Long before the Ukraine war this year, several renowned foreign policy experts, including retired senior officials and persons close to the establishment in the USA and its western allies, had been warning that the eastward expansion of Nato (the Northern Atlantic Treaty Organisation) was endangering world peace by pushing Russia too much and ignoring its legitimate security concerns.
To appreciate the concerns of Russia, we need to go back to the end of the 1980s when issues like the unification of Germany and the weakening of the USSR dominated international diplomacy. At that time, senior American and Western leaders assured the Soviets that if they did not object to the unification of Germany, the West in turn would ensure there would be no eastward expansion of Nato towards Russia. This has been confirmed by several documents and records relating to this important period of history, even though no written agreement was reached.
Recently, Jack F. Matlock, American ambassador to the Soviet Union during this critical period, recalled that in 1989-90 “Gorbachev was assured, though not in a formal treaty, that if a unified Germany was allowed to remain in Nato, there would be no movement of Nato’s jurisdiction to the east, not an inch.” In fact, there has been Nato movement of several thousand miles, almost all eastward. Following the unification of Germany in 1990, as many as 14 new members have been added, moving Nato closer and closer to the borders of the Russian Federation.
In 1996, the USA interfered in the Russian elections so that its favored politician Boris Yeltsin could be elected as the President. Yeltsin implemented pro-big business and pro West economic policies that impoverished the common Russian people. This emboldened US policy makers to go back on the assurances regarding Nato expansion eastward. However even Yeltsin opposed this.
The US ambassador to the Russian Federation, William Burns, who incidentally is now the CIA director under President Biden, warned then that all Russians were united in opposing this, cutting across local political divides. In subsequent writings and until very recently, he continued to voice this opinion. In June 1997, as this issue was being hotly debated, as many as 50 senior foreign policy experts of the USA, including former senators, retired military officials, diplomats and academicians, got together to send a letter to President Clinton, voicing their opposition to Nato expansion (see website of Arms Control Association – Opposition to NATO Expansion, 26 June 1997).
This letter stated very clearly – “We, the undersigned, believe that the current US led effort to expand NATO, …is a policy error of historic proportion.” This letter reminded the President that in Russia, Nato expansion continues to be opposed across the entire political spectrum and will strengthen the non-democratic forces and in Europe this will accentuate the divide between the ‘ins’ and ‘outs’, fostering instability.” This letter concluded by strongly urging the US President to suspend the Nato expansion process and explore alternative actions.
As the debate intensified, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee invited Jack Matlock (who apart from being a former ambassador is also widely respected as an expert on USA-Russia relations) to testify before it. In his testimony, Matlock stated that if the US government went ahead with the proposed Nato eastward expansion, it would be the most serious strategic blunder since the end of the Cold War. Ignoring these warnings, the US went ahead with the expansion.
In March-April 2008, President Bush escalated tensions by proposing Nato membership further to Georgia and Ukraine, neglecting the even stronger Russian objections to the membership of these two countries. This proposal was made and pursued by him despite the opposition to this of not just several western allies but reportedly even of some of US intelligence agencies and senior officials. While waving the flag of Ukraine membership, the USA also started increasing its interference in internal affairs of Ukraine.
As Matlock has written in his recent review of the build-up of tensions, US intrusion into its domestic politics was deep, actively supporting the 2014 revolution and overthrow of the elected Ukrainian government in 2014. This change meant that a government which opposed Nato membership went out and a regime which promoted membership came in.
The step-by-step, relentless pursuit of the policy of eastward expansion of Nato over a period of about 25 years by the USA has been accompanied by rising concerns of Russia regarding its urgent security interests. This is not just a Vladimir Putin-centered obsession but a real and genuine concern shared by all sections of political opinion in Russia, and no one knows this better than current CIA director William Burns, who in the course of his various important assignments in Russia, has been warning his government regarding the strong sensitivities in all sections of Russian political opinion on this issue.
The importance of this issue can be realized from this observation of Matlock at the time of the build-up of the Ukraine crisis in mid-February. He stated, “Since Putin’s major demand is an assurance that Nato will take no further members, and specifically not Ukraine or Georgia, obviously there would have been no basis for the present crisis if there had been no expansion of the alliance following the end of the Cold War, or if the expansion had occurred in harmony with building a security structure in Europe that included Russia.” Hence it is clear that the eastward expansion of Nato has taken place at the very heavy cost of endangering world peace.
(The writer is Honorary Convener, Campaign to Save Earth Now. His recent books include Planet in Peril and Protecting Earth for Children.)