Newly Declassified Documents: NATO Wouldn't Move Past East German Border

http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/newly-declassified-documents-gorbachev-told-nato-wouldnt-23629

118 171 9 years ago

dmichulke2• 9 years ago

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

aluhut9• 9 years ago

Yeah yeah and Germany is a GmbH...

zaarn2• 9 years ago

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

Xylakant6• 9 years ago

There’s no formal peace treaty either, but the GDR acknowledged the border in 1950 (Görlitzer Abkommen), the BRD in 1970 (Part of Warschauer Vertrag) and as part of the 2+4 treaties, the Oder-Neiße border was once again confirmed in 1990. So even if there should be no formal annexation, there’s absolutely no doubt about where the German eastern border is.

sgift• 9 years ago

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

You know wrong, this issue was settled in the 2+4 treaty: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_on_the_Final_Settlement...

f0553• 9 years ago

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...

thriftwy5• 9 years ago

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.

f0553• 9 years ago

I don’t blame, i point a pattern :P

gandhium6• 9 years ago

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

_Codemonkeyism12• 9 years ago

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• 9 years ago

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

tomash2• 9 years ago

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.

gadders2• 9 years ago

They shouldn't have persuaded Ukraine to give up its nukes. The Ukraine would still have the Crimea otherwise.

dsfyu404ed• 9 years ago

I, as ex-soviet sphere of influence country citizen, love NATO

How could you not, especially after Ukraine...

gambiting• 9 years ago

As a Pole - that's the dumbest idea I've ever heard. Joining NATO was the best thing our country did, possibly even better than joining the EU. Being in NATO gives me peace that we won't be attacked/occupied/annexed by Russia again. We could have the greatest army in the world and without being in NATO, a covert landgrab like the one that happened in Ukraine wouldn't be stopped.

_Codemonkeyism12• 9 years ago

First, let me say that I can totally understand your position and the Polish position in general. Russia is and has been (as Germany has been) an agressive imperialist country (I would wish Germany thanked Poland more for stopping the Russian march on Germany in 1921).

I can also understand your point as a country that had defence agreements and ended up occupied after WW2 while your defenders claimed victory.

But IMHO it accelerated (imperialist) Russia (again) on an agression path but more importantly weakend NATO, as NATO acceptance in core countries like France, the UK and Germany decreased. Acceptance of NATO in Germany is lower than ever, basically because NATO is seen as not committing to promises made and seen as an agressor in large parts of the population because of this (not my POV).

"a covert landgrab like the one that happened in Ukraine wouldn't be stopped."

NATO is so weakend right now and a shadow from the 1980s NATO that with a different government than the current conservative one, Germany will not commit to defend baltic states if Russia plays the Crimea Russian minority shenanigans. The current US government won't either.

In no way will NATO countries use nuclear weapons to defend baltic states compared to using nuclear weapons in the 80s.

JohnStrange2• 9 years ago

If you look at the figures you'll find out that such a defense network could never have worked as a deterrent and wouldn't work today either. Russia had and still has a gigantic amount of conventional troops including heavy artillery and thousands of tanks, and can easily gain air superiority in any local conflict.

That's why the US always insisted on a first nuclear strike option during Cold War, which almost lead to the total destruction of the world in 1983 when the Soviets misinterpreted a NATO maneuver as preparation for a first strike.

_Codemonkeyism12• 9 years ago

Not sure how "NATO with a bilateral agreement" would not have worked, perhaps I'm missing your points.

finchisko3• 9 years ago

As history taught us. such a agreements doesn't work for small countries very well. Actually Czechoslovakia had such a agreement with France and in turn with England (France had agreement with England). But both countries left us behind and ignored agreement when Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia.

_Codemonkeyism12• 9 years ago

And you assume these two countries would help the baltic States if a Russia fakes a Russian minority uprising?

DubiousPusher7• 9 years ago

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.

geowwy• 9 years ago

I don’t think we can poopoo it that easily. The expansion of NATO is one of Russia’s biggest grievances against the West. Russia is in an historically vulnerable position right now which is a large part of the reason why they’re behaving so aggressively and recklessly.

tomash2• 9 years ago

You don't live in a country bordering Russia, do you? Historically Russia has been behaving aggressively and recklessly since at least 18th century, without much stop. Russia's western neighbors flock to NATO for a reason. Basically Russia is the bully of the neighborhood, using violence whenever it doesn't get whatever it wants.

BjoernKW• 9 years ago

How so? NATO expanding to Poland and the Baltic countries is more of a perceived threat to Russia and its own colonial aspirations rather than an actual military threat.

In my opinion losing economic influence is what Russia should really be worried about. With Poland and the Baltic countries becoming part of the EU they not only gradually lost influence on these markets but the potential access to the larger European market those provided as well.

These issues certainly can't be seen separately. On a global scale economic prosperity often is connected to strategic power. However, it might be beneficial to Russia (not necessarily Russian politicians, though) to, instead of considering these questions in terms of national grievances, proactively seek more trade deals and economic cooperation. In the 1990s even Russia becoming part of the EU wasn't that far out.

Spooky234• 9 years ago

Russia is always a schitzoid State because it’s not European and not Asian. It’s both and neither.

IMO, for all of the screwed up nature of the country, Russia is so big that it and it’s sphere of influence is always a threat to its neighbors.

If you are not an ethnic Russian, happen to live between the economic powerhouse of Western Europe and Russia, you probably want to affiliate with the strong economy of the West vs being a sort of vassal to Russia.

DubiousPusher7• 9 years ago

You're right. I came out a little strong. It complicates matters and gives the Russian government a stronger point of grievance, not without some legitimacy. I simultaneously don't think it's quite the Machiavellian dagger in back some are making it out to be.

AnimalMuppet2• 9 years ago

A historically vulnerable position? Vulnerable to what? To an invasion by NATO?

There's two ways you can answer that question. The first is, no, it's not vulnerable, because there are exactly zero NATO members who have any interest whatsoever in invading Russia. That is simply not going to happen.

The second answer is to remember history. Napoleon invaded and captured Moscow. Hitler invaded and made it to just outside Moscow. Both of them started from further west than NATO could start. So, yes, from the perspective of history, Russia has less of a geographic buffer than it had in the past.

But I think Putin isn't really afraid of a NATO invasion. What he's really afraid of is a color revolution. He therefore is building grievances against the West, not because he fears NATO, but because he fears real democracy. (Yes, I know, the democracy in the west has problems, and is less "real" than it should be. It's still miles ahead of what's happening in Russia, though. And Putin wants the situation in Russia to stay as it is.)

bobzibub• 9 years ago

Whenever relations with nuclear powers are concerned, trust between these governments is an important issue for everyone. I don't think anyone has claimed that there was a conspiracy at the time. But for the West to renege on past agreements undermines existing ones and makes future agreements more difficult with any party. The world is much more dangerous as a result. 2 1/2 minutes to midnight.

musage2• 9 years ago

The fact is that they made the assurance, and then lied and said they never gave such an assurance. If you think lying isn't nefarious, that's your outlook.

laGrenouille• 9 years ago

The problem with this argument is that there is no particular "they" that lied here. George Bush (senior) negotiated these assurances and then, almost a decade later, Clinton reneged on them.

I think it is generally known that foreign relation promises not enshrined in formal treaties should not be expected to last across different administrations.

barry-cotter2• 9 years ago

Like Libya. Qaddafi dismantled his nuclear weapons programme and chemical weapons programme, cooperated with efforts to end nuclear proliferation down to exposing everyone who sold or otherwise helped and shared intelligence on terrorist threats and organisations. And in the end he died of being sodomised by bayonet after the US supported an uprising he would have easily crushed otherwise.

Kim was watching and so was every other dictator. You need nuclear weapons if you want security. The US can’t credibly commit to leave any power alone that’s not a client.

DubiousPusher7• 9 years ago

If I tell my kid he can have a cookie in the afternoon but between then and now he eats a pound of cake, the cookie is coming off the table. If that makes me a liar then so be it. As the situation changes, I change my mind.

thriftwy5• 9 years ago

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.

tome• 9 years ago

And now we are turning our backs on the very people who mounted the greatest bloodless revolution in history to remove that Soviet regime.

Those "very people" are not the same as those currently in power. The latter are presumably, in one way or another, the ones propagating this particular reading of history.

DubiousPusher7• 9 years ago

Good point. I guess it should have read 'few forsaw the retrograde in the relationship.' What I mean was that, I think a lot of folks saw the Russian's international ambitions as dwindling massively after the fall of the Soviet Union and that they'd focus on improving their domestic situation.

I think most of us expected something akin to the decolonization that took place after WWII, which vastly dimished the power of old European powers.

slededit• 9 years ago

Your quote is the exception that proves the rule. He speaks of nobody seeing how this would damage the relationship.

Giorgi5• 9 years ago

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.

valuearb• 9 years ago

Apparently George Kennan didn't foresee how expansionist Russia would become, Crimea and the Ukraine being only two examples. I for one am very happy that NATO expansion ensures it has more divisions than Russia, vs. being out-numbered more than 2-1 during the USSR days.

What-ever craven fool promised the Russians that NATO would stand aside and let it do whatever it wanted to former USSR countries was an idiot, and their promises were never binding on free peoples.

csense• 9 years ago

We told them we wouldn't expand NATO further toward Russia. Then we went back on our word and did it.

Russia responds to Western meddling in its "backyard" with geopolitical moves in Crimea and Ukraine, and meddling in the US election.

When the Russians started messing about in Cuba, we nearly went full WW3 on them.

For what purpose did we go back on our word? We won the cold war. The best path forward would have been to strengthen ties so the two superpowers could work together to deal with the world's problems.

Instead we decided to humiliate the Russians, and the pro-west Yeltsin was eventually replaced by the nationalist Putin.

Whoever was making these policy decisions in the '90s -- What were they thinking?

cat1993• 9 years ago

For what purpose did we go back on our word? ... so the two superpowers

why have 2 superpowers, when you can have one?

3pt141592• 9 years ago

They were thinking:

"Hm, these Russians haven't rooted out corruption and there is a decent chance that they'll backslide into an illiberal state. Best to take the countries that want democracy and peace while we still can."

Though I agree that Ukraine has led to a lot of trouble. Still probably worth it in the long run though.

gandhium6• 9 years ago

Instead we decided to humiliate the Russians

By providing billions of dollars to them in humanitarian help, credits and jobs?

Humiliation, for sure.

zeveb• 9 years ago

Whoever was making these policy decisions in the '90s -- What were they thinking?

I don't think Bill Clinton was generally thinking of much at all. He wasn't a terribly good executive, but was in fact a failed governor of a poor state who got doubly lucky: first, that he was the challenger during a recession; and second, that a third-party challenger siphoned votes for the incumbent.

Fortunately for America, clueless disinterest worked pretty well for eight years, allowing the Internet to take off. Unfortunately, cluelessness also set the scene for the geopolitical worlds of 2001 & 2003 …

Nomentatus5• 9 years ago

I wonder if this isn't a systemic problem with democracies and foreign policy. The new government simply doesn't care what commitments the previous one made. (See the Paris Agreement.) They often don't even care to find out what private commitments the previous government made. Of course other forms of government go back on their word, but it may be almost inevitable for democracies to do so, particularly to foreigners. Voters don't have "keeping our word with people who speak with funny accents" at the top of their agenda.

yetihehe3• 9 years ago

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.

Xylakant6• 9 years ago

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".

yetihehe3• 9 years ago

Watching from inside, you are right. That's why I've written "corrupt government". This will be used as a excuse.

bolololo15• 9 years ago

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?

bolololo15• 9 years ago

It will be by same people who organized Targowica in the 18th century 'helping' Polish people by giving up Polish Land to Prussia, Russia and Austria!

RightMillennial• 9 years ago

Didn't the exact reverse of this happen in Ukraine? It was "liberated from corrupt government" by the "West"?

toyg• 9 years ago

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.

finchisko3• 9 years ago

+1 for theyscrewedup.com.

Guess who is first on my list. :D

aluhut9• 9 years ago

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.

iamnothere• 9 years ago

I'm confused about what you mean by this. See some background on what exactly?

Edit: I am asking because I feel like your post is suggesting in a very roundabout way that perhaps the commenters in the thread are not "authentic" for whatever reason. (If this is the case, I have to condemn the implication in the strongest possible terms.) But perhaps I've misunderstood.

aluhut9• 9 years ago

This comment section is dragging in some reeealy weird comments. I've seen some of them even disappear (deleted by mods?) which is something I haven't seen here in such a drastic way and short time.

I would love to see if this is some directed action. Few people? Links leading to here, etc.

gumby2• 9 years ago

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)

aluhut9• 9 years ago

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.

dang3• 9 years ago

Reasonably close. If you're worried that there is astroturfing or some other kind of organized manipulation going on, I think it's unlikely. There's an easier explanation: HN is a highly international community. People post from many countries, naturally including many Eastern European countries in this thread. These peoples don't see things the same way, for deep and valid reasons, and the issues raised by the topic touch on matters of survival and tribe that have a lot of energy in them.

johnchristopher• 9 years ago

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

logfromblammo• 9 years ago

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.

gandhium6• 9 years ago

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.

Newly Declassified Documents: NATO Wouldn't Move Past East German Border

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