
Newly Declassified Documents: NATO Wouldn't Move Past East German Border - how-about-this
http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/newly-declassified-documents-gorbachev-told-nato-wouldnt-23629
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DubiousPusher
This seems like much ado about nothing. Yes, in joining these countries to
NATO the west violated the letter of this agreement but under the Yelsen
administration this probably was not percieved as hostile and no one forsaw
the retrograde in the relationship between Russia and NATO at that time.

I believe in fact that at the beginning of Vladimir Putin's first term there
was still talk of Russia joining NATO.

So, to treat this as some nefarious western ploy is basically to ignore the
thawing in relations that occurred in the nineties, the trust that was growing
at that time and the hope we all began to take for granted.

~~~
thriftwy
> no one forsaw the retrograde in the relationship

That's plainly not true. George Kennan did.

 _" I think it is the beginning of a new cold war," said Mr. Kennan from his
Princeton home. "I think the Russians will gradually react quite adversely and
it will affect their policies. I think it is a tragic mistake. There was no
reason for this whatsoever. No one was threatening anybody else. This
expansion would make the Founding Fathers of this country turn over in their
graves. We have signed up to protect a whole series of countries, even though
we have neither the resources nor the intention to do so in any serious way.
[NATO expansion] was simply a light-hearted action by a Senate that has no
real interest in foreign affairs."_

 _" What bothers me is how superficial and ill informed the whole Senate
debate was," added Mr. Kennan, who was present at the creation of NATO and
whose anonymous 1947 article in the journal Foreign Affairs, signed "X,"
defined America’s cold-war containment policy for 40 years. "I was
particularly bothered by the references to Russia as a country dying to attack
Western Europe. Don’t people understand? Our differences in the cold war were
with the Soviet Communist regime. And now we are turning our backs on the very
people who mounted the greatest bloodless revolution in history to remove that
Soviet regime._

~~~
Giorgi
First of all, removing Soviet regime was not bloodless, that's a bullshit.
Second - Soviet communist regime did not evaporate, these people were still
ruling Russia and still are.

~~~
thriftwy
> removing Soviet regime was not bloodless, that's a bullshit

Can you elaborate?

> Soviet communist regime did not evaporate, these people were still ruling
> Russia and still are

That's because everybody who was more pro-West got negative reinforcement of
every their action and got selected out of politician population.

Basically, each time Russia tried to play friendly, something was gladly taken
from it with no compensation.

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logfromblammo
You know that thing Russia does where it's the successor state to the Soviet
Union when it's convenient for them, and an entirely different entity when
it's not? Yeah, that door swings both ways.

Assurances made to the Soviet Union expired with the Soviet Union. And--big
surprise here--some former Soviet republics don't wish to be dominated by
Russia again. Given the choice, they would prefer to be dominated by the US,
the UK, France, and Germany. They might not make the trains run on time, or
keep everyone employed, but they do keep the toilet paper on the shelves.

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_Codemonkeyism
It would have been much better to not extend Nato, but the new states form
their own defence network and then cooperate with Nato with a bilateral
agreement.

But the UK and the US pushed and the states for obvious reasons feared Russia.

~~~
czechdeveloper
I, as ex-soviet sphere of influence country citizen, love NATO and consider it
only way to fight Russian revisionist policies.

~~~
tomash
This so much. Greetings from Poland. Russia's cries about promises and "zones
of influence" are basically cries about being unable to send tanks on a whim
to a country which doesn't want to be a Russian colony.

~~~
dreta
Instead we let the US do as they please on our soil, and politely ask for
visas promised to us 4 cadencies ago. All it takes is a radically anti-
interventionist US president and we’re left to fend for ourselves against the
angry Russians with our outdated F-16s. Germany has better ties with Russia
than us.

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gandhium
> assured Gorbachev on February 10, 1990: “We believe that NATO should not
> expand the sphere of its activity.” (See Document 9) After this meeting,
> Kohl could hardly contain his excitement at Gorbachev’s agreement in
> principle for German unification and, as part of the Helsinki formula that
> states choose their own alliances, so Germany could choose NATO.

So, if unified Germany could choose NATO - that will mean that NATO is
expanding.

So, basically TLDR - some vague promises to Soviet Union, some vague promises
from Soviet Union.

Of course current Russia will twist history the way they want.

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toyg
On one side, this is irrelevant: international relations are the wildest
arena, where even written contracts can be casually swept aside, so a bunch of
“reassurances” will never be worth anything.

On the other, every action has a reaction. Many in the ‘90s predicted that
abusing Russian weakness was risky: it was akin to what France and Britain did
to Germany at Versailles, which was a critical contribution to the rise of
Nazism. Surprise surprise, we now have a hyper-nationalistic leader in power
whose entire platform is “getting Russia respected again”.

What is really shocking, imho, is that a lot of the players who were around
back then are still on the conference circuit, write editorials and teach at
universities. Somebody actually listen to people who compromised the best
chance we’ve had at global peace for a hundred years.

I wish somebody started something like theyscrewedup.com, a website where
people in power get reminded of when and where they got it so wrong that they
should just shut up already.

~~~
finchisko
+1 for theyscrewedup.com.

Guess who is first on my list. :D

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dmichulke
Maybe they meant the 1918-1945 East German Border (i.e. Königsberg = today's
Russian Kaliningrad and Breslau = Polish Wroclaw)? /s

Edit: AFAIK there is no de iure annexation of those territories

~~~
aluhut
Yeah yeah and Germany is a GmbH...

~~~
zaarn
Sadly, I know people that believe this crap, one of those Reichsbürger.

~~~
Xylakant
But there is a Bundesrepublik Deutschland GmbH ;) (see
[https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundesrepublik_Deutschland_%E2...](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundesrepublik_Deutschland_%E2%80%93_Finanzagentur_GmbH))

~~~
zaarn
Yeah but it only exists since 1990.

Then again, I might be applying to much logic.

~~~
Xylakant
it exists since 2000 and it's a fully owned company of the government. I was
being sarcastic and you're applying too much logic. Nothing about the
Reichsbürger movement can be described with what we'd consider logic.

~~~
blattimwind
Another thing Reichsburgers and love have in common!

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johnchristopher
We are the federation, we come in peace. We just want to trade.

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f055
Well that's not a first in "misinterpretation". Nuclear disarmament of Ukraine
after the collapse of the Iron Curtain was accompanied by a guarantee of
Ukrainian borders from US, UK and Russia. [1] But what the fine print didn't
say is that the guarantee does not apply to little green men, and that co-
signers don't make guarantees against each other. But on paper it sounds
great!

1\.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons_and_Ukraine#Bu...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons_and_Ukraine#Budapest_Memorandum)

~~~
thriftwy
You have a point but tragically misrepresent the order of events:

First NATO expanded, 15 years later, little green men.

You can't blame former on latter.

~~~
gandhium
How NATO expansion is related to a Russia violating their agreement with
Ukraine?

~~~
f055
Think!

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yetihehe
Seeing this coming out now means in several years Poland will be "liberated
from corrupt government" by Russia, and like every time before, our "friends"
will stand aside.

~~~
Xylakant
Watching from the other side of the border (and married to a polish wife), I
must say that the polish government is currently working hard on turning
friends into "friends".

~~~
bolololo1
I don't agree. Polish Government is under attack by the western propaganda
because it finally wants to remove the post-colonialism which started after
Communism collapsed. How would you explain that food prices are almost same in
Tesco or Lidl in Germany and in Poland but a Polish cashier earns £400 a month
and a German one £1200?

~~~
Xylakant
Ask the union that negotiates the wages on behalf of polish cashier? It's not
like the wages in Germany magically started rising or Lidl is well known for
philanthropy in Germany. The unions went on strike for the wages and still do.
It's money hard fought for.

In any case, I don't think this is something you can blame on "the EU", as
many people do. Many many Poles do use the benefits of the EU (just as others
do, and rightfully so), either by having infrastructure built (look at the
whole transit road from Warsaw down to Bialystock, the A1, ... tons of EU
funds went into that) or by using the EU rules to work abroad with little to
no friction (just have a short peek at the number plates that travel along the
A1 now for christmas, you'll see lots and lots from all EU countries). It's
certainly not all good in the EU, but what the polish government currently
does - blaming all problems on the evil EU while claiming all benefits for the
great polish government - is certainly a recipe to alienate friends and
supporters.

~~~
bolololo1
If you shut down whole industries so unemployment rate is 25% people are
scared of organizing strikes.

Then suddenly foreign capital comes, re-opens shut down companies and magic
happens - it wasn't worth to shut it down, Polish people can just work as hard
as foreign, but they are just scared of striking.

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aluhut
I hope someone from the admin team is taking a close look at this comment
section here. I would really love to see some background.

~~~
gumby
Read page 2 of the article itself and look up the author. I think the article
is credible.

More interestingly: so what? (not a flip, but serious question -- there is a
what). The article points out that 1> It was long claimed by some that these
assurances were given. 2> Turns out that they were in fact given. 3> Then some
years later they were abrogated.

To some (including me), this is _perhaps_ unfortunate at worst: People make
all sorts of statements, sometimes earnestly and sometimes in error. But
without formal followup they are just comments. (I happen to think
philosophically that expanding NATO was a good idea but felt at the time and
now that it was a mistake on practical grounds). So from my perspective this
is a "big shrug" of an issue.

But to others, particularly some former Warsaw Pact nationals, this is "yet
another example of western duplicity". Since nothing was enshrined by treaty,
there is no legalism to stand on, but not every society obsesses with
legalisms. Just because I disagree with them doesn't mean I should't
appreciate their attitude.

And the article even goes out of its way to point out that the Soviet Union
had the absolute legal right to veto any unification -- which was a result of
the SoF agreement and 1948 peace treaties ending WWII in Europe. In retrospect
it was a mistake for the USSR not to get this representation "in writing"

(BTW similar agreements are not yet in place in Japan BTW, and are unlikely to
ever be)

~~~
aluhut
I don't mean the article. I don't see anything wrong there. However what
happened in this comment section within minutes/few hours was very
interesting. I haven't seen anything like that since I'm on this board.

~~~
gumby
Then I didn't understand what you meant by "background" and perhaps the admins
won't either. Could you clarify?

~~~
aluhut
New accounts, strange traffic, weird vote behavior, comparing similar thread
behavior, etc.

