Russia and Ukraine

[pocaracas]

I'll repost the list of statesmen who have opposed NATO expansion.

---

George Kennan, the architect of the U.S. cold war strategy warned in 1998 that NATO expansion was a "tragic mistake.”

Kissinger in 2014 warned that "to Russia, Ukraine can never be just a foreign country" and that the West therefore needs a policy that is aimed at “reconciliation.” He was also adamant that "Ukraine should not join NATO”

John Mearsheimer, a leading geopolitical scholar in the US today, said in 2015: "The West is leading Ukraine down the primrose path and the end result is that Ukraine is going to get wrecked [...] What we're doing is in fact encouraging that outcome.”

Jack F. Matlock Jr., US Ambassador to the Soviet Union from 1987-1991, warned in 1997 that NATO expansion was "the most profound strategic blunder, [encouraging] a chain of events that could produce the most serious security threat [...] since the Soviet Union collapsed.”

William Perry, Clinton's defense secretary, wrote in his memoir that to him NATO enlargement is the cause of "the rupture in relations with Russia.”

Noam Chomsky in 2015, saying that "the idea that Ukraine might join a Western military alliance would be quite unacceptable to any Russian leader" and that Ukraine's desire to join NATO "is not protecting Ukraine, it is threatening Ukraine with major war.”

Stephen Cohen, scholar of Russian studies, warned in 2014 that "if we move NATO forces toward Russia's borders [...] it's obviously gonna militarize the situation [and] Russia will not back off, this is existential.”

CIA director Bill Burns said in 2008: "Ukrainian entry into NATO is the brightest of all redlines for [Russia]" and "I have yet to find anyone who views Ukraine in NATO as anything other than a direct challenge to Russian interests.”

Malcolm Fraser, 22nd prime minister of Australia, warned in 2014 that "the move east [by NATO is] provocative, unwise and a very clear signal to Russia". He adds that this leads to a "difficult and extraordinarily dangerous problem.”

Paul Keating, former Australian PM, in 1997: expanding NATO is "an error which may rank in the end with the strategic miscalculations which prevented Germany from taking its full place in the international system.

Former US defense secretary Bob Gates in his 2015 memoirs: "Moving so quickly [to expand NATO] was a mistake. [...] Trying to bring Georgia and Ukraine into NATO was truly overreaching [and] an especially monumental provocation.”

Sir Roderic Lyne, former British ambassador to Russia, warned a year ago that "[pushing] Ukraine into NATO [...] is stupid on every level." He adds "if you want to start a war with Russia, that's the best way of doing it.”

George Beebe, formerly the CIA's top Russia analyst, in January this year linked Russia's actions in Ukraine directly to NATO expansion, explaining that Russia "feels threatened" and "inaction on [the Kremlin’s] part is risky.”

Ted Galen Carpenter, Cato Institute's senior fellow for defense and foreign policy studies, wrote in a 1994 book that NATO expansion “would constitute a needless provocation of Russia.” Today he adds "we are now paying the price for the US’s arrogance.”

Ukrainian presidential advisor Oleksiy Arestovych said in 2015 that if Ukraine continues down the path of joining NATO "it will prompt Russia to launch a large scale military operation [...] before we join NATO", "with a probability of 99.9%", likely "in 2021-2022”.

Bill Bradley, former U.S. Senator and candidate for the Democratic nomination for President wrote: "We kicked [Russia] when they were down, we expanded NATO. [...] It was a blunder of monumental proportions [and] a self-fulfilling prophecy."

---

Here is the letter signed by 50 foreign policy experts urging Clinton not to expand NATO:

https://www.armscontrol.org/act/1997-06/...-expansion

Here is yet another summary of the events following the collapse of the Soviet Union which got us to where we are today.

https://slkanthan.substack.com/p/not-one...to-promise

All very interesting, but why would Russia feel "threatened" or "provoked", when neither happened when Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia joined?

Why is it "existential for Russia"?
Or is it only existential for the Russian elites that insist on maintaining the vast majority of the country in poverty, while they live better than most of the rich folk in "the West"?
Is it fear that, if Ukraine could turn around their oligarchy, then the Russians would think why should Russia keep at it? See how well that sort of thing is working in North Korea.... I know, I know, smaller border, easier to control in NK. But it's the same principle.

Sooner or later, they get a French Revolution style event. I don't think Napoleon needed NATO to get it going.