Putin, NATO, and Ukraine
Col Mike Walker, USMC (ret)
There has been all manner of debate over Putin’s claim that he is justified in invading Ukraine because NATO “betrayed” Russia when it began to expand east in 1990.
Here are some facts to consider.
(1) There never were limits on NATO membership adopted by the Alliance other than to limit membership to regions in the North Atlantic which always meant the continents of Europe and North America and parts in between.
That has not been violated.
(2) We also need perspective so let us recall Putin’s History of Perfidy
Most remember the 2014 Russian seizure of Crimea and eastern Ukraine. Here is why it is important and it goes back to the Budapest Memorandum of 1994:
When the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics dissolved and the republics went their separate ways in the early 1990s, Ukraine posed a special problem because it had become the world’s third largest nuclear power virtually overnight.
At that time, Kyiv agreed to turn its nuclear arsenal over to Russia – depriving itself of an ironclad deterrent from future attack – in return for a security guarantee vouchsafed by the United States, United Kingdom, and Russia.
Here are the three relevant paragraphs agreed to by the United States, United Kingdom, and Russia:
To provide a security assurance to Ukraine (1) with respect the sovereignty and existing borders of Ukraine; (2) to refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity of Ukraine; and (3) to refrain from economic coercion to subordinate Ukraine.
Thus Putin’s treachery: He savaged the agreement by violating all three of those provisions in 2014 and again by invading other parts of Ukraine in 2022. Putin should have realized that his gross violations of an international agreement had to end in unpredictable consequences for his regime.
But that was just one act in a long line of Russian aggression under Putin.
As soon as he took power, Putin went to war with Chechnya during 1999-2000. Putin then invaded Georgia in 2008 and please note: Because of that border conflict between Russia and Georgia, NATO has never approved Georgia’s NATO's membership.
Putin did not let up. In 2019 – as he did with the 1994 Budapest Memorandum – Putin violated and then unilaterally tore up the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty.
In May 2021, Putin also tested Biden by falsely claiming that during the Trump Administration, the United States had violated the 2011 New Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (New START) and Washington continued to be out of compliance. Biden did not fall for the lie.
Then in October 2021, 8 Russian officers at NATO Headquarters in Brussels were expelled for spying. Putin retaliated by closing the Russian Army liaison office and terminating the NATO liaison office in Moscow ending diplomatic ties between the two.
(3) As for the “betrayal” claim of NATO expansion only being limited to Germany in 1990, how could anything else have occurred?
At that time the Soviet Union still existed as did the Warsaw Pact and their Communist regimes (and the 500,000+ Red Army soldiers occupying those countries).
The only territory that had left the Soviet bloc in 1990 was East Germany and it therefore was the sole topic of discussion.
And when the 1990 talks ended in September there was a written agreement signed by Moscow (the 2+4 Treaty).
The 2+4 Treaty did allow German forces to enter East Germany with the same freedom that they deployed forces in West Germany and the treaty stated that Germany had an absolute right to stay in NATO – clearly meaning the NATO boundary would shift east. That was 32 years ago. Moscow knew the truth then and they know it now.
Finally, I have participated in more negotiation than I wish to remember -- both in the United States and overseas. Everything and anything are discussed but very little makes it into the written agreement.
Conflating a negotiation discussion or interaction as binding mutual agreement is deliberately misleading and false. Talk is cheap, written international agreements are binding.
(4) Post-Cold War NATO expansion began in 1995 and adhered to the same process followed by every NATO member since its founding in 1949:
A nation has to initiate the request to join and then NATO sets out a Membership Action Plan (MAP) that the applicant must meet before NATO will consider approving membership.
This is critical because of the 1975 Helsinki Final Act of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) which was signed by the Soviet Union and members of the Warsaw Pact at that time.
In it, all parties (to include Russia and the Eastern European countries) agreed that individual nations could freely choose what alliances to join or not to join.
That justified and authorized NATO to accept new members in Europe.
Further, the Helsinki Final Act had ten (10) Guiding Principles agreed to and honored for decades.
Since Putin came to power, however, Russia at one time or another has violated all ten (10) principles. Once again we see Putin’s reckless aggressiveness.
Putin violates agreements at will and his word cannot be trusted.
(5) Just to drive an earlier point home: NATO is not a dictatorship and everyone knows that -- especially Moscow which has spent decades trying to drive wedges between NATO members.
Further, individual heads of state talk out of turn all the time but that does not make it binding on NATO. Moscow’s claim to the contrary is nothing more than political grandstanding to excite its supporters.
Whatever a US president or UK prime minister or a German chancellor or any other leader of a NATO country or one of their subordinates does or says does not bind NATO. To imply otherwise is dishonest.
Put clearly: Any agreement between NATO and Russia has to be made between Russia and NATO. No such agreement over NATO expansion was ever penned.
The only agreement was the 1997 NATO-Russia Founding Act (NRFA). Russia did attempt to negotiate a "veto" power for Moscow over former Soviet satellite membership but the effort failed and Russia signed the pact without such power.
NATO would continue to accept applications for membership from eligible nations.
(6) NATO does not admit countries that have unresolved border conflicts (recall the Georgia request to join NATO cited above).
That is why Ukraine never formally applied for membership. Ever since the Russian 2014 invasion, Ukraine has an unresolved border problem and Kyiv (and Putin) knows it will not be admitted into NATO.
Putin's claim that Ukraine was on the brink of joining NATO is a red herring – pure disinformation propaganda.
As his is modus operandi, Putin lies because it is to his advantage: He could both use stories of "imminent NATO membership" to justify his bloody and brutal invasion of Ukraine and execute it without fear of NATO intervention.
