HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.COM
---------------------------
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,663315,00.html
Der Spiegel
November 26, 2009
NATO's Eastward Expansion
Did the West Break Its Promise to Russia?
By Uwe Klussmann, Matthias Schepp and Klaus Wiegrefe
[Edited]
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has accused the West of breaking promises
made after the fall of the Iron Curtain, saying that NATO's expansion into
Eastern Europe violated commitments made during the negotiations over German
reunification. Newly discovered documents from Western archives support the
Russian position.
No one in Russia can vent his anger over NATO's eastward expansion quite as
vehemently as Viktor Baranez. The popular columnist with the tabloid
Komsomolskaya Pravda ("Komsomol Truth"), which has a readership of millions, is
fond of railing against the "insidious and reckless" Western military alliance.
Russia, Baranez writes, must finally stop treating NATO as a partner.
Baranez, a retired colonel who was the Defense Ministry's spokesman under
former Russian President Boris Yeltsin, asks why Russia should even consider
joint maneuvers after being deceived by the West. NATO, he writes, "has pushed
its way right up to our national borders with its guns." He also argues that,
in doing so, NATO has broken all the promises it made during the process of
German reunification.
There is widespread agreement among all political parties in Moscow, from the
Patriots of Russia to the Communists to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's United
Russia party, that the West broke its word and short-changed Russia when it was
weak.
In an interview with SPIEGEL at his residence outside Moscow in early November,
President Dmitry Medvedev complained that when the Berlin Wall came down, it
had "not been possible to redefine Russia's place in Europe." What did Russia
get? "None of the things that we were assured, namely that NATO would not
expand endlessly eastwards and our interests would be continuously taken into
consideration," Medvedev said.
Different Versions
The question of what Moscow was in fact promised in 1990 has sparked a
historical dispute with far-reaching consequences for Russia's future
relationship with the West. But what exactly is the truth?
The various players involved have different versions of events. Of course there
was a promise not to expand NATO "as much as a thumb's width further to the
East," Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet president at the time, says in Moscow
today....
....
After speaking with many of those involved and examining previously classified
British and German documents in detail, SPIEGEL has concluded that there was no
doubt that the West did everything it could to give the Soviets the impression
that NATO membership was out of the question for countries like Poland, Hungary
or Czechoslovakia.
On Feb. 10, 1990, between 4 and 6:30 p.m., Genscher spoke with Shevardnadze.
According to the German record of the conversation, which was only recently
declassified, Genscher said: "We are aware that NATO membership for a unified
Germany raises complicated questions. For us, however, one thing is certain:
NATO will not expand to the east." And because the conversion revolved mainly
around East Germany, Genscher added explicitly: "As far as the non-expansion of
NATO is concerned, this also applies in general."
Shevardnadze replied that he believed "everything the minister (Genscher) said."
....
US Secretary of State James Baker, a pragmatic Texan, apparently "warmed to the
proposal immediately," says Elbe today. On Feb. 2, the two diplomats sat down
in front of the fireplace in Baker's study in Washington, took off their
jackets, put their feet up and discussed world events. They quickly agreed that
there was to be no NATO expansion to the East. "It was completely clear," Elbe
comments.
Calming Russian Fears
A short time later, then-British Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd joined the
German-American consensus. As a previously unknown document from the German
Foreign Ministry shows, Genscher was uncharacteristically open with his
relatively pro-German British counterpart when they met in Bonn on Feb. 6,
1990. Hungary was about to hold its first free elections, and Genscher declared
that the Soviet Union needed "the certainty that Hungary will not become part
of the Western alliance if there is a change of government." The Kremlin,
Genscher said, would have to be given assurances to that effect. Hurd agreed.
....
'One Cannot Depend on American Politicians'
What the US secretary of state said on Feb. 9, 1990 in the magnificent St.
Catherine's Hall at the Kremlin is beyond dispute. There would be, in Baker's
words, "no extension of NATO's jurisdiction for forces of NATO one inch to the
east," provided the Soviets agreed to the NATO membership of a unified Germany.
Moscow would think about it, Gorbachev said, but added: "any extension of the
zone of NATO is unacceptable."
Now, 20 years later, Gorbachev is still outraged when he is asked about this
episode. "One cannot depend on American politicians," he told SPIEGEL. Baker,
for his part, now offers a different interpretation of what he said in 1990,
arguing that he was merely referring to East Germany, which was to be given a
special status in the alliance -- nothing more.
But Genscher, in a conversation with Shevardnadze just one day later, had
expressly referred to Eastern Europe. In fact, talking about Eastern Europe,
and not just East Germany, was consistent with the logic of the West's position.
If East Germany was to be granted a special status within NATO, so as not to
provoke the Soviet leadership, the promise not to expand the alliance to the
east certainly had to include countries like Hungary, Poland and
Czechoslovakia, which directly bordered the Soviet Union.
When the Western politicians met once again a few weeks later, their
conversation was more to the point, as a German Foreign Ministry document that
has now been released indicates. According to the document, Baker said that it
appeared "as if Central European countries wanted to join NATO." That, Genscher
replied, was an issue "we shouldn't touch at this point." Baker agreed.
....
A diplomat with the German Foreign Ministry says that there was, of course, a
consensus between the two sides. Indeed, the Soviets would hardly have agreed
to take part in the two-plus-four talks if they had known that NATO would later
accept Poland, Hungary and other Eastern European countries as members.
The negotiations with Gorbachev were already difficult enough, with Western
politicians repeatedly insisting that they were not going to derive -- in the
words of then-US President George H. W. Bush -- any "unilateral advantage" from
the situation, and that there would be "no shift in the balance of power"
between the East and the West, as Genscher put it. Russia today is certainly
somewhat justified in citing, at the very least, the spirit of the 1990
agreements.
Absurd Notion
In late May 1990, Gorbachev finally agreed to a unified Germany joining NATO.
But why didn't Gorbachev and Shevardnadze get the West's commitments in writing
at a time when they still held all the cards? "The Warsaw Pact still existed at
the beginning of 1990," Gorbachev says today. "Merely the notion that NATO
might expand to include the countries in this alliance sounded completely
absurd at the time."
....
Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan
===========================
Stop NATO
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato
Blog site:
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/
To subscribe, send an e-mail to:
[email protected]
or
[email protected]
Daily digest option available.
==============================
---------------------------
ANTI-NATO INFORMATION LIST
--^----------------------------------------------------------------
This email was sent to: [email protected]
EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84x2u.bNM5nn.YXJjaGl2
Or send an email to: [email protected]
For Topica's complete suite of email marketing solutions visit:
http://www.topica.com/?p=TEXFOOTER
--^----------------------------------------------------------------
