“You are entitled to your opinion. But you are not entitled to your own facts.”
― Daniel Patrick Moynihan
Here are the facts of NATO encroachment from the fall of the Berlin wall to the annexation of Crimea:
1. Feb 1990: The US, through West German chancellor Helmut Kohl, hints at freezing NATO’s borders in order to secure German reunification.
"Kohl thus found himself in a complicated position as he prepared to meet with Gorbachev on February 10, 1990. He had received two letters, one on either end of his flight from West Germany to the Soviet Union, the first from Bush and the second from Baker, and the two contained different wording on the same issue. Bush’s letter suggested that NATO’s border would begin moving eastward; Baker’s suggested that it would not.
According to records from Kohl’s office, the chancellor chose to echo Baker, not Bush, since Baker’s softer line was more likely to produce the results that Kohl wanted: permission from Moscow to start reunifying Germany.”
European motivations for joining NATO are obvious and beyond debate: what formerly war-torn nation wouldn't want shelter under our nuclear umbrella?
But while whether or not gradual, but deliberate NATO encroachment was a Neocon stratagem may be debatable to you and me, I doubt Putin, a paranoid autocrat who considers the fall of the USSR one of history's great calamaties, looking at these facts, would have the least question whatsoever.
Perhaps I was mistaken in thinking this was obvious, but... their opinion is utterly irrelevant; only one person's opinion matters here and that's Putin's.
Exactly my point: this is the story that the current dictator is spinning to justify his crimes.
It's also funny how Putin now lies about how invading Ukraine is all about NATO, when in the first few years of the war, Russia denied any involvement and claimed that the tens of thousands of unmarked soldiers with Russian tanks, artillery and anti-air systems capable of shooting down high-altitude airliners were just disgruntled secessionist Ukrainians fighting against nazis in Kyiv with weapons from military surplus stores. According to Putin, it was a civil war in Ukraine, and Russia had nothing to do with it.
― Daniel Patrick Moynihan
Here are the facts of NATO encroachment from the fall of the Berlin wall to the annexation of Crimea:
1. Feb 1990: The US, through West German chancellor Helmut Kohl, hints at freezing NATO’s borders in order to secure German reunification.
"Kohl thus found himself in a complicated position as he prepared to meet with Gorbachev on February 10, 1990. He had received two letters, one on either end of his flight from West Germany to the Soviet Union, the first from Bush and the second from Baker, and the two contained different wording on the same issue. Bush’s letter suggested that NATO’s border would begin moving eastward; Baker’s suggested that it would not.
According to records from Kohl’s office, the chancellor chose to echo Baker, not Bush, since Baker’s softer line was more likely to produce the results that Kohl wanted: permission from Moscow to start reunifying Germany.”
https://archive.ph/hyDhA
Outcome: the former Warsaw-Pact East Germany joins NATO as part of unified Germany.
2. Partnership for Peace membership (NATO program for creating trust and cooperation between member states and other states mostly in Europe)
Ukraine Feb 8, 1994
Georgia Mar 23, 1994
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partnership_for_Peace#Member...
3. Official NATO expansion
Poland Mar 12, 1999
Estonia Mar 29, 2004
Latvia “
Lithuania "
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enlargement_of_NATO#Aspiring...
Outcome: NATO is now on Russia's borders on multiple flanks.
4. Feb/Mar 2014: Putin takes Crimea right after the pro-Russian Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych is ousted.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annexation_of_Crimea_by_the_...
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European motivations for joining NATO are obvious and beyond debate: what formerly war-torn nation wouldn't want shelter under our nuclear umbrella?
But while whether or not gradual, but deliberate NATO encroachment was a Neocon stratagem may be debatable to you and me, I doubt Putin, a paranoid autocrat who considers the fall of the USSR one of history's great calamaties, looking at these facts, would have the least question whatsoever.