How NATO Saved Eastern Europe
Nato expanded into Eastern Europe gradually and carefully so as to preserve its relationship with Russia, but it was too careful to preserve the territorial integrity of Georgia and Ukraine.
It can sometimes seem there is no more pressing question than why Nato expanded into Eastern Europe and what might have been done to prevent the Russian reaction to it. If Nato sought to “aggressively" expand into former Warsaw Pact countries, or used a moment of weakness to humiliate a broken Russia, then at least Putin’s invasion of Ukraine might be something more than a naked land grab. M.E. Sarotte's Not One Inch: America, Russia, and the Making of the Post-Cold War Stalemate is the definitive account of this history.
The book is a model of careful and detailed research, which probes previously classified documents to reveal the inner workings of American, Russian, and German governments from 1989 to 1999. It is a highly readable account, which gives in turn a bird's eye view and a seat at the table. And it is at its best in probing the respective relationships of George H.W. Bush and Gorbachev, Yeltsin and Clinton, as they fumbled through a tumultuous partnership. Unfortunately, the history that is recounted in it can sometimes seem like that of a divorced couple looking back on what tore them apart. In short, there was no single argument but rather a long series of irreconcilable differences.
The book begins with the Soviet Union breaking apart as Bush struggles not to undermine Gorbachev, and it ends with Clinton in acrimony with Yeltsin over the Nato intervention in Kosovo. The question is what happened in the middle that led to the fallout. The historical record is clear that no treaties were signed committing Nato not to expand into former Warsaw Pact countries. Nor were any such promises made to Russian leaders. So, the assertion that there were any can be easily dismissed as propaganda. Moreover, the record should make clear to even the most committed Nato critic that only a fool would have accepted a verbal promise on these matters, for its expansion was a constant topic of discussion involving an endless continuum of views.
President Bush was adamant about not making commitments that would hinder the growth of Nato because he saw an emerging security vacuum in Eastern Europe. As the first president of the newly independent Czech Republic put it, “If the west does not stabilize the east, the east will destabilize the west.” Yet, he was also careful not to press the matter lest it weaken Gorbachev in whom he had a reliable negotiating partner. In fact, Bush would go so far in supporting Gorbachev and insisting on security that he sometimes seemed to be propping up the Soviet regime as it splintered into pieces.
Perhaps the most notorious case involved George Bush Sr.’s “Chicken Kiev speech” in Ukraine wherein he encouraged the country to remain a part of the Soviet Union. So much for Nato’s aggressive expansion in Ukraine. Clinton did much the same with Yeltsin, often going so far as to cover for his drunkenness at major international events, as he had learned to do as a child with his alcoholic father. At one point on a visit to Washington, Secret Service actually had to secret Yeltsin away when he was discovered to be wondering the streets drunk in his underwear. Both presidents wanted to expand Nato, but both were extremely careful that they did so in such a way as to least offend Russians, and both went to extraordinary measures to respect Russian dignity.
Both presidents also gave Russia substantial aid to soften the blow of their diminished status and to keep the country stable. In fact, while Sarotte does not come up with a total tally of the aid dispensed by the United States and Germany, my own back of the napkin calculations suggest that, accounting for inflation, and with all the disbursements from various agencies, it was nearly as much as the Marshall Plan. It might have also totaled more per capita, for while Russia is territorially vast, its population is not nearly so great as that of Europe. What is clear from the historical record is that both presidents bent over backward to accommodate the needs of their former foe without sacrificing the security interests of Western Europe, Eastern Europe, or the United States.
The continual back and forth over when and how to expand the alliance reveal few good alternatives. Eastern Europe would remain insecure without some kind of security arrangement in place, which is why Poland's Lech Walesa and the Czech Republic's Vaclav Havel constantly pushed for their nations to be included in Nato. Meanwhile, Russia was too big, too corrupt, too nationalistic, and too autocratic to ever be let into the association. For a brief moment early in Clinton's first term, the Partnership for Peace appeared set to create a security partnership that included both Nato states and Russia, but it was largely scuttled by Republican opposition to it. Nevertheless, the partnership was in many ways simply a precursor to expansion that kept Russia in the loop.
If Russian democratization efforts proved successful, it would have also provided a stepping stone to Russia’s entry into the Nato.
Yet, several breaking points occurred in the relationship that would lead to the decision to gradually and unapologetically expand Nato. The brutality of Russia's invasion of Chechnya in 1994 led the Clinton administration to sit up and take notice of what might happen if Eastern European states were left out of the alliance. Nato's intervention to stop the Serbian slaughter of Bosnian civilians led Russia to worry about Nato aggression, in spite of the intervention stopping a genocide while only killing 25 Serbian soldiers. Yeltsin's near defeat at the hands of a militant ultranationalist in 1995 also gave the Clinton administration a taste of what Eastern European states might need to protect against when he is gone.
As the relationship degenerated, the matter of letting the Czech Republic, Poland, and Hungary into Nato heated up, but it heated up because they were become more stable democracies. And Clinton had to act fast before his term ended. Meanwhile, Yeltsin saw the Nato intervention to stop the Serbian ethnic cleansing of Kosovo was seen as a last straw. It was a predictable reaction to a predictable intervention. Nato could not allow Serbia's crimes against humanity and all of their attendant social maladies continue in its own backyard. In the meantime, Putin's appointment as Yeltsin's chosen successor, and his almost immediate re-invasion of Chechnya, in response to his own government's apartment bombings, which were blamed on Chechen terrorists, only highlighted the assure stability in Eastern Europe.
Thus, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Romania, Bulgaria, and Slovakia would be welcomed into the alliance in 2004.
It is a remarkable story that is recounted as well as it is researched. The only problem is that it leaves off discussion before Nato expanded to include the Baltic states, and there is precious little about the inclusion of Georgia and Ukraine. Yet, the irrelevance of their membership to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is highlighted by the fact that no states that are even close to Russia have been let into the alliance since 2004. Meanwhile, the historical record is clear that there were never any commitments made about not expanding to Georgia and Ukraine.
Perhaps the most revealing thing about the process is that, far from not respecting the so-called "Russian sphere of influence" and potential Russian humiliation, consideration for these matters was integral to the process of expansion from the very start. And perhaps if the expansion had not been so careful from the start, Georgia and Ukraine would have been let into the alliance, and they would have never have been invaded in the first place.
~ Theo Horesh, author of The Fascism This Time: And the Global Future of Democracy