The Collapse of the Soviet Empire
NATO is not the Brezhnev Doctrine enforcer
The collapse of the Soviet empire in Eastern Europe and the subsequent collapse of the USSR raised great concerns about what happens when a nuclear-armed state collapses. Could the Soviets lash out with nukes to make sure their enemies did not win? Reassuring the Soviets to get past that potential Apocalypse was obviously a major element of diplomacy. But in seeking to calm the Soviets down and avoid nuclear war, did NATO promise not to expand into former Soviet vassal states or into the USSR itself? Did subsequent NATO expansion violate that promise and justify Russian anger and aggression. That is a completely wrong way to look at that period of time. NATO was under no obligation to flip from the winner of the Cold War to the co-enforcer of a new Brezhnev Doctrine to restore Russian control over lost vassals.
And if Russia is truly upset that NATO didn’t invite Russia into the alliance, how can Russia say its former vassals shouldn’t enter? Unless the only reason Russia wanted inside the walls was to undermine the alliance from within. As for NATO, it took a couple Russian invasions of Ukraine along with repeated nuclear sabre rattling for NATO to begin to get serious about defending its eastern borders against Russia. Am I really to believe that NATO would have extended its territorial guarantees to Russia’s Far East? Really?
But I’m in danger of digressing.
Russia has a long history of expanding west. The Communist revolution of 1917 pushed Russia—then controlling Finland, Poland, the Baltic States, and part of Romania—back a lot. World War II allowed Soviet Russia to move even further west into Central Europe including East Germany. From 1989 to 1991, the Soviets lost both their Eastern Europe empire and the Russian Empire itself which fragmented into its nationalities that had long resisted Russification policies. And now Russia is trying to push west again.
This is not NATO’s fault.
Consider the events of the time.
Imperial Alarm Bells Go Off
February 15, 1989. Soviet troops left Afghanistan.
May 2, 1989. Hungary began dismantling its border fence with Austria.
June 19, 1989. Soviet troops left Hungary.
September 13, 1989. Poland got a non-communist government.
November 9, 1989. The Berlin Wall “fell”. East Germany allowed citizens to enter West Berlin and West Germany.
October 23, 1989. Hungary’s communist government abolished.
December 10, 1989. Czechoslovakia got a mostly non-communist government.
December 11, 1989. Bulgaria ended the communist party monopoly on power.
December 22, 1989. Romania’s military turned against the communist government, after initially shooting protesters. The communist ruler was hastily tried and executed on December 25th. One thousand people died to overthrow communist rule.
January 31, 1990. The German foreign minister, on his own, says in a speech that NATO should not expand into Warsaw Pact territory.
The Long Retreat
March 15, 1990. West Germany, East Germany, America, Britain, France, and the USSR signed a peace treaty that facilitated reunification of the German states.
June 1990. First post-World War II free elections held in Bulgaria.
October 3, 1990. Germany was reunified. East Germany is absorbed into NATO.
June 27, 1991. Soviet troops left Czechoslovakia.
July 1, 1991. The Warsaw Pact was dissolved.
August 22, 1991. The brief communist true believer coup attempt was defeated.
December 26, 1991. The USSR dissolved itself.
September 18, 1993. Russian troops left Poland.
September 1, 1994. Russian troops left East Germany.
The Rescue Begins
March 12, 1999. The Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland join NATO.
March 29, 2004. Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, Romania, Slovenia, and Bulgaria join NATO.
April 1, 2009. Albania and Croatia join NATO.
June 5, 2017. Montenegro joins NATO.
March 27, 2020. North Macedonia joins NATO.
April 4, 2023. Finland joins NATO.
March 7, 2024. Sweden joins NATO.
In regard to whether America promised Russia not to advance NATO east and then stabbed Russia in the back, I don’t believe the record even remotely supports that argument.
The American secretary of state on February 9, 1990, told the Soviets
It is important for the Soviet Union and other European countries to have guarantees that if the United States maintains its presence in Germany within the framework of NATO, there will be no extension of NATO's jurisdiction or military presence by a single inch in the eastern direction.
But more officially,
[The] US State Department indicated that “the Secretary of State made it clear that the US supports a united Germany in NATO, but is ready to ensure that NATO's military presence will not expand further to the east.” [emphasis added]
Also, this clarification between America and Germany is significant:
[The] former GDR was supposed to be granted a "special military status", in which all of Germany would be considered a member of NATO and fall under the collective security guarantees of the bloc, the alliance would have "jurisdiction" over the territory of the former GDR even if they were not stationed there NATO military structures.
Unified Germany’s territory in the former East Germany would be no less NATO territory that territory from West Germany which had joined NATO. But NATO would not move its “military structures” there.
Even Gorbachev didn’t claim an actual agreement, only that “a violation of the spirit of those statements and assurances that were given to us in 1990.” And saying that on October 22, 1993 the American secretary of state misled the Russians by saying he mentioned “possible [NATO] membership only briefly and at the end of the conversation” seems ridiculous. It was not emphasized but it was mentioned. And “at the end” of the conversation doesn’t imply to me an effort to skirt over the issue but to make sure that the Russians understood that NATO expansion was possible. And it is interesting that concerning the talks on reunifying Germany, “Mikhail Gorbachev and Eduard Shevardnadze also claimed that the question of NATO's expansion into Eastern Europe ‘was not discussed at all in those years and did not arise’, since the Warsaw Pact still existed.” Further, NATO Secretary General Manfred Wörner on May 17, 1990 stated "the very fact that we are ready not to deploy NATO troops outside the territory of Germany gives the Soviet Union firm security guarantees.”
But the situation for East Germany was unique. Only resolving its status required Soviet cooperation based on post-World War II joint occupation of German territory:
As US representatives stated in 1996, the USSR's right to discuss and establish “security parameters” in connection with the unification of Germany, “essentially limiting its sovereignty,” stemmed from the supreme rights of the four victorious powers (USSR, USA, Great Britain and France) established following the Second World War in relation to Germany and “it has not set a precedent for Russian surveillance of other Central and Eastern European states.”
Those who claim NATO betrayed Russia point to non-authoritative statements by indiviudals with no ability to make NATO policy by public statements. No single state could make NATO policy. Indeed, since accepting a new NATO member requires unanimous consent, there has been remarkable consensus that NATO expansion east to willing and eager applicants who fully understand what it means to be under Russian control is NATO policy. And even when you get through Warsaw Pact countries to the Baltic States that broke away from the Soviet Union, American policy throughout the Cold War—declared in July 1940—was that it did not recognize Soviet conquest of those independent states that had reclaimed their freedom after World War I. On the eve of the first alarm bells sounding inside the Soviet empire, citing our history of non-recognition of Soviet control, President Reagan declared June 14, 1988, as Baltic Freedom Day.
And NATO did refrain from moving NATO infrastructure east even as new members were eager to have even a paper guarantee of their freedom. NATO forces in general declined massively as the “peace dividend” was cashed in. Members that once fielded multi-division army corps struggle to put brigades into warfighting readiness (From U.S.-Soviet Military Balance: Concepts and Capabilities 1960-1980 by John M. Collins).
Those —XXX— map notations mark corps boundaries. Boy did things change despite the now-fashionable claims that NATO has threatened peace-loving Russia since it won the Cold War. This author blames Russians for not accepting the reality of losing the Cold War along with the refusal of NATO states to enforce NATO’s Cold War victory and deter Russia from trying to reverse their Cold War losses:
Unlike in the aftermath of the Second World War when the United States brought massive amounts of power to stabilize and rebuild Europe and to deter any attempts at Soviet aggression against the Free World, the post-Cold War settlement was accompanied by a bewildering degree of disarmament across the collective West.
Indeed. We have drawn a lesson from the Treaty of Versailles that is 180 degrees from reality.
In fact, NATO neglected to build logistics that would be necessary even to defend new NATO states in the east. And NATO lacked even war plans for such a contingency. Despite the short Russian invasion of Georgia in 2008, in 2013—until Russian aggression beginning in 2014 led to that decision being reversed—America removed its last contingent of Abrams tanks from Europe. And if NATO already agreed to keeping NATO forces out of new NATO states, why did Russia propose such a deal in 2010? Why not complain that NATO violated an actual signed deal?
Russia, in fact, created an alarmed and rearming NATO.
Face it, refusing to accept former Soviet conquests into NATO would have simply put NATO in the position of being a co-enforcer to a new Brezhnev Doctrine that holds anybody once owned by Russia cannot be considered a free state able to chart its own course. Keeping a NATO vacuum would only have reduced the cost of Russia expanding west—again.
What pray tell is the limit to the “natural” buffer that Russia of course wants? Russia will want more until even manning Hadrian’s Wall will be insufficient security from the Western threat.
We are told this issue was of extremely important to the Soviets. Yet proponents of the idea that NATO promised the Soviets that NATO would not expand membership east as the Soviets retreated point to statements and speeches that either lack authority or which are ambiguous—or both. If this issue was so vital to the Russians, why didn’t the Russians insist on a formal document with rigorously defined terms? Why did the Russians essentially accept a wink and a nod as equivalent to a formal treaty? Or any written agreement of any sort?
But that so-called betrayal by NATO didn’t happen. Russian expansionism is Russia’s fault—not NATO’s and certainly not America’s. I’m fine with helping people kill Russians in Ukraine while Russia is our proclaimed enemy:
Putin wants the world to pay attention to Russia? Give it to him. Economic and financial sanctions on top of aid to Ukraine to fight Russia. America and NATO need to sustain Ukraine's military with logistics and intelligence; and help it send body bags back to Russian mothers.
It doesn't matter that I feel sorry for Russians who live under a ruler determined to take Russia on a flaming viking funeral ride to potential destruction. Russian soldiers in large numbers need to die in the war that Putin has unleashed. Nothing else will work to discourage Russia from moving west every chance it gets until it reaches NATO and starts grabbing territory to start a general war in Europe.
Russia has a plan of action. But everyone has a plan for fighting until they get punched in the face.
But because I’m a business-before-pleasure kind of analyst, I’m willing to cut a deal with Russia to get it to pivot away from Ukraine and NATO to face the threat from China.
NOTE: I relied on Wikipedia for information on my timeline from here, here, here, and here. The top map is from Wikipedia. That Collins book was my college “Bible” for military matters that I purchased for at least ten hours of scarce take-home pay. Today it is held together with masking tape from so much use.