. Gates, who served as secretary of defense in the administrations of both George W. Bush and Barack Obama, made some interesting admissions. “When I reported to the president my take on the Munich conference, I shared my belief that from 1993 onward, the West, and particularly the United States, had badly underestimated the magnitude of the Russian humiliation in losing the Cold War…” Yet even that blunt assessment given to Bush did not fully capture Gates’ views on the issue. “What I didn’t tell the president was that I believed the relationship with Russia had been badly mismanaged after [George H.W.] Bush left office in 1993.” Among other missteps, “U.S. agreements with the Romanian and Bulgarian governments to rotate troops through bases in those countries was a needless provocation.” In an implicit rebuke to the younger Bush, Gates asserted that “trying to bring Georgia and Ukraine into NATO was truly overreaching.” That move, he contended, was a case of “recklessly ignoring what the Russians considered their own vital national interests.” https://www.cato.org/commentary/did-putins-2007-munich-speech-predict-ukraine-crisis# https://www.cato.org/commentary/did-putins-2007-munich-speec... Also, there's the treachery of the 2011 Libya operation : https://www.les-crises.fr/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/libye-01.jpg https://www.les-crises.fr/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/libye-0...
fsckboy 5y ago
So much attention is paid to the hazy question of technicalities of NATO membership, I think it's important to note that Russia agreed to very specific terms with respect to Ukraine and accepting it's borders and rights. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons_and_Ukraine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons_and_Ukraine 1. The Russian Federation, the UK and the US reaffirm their commitment to Ukraine, in accordance with the principles of the Final Act of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, to respect the independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine 2. The Russian Federation, the UK and the US reaffirm their obligation to refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine, and that none of their weapons will ever be used against Ukraine except in self-defence or otherwise in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations. 3. The Russian Federation, the UK and the US reaffirm their commitment to Ukraine, in accordance with the principles of the Final Act of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, to refrain from economic coercion designed to subordinate to their own interest the exercise by Ukraine of the rights inherent in its sovereignty and thus to secure advantages of any kind.

It's complicated https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/nato-s-eastward-expansion-is-vladimir-putin-right-a-bf318d2c-7aeb-4b59-8d5f-1d8c94e1964d https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/nato-s-eastward-e...

simplyaccont 5y ago
in other words - no
- croes 5y ago
  In others words they avoided it being written down like the germans avoided calling the Two plus Four agreement a peace treaty. Political trickery. That may have worked for the germans to prevent paying reparations to greece, but the NATO trick lead to the problems we now have with russia. Remember how the US reacted to some missiles in Cuba?
  - simplyaccont 5y ago
    problem with russia is not nato but putin's head. if you had listen to his speech yesterday, nato is just a pretext because people need enemy to unite against. in reality he wants ussr back (he was complaining yesterday that republics were allowed to leave ussr to easily and ukraine is not a real country but something made up by lenin and stalin). he wants back the glory of soviet empire.
    - croes 5y ago
      Things don't happen in a vacuum. Putin is a result of what happened under Yeltsin, where some people got very rich and the rest had to suffer.
jmyeet 5y ago
Relevant quote: > But the recollections of those involved aren’t always consistent. Roland Dumas, who served as the French foreign minister in 1990, would later say that a pledge was made that NATO troops would not advance closer to the territory of the former Soviet Union. But the U.S. secretary of state at the time, James Baker, has denied that any such promise was ever made – a claim that some of his own diplomats, however, have contradicted. Jack Matlock, who was the U.S. ambassador to Moscow at the time, has said that "categorical assurances" were given to the Soviet Union that NATO would not expand eastward. Even if you deny that such a promise was made (and broken), you should be able to understand how having a hostile military alliance literally on your border is unacceptable and the US would never accept it were the tables turned. That's the point. There are no good guys here. Go back to the Cuban Missile Crisis. There's a popular narrative of the US being provoked. But the truth is, the US instigated the Cuban Missile Crisis by deploying strategic nuclear weapons to Turkey (interestingly under the auspices of NATO, a "defensive" pact). Cuba was reciprocity. Those missiles in Turkey were quietly removed.
- astine 5y ago
  "(interestingly under the auspices of NATO, a "defensive" pact)" According the grand strategy of the cold war, those missiles were defensive. Their presence was requested by Turkey and when they were removed there was a diplomatic stink about it because the Turks argued that this was the US no honouring their agreement. There was nothing "quiet" about their removal. This isn't comparable to Ukraine however. The US isn't trying to put nuclear missiles in Ukraine (and there aren't NATO nukes in any other former SSR either.) And it wouldn't matter if they were, because the range of ICBMs has increased since 1962. Russia isn't invading Ukraine to prevent nuclear weapons from being deployed on its doorstep; it's doing so to reestablish its control over its former empire.
  - croes 5y ago
    It's not about the range of weapons but about the reaction time of counter measures. And it is comparable. Ukraine is at Russia's doorstep and plays a major role for the access to the Black Sea. That's why Russia annexed Crimea in the first place.

cowwander 5y ago

This is a very well known agreement. Search for writing on HW Bush's Secretary of State James Baker agreeing to Gorbachev that NATO would expand "not another inch" eastward. Much has been written about this, and it is considered ~first principles~ level knowledge on the topic of Russia/Ukraine. Putin came of political age when that agreement was reneged, and it is speculated that this is weighs heavily on his list of grievances with the US.

simplyaccont 5y ago
can you please show me this agreement ?
dragonwriter 5y ago
> This is a very well known agreement. It's a very well known non-agreement. > James Baker agreeing to Gorbachev that NATO would expand "not another inch" eastward That's...not how binding international agreements are formed.
- cowwander 5y ago
  >That's...not how binding international agreements are formed. Thank you, this is exactly the point I arrived at as well. It's an admission that the primary tool of the US State Department is to make friendly, reasonable verbal agreements in front of the press and public, then do the dirty move they really wanted to do when the news cycle has moved past. This maintains the appearance to the US public that their foreign policy is always just, and never cynical or deceitful.
- justsomehnguy 5y ago
  US: says one thing and do the other one EVERYONE: claps RUSSIA: says one thing and do the other one EVERYONE: gasps
  - darkarmani 5y ago
    Your false equivalence is around Russia INVADING a country after saying it was just doing military exercises.

avgcorrection 5y ago

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...

wazoox 5y ago

Not really. However the position of Russians has been absolutely constant. See these excerpts from talks between Gorbachev and James Baker, Baker and Chevarnadze, with the famous "verbal assurances": https://www.les-crises.fr/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Promises-no-expansion-NATO-eastward-USSR-1990-Gorbatchev-v1-en-2048x1595.jpg https://www.les-crises.fr/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Promise... Yeltsin in this telex to Bill Clinton from 1993: https://www.les-crises.fr/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/otan-expansion-65.jpg https://www.les-crises.fr/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/otan-ex... Reported in the NYTimes: https://www.nytimes.com/1993/10/02/world/yeltsin-opposes-expansion-of-nato-in-eastern-europe.html https://www.nytimes.com/1993/10/02/world/yeltsin-opposes-exp... Then came a promise from Secretary of state Christopher on 10/22/93 that there would be no extension: https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/document/16380-document-08-secretary-christopher-s-meeting https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/document/16380-document-08-secreta... However Richard Holbrooke changed his discourse, and Yeltsin complained in 94: https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/document/16385-document-13-official-informal-no-248-boris-bill https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/document/16385-document-13-officia... Then again: https://www.les-crises.fr/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/NT-front-page.jpg https://www.les-crises.fr/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/NT-fron... However, Yeltsine nearly died in 96, and his election relied entirely on manipulations at a large scale from the CIA. Therefore, Clinton thought he was free to proceed with NATO extension: https://www.les-crises.fr/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Perry-page1.png https://www.les-crises.fr/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Perry-p... But there was large disapproval from the Russian, like Gorbachev still in this Herald Tribune 1997 guest article: https://www.les-crises.fr/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/otan-expansion-61-2048x1905.jpg https://www.les-crises.fr/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/otan-ex... But in the US too, like George Kennan in the NYTimes, 1997: https://www.nytimes.com/1997/02/05/opinion/a-fateful-error.html https://www.nytimes.com/1997/02/05/opinion/a-fateful-error.h... and many others, Michael Mandelbaum,Richard T. Davis, John Lewis Gaddis, even Thomas Friedman thought extending NATO was a serious mistake. > Privately, though, a few more perceptive officials acknowledged that relations with Russia had not been handled well. In his memoir, Duty, Robert M. Gates, who served as secretary of defense in the administrations of both George W. Bush and Barack Obama, made some interesting admissions. “When I reported to the president my take on the Munich conference, I shared my belief that from 1993 onward, the West, and particularly the United States, had badly underestimated the magnitude of the Russian humiliation in losing the Cold War…” Yet even that blunt assessment given to Bush did not fully capture Gates’ views on the issue. “What I didn’t tell the president was that I believed the relationship with Russia had been badly mismanaged after [George H.W.] Bush left office in 1993.” Among other missteps, “U.S. agreements with the Romanian and Bulgarian governments to rotate troops through bases in those countries was a needless provocation.” In an implicit rebuke to the younger Bush, Gates asserted that “trying to bring Georgia and Ukraine into NATO was truly overreaching.” That move, he contended, was a case of “recklessly ignoring what the Russians considered their own vital national interests.” https://www.cato.org/commentary/did-putins-2007-munich-speech-predict-ukraine-crisis# https://www.cato.org/commentary/did-putins-2007-munich-speec... Also, there's the treachery of the 2011 Libya operation : https://www.les-crises.fr/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/libye-01.jpg https://www.les-crises.fr/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/libye-0...

fsckboy 5y ago

So much attention is paid to the hazy question of technicalities of NATO membership, I think it's important to note that Russia agreed to very specific terms with respect to Ukraine and accepting it's borders and rights. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons_and_Ukraine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons_and_Ukraine 1. The Russian Federation, the UK and the US reaffirm their commitment to Ukraine, in accordance with the principles of the Final Act of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, to respect the independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine 2. The Russian Federation, the UK and the US reaffirm their obligation to refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine, and that none of their weapons will ever be used against Ukraine except in self-defence or otherwise in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations. 3. The Russian Federation, the UK and the US reaffirm their commitment to Ukraine, in accordance with the principles of the Final Act of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, to refrain from economic coercion designed to subordinate to their own interest the exercise by Ukraine of the rights inherent in its sovereignty and thus to secure advantages of any kind.