NATO leaders discussed the topic of increased defense spending in the Hague in the Netherlands on 24 and 25 June, and will be high on the support agenda for Ukraine.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is now in its next year. As the fighting moves forward, the United States has rapidly demanded that its NATO allies are a large part of the costs of funding of the alliance, whose members are providing significant military and financial assistance to Kiev.
In the last four years, NATO has a goal of repeatedly false story to Ben. The DW Fact Czech saw some of the most common claims.
However, for the Russian President Vladimir Putin, NATO itself represents a threat to the Russian national security and enthusiasm after the explanation of its cool war in Eastern Europe, which included countries that were part of the Soviet Union or at least in the Soviet shells.
The possibility of Ukraine, a country coming close to a country with strong historical and cultural relations for Russia, or even NATO-or not to really join the European Union, Putin was quoted as justification for Russian intervention in Ukraine since 2014 and “Special military operations” in February 2022.
In early March 2000, in his first interview as a Russian President, Putin insisted that he was not opposing NATO, but insisted on concerns about the expansion of the east of Alliance, which was involved in the Poland, Hungary and Czech Republic by that time.
Despite NATO’s insistence that the alliance was purely defensive, Putin was not convinced. He considers the expansion to be a violation of the trust in view of the so -called “two plus four agreements”, the disposal of September 1990 regulates the reunion of West and East Germany (“two”) and signed by four affiliated powers, who captured Germany at the end of the world states, United, United Kingdom, France and Soviet.
For Putin, Western powers promised that NATO would not expand the east in the region controlled by the Soviet Union. NATO has always denied this claim.
NATO allegedly promised the Soviet Union?
At final disposal in relation to Germany or two plus four agreements, the treaty made it clear that no firing (non-German) soldiers or nuclear weapons were to be permanently deployed to the territory of designer East Germany. But German internal ministry It suggests that the deal “did not do any binding association about expansion of NATO or entry of other members.”
But what informal promises and narrations were made, what they really get entangled and how they are interpreted, it has been a matter of warm debate between the two politicians and historians.
But speaking Munich Security Conference in 2007Putin quoted former NATO general secretary Manfred, who said in a speech in Brussels in May 1990: “The fact that we are ready not to station the NATO forces beyond the boundaries of the federal republic. [of Germany] The Soviet Union firm guarantees safety. ,
As a 2016 German Government Status Paper The subject has been told, however: “Neither in this speech nor at any more point [Wörner] Announce that NATO will not expand to any east. ,
For Putin and his colleagues, senior German and American politicians have special significance of two other well -written remarks made by 1990: Former US State Secretary Baker’s proposal proposal to Communist Party General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev will not shift to an inch of an inch of assurance to “assurance” to “assurance”, “
NATO Celebrity takes out of reference?
For Tim Gigar of Liboniz Institute for contemporary history, however, thesis words should not be taken out of the context.
Writing on the stalfe of the German armed forcesBundesvehar, Gigar, argues that the suggestions of Baker and the Genser only work to display the languages for which the West German Foreign Ministry was at that time to accommodate Soviet concerns about German reunion, but never formed German Foreign Policy.
In fact, he explains that, within two months, both US President George HW Bush and West German Chanman Chanman Chanman Chanman Chanman dismissed ideas as they violated a country’s right to freedom to choose the alliance.
So it is made by argument Gym townsandSenior Fellow in the CNASS Transllant Security Program, who worked for NATO in various roles in the 1990s. “It was all about Germany and German integration,” he told DW.
Gorbachev Himlfenf confirmed as much as one October 2014 interview In which he said: “The topic of” NATO expansion “was not discussed at all … Not a single Eastern European country raised the issue, not that even after the existence of Warsaw Pact in 1991, Western leaders did not bring it, Ather.”
Gorbachev: ‘Against the soul of 1990’
But it is not enough Joshua chifrinsonThe Associate Professor of International Politics at the University of Maryland, who told DW that the clear rejection of Gorbachev’s Putin’s principle has excluded bees from the context.
Indeed, the former Soviet President said in this 2014 interview that expanded to the first east of NATO in the 1990s “is a big mistake from the very beginning,” and “of course in 1990 violated the statements made by us in 1990 and violating the sense of assurance.”
The sources analyzed by Shifrinson are the first classified minutes of the meeting of Chief America, British, French and German Ambassadors in NATO in March 1991, So reported by mirrorIn which German representative Jurgan Krobog said: “We made it clear during two plus four talks that we would not grow beyond NATO. [River] Elbe. So we could not offer NATO membership to Poland and the other. ,
According to the minutes of the meeting, the photographs that have seen DW did not object to any colleague of Crowog. Actually, France’s Raymond Sethz also said: “We had made the Soviet Union clear – in two plus four and in other exchanges – that we will not take advantage of Soviet return from Eastern Europe.”
For Shifrinson, this is a proof that NATO had not only committed to exotic soldiers to keep out of East Germany, but “people were generally thinking of the future of Eastern Europe.”
Benjamin FreedmanThose who analyze the relationship between Russia and NATO for the US think tank defense priorities said: “The United States did not fully promise that we would never expand NATO, but we certainly put this impression to Russians and I think it is updated.”
Was NATO Bal more in Russia?
Despite the ongoing debate, Shifrinson said, “It is inconsistently true that Russia invaded Ukraine. You can admit that the assurance was given and later canceled and still did not justify the Russian behavior.”
“Possibility of expansion or expansion [of NATO] Ukraine was a very big reason, not only one, but a big reason for war, “Freedman said.” There is a difference between a statement about the work and a statement about the crime or moral responsibility. ,
Townsand, who, after the stent in the Pentagon and NATO, moved to the Atlantic Council Think Tank, seeing Russia as a clear aggressive.
“We did not do anything to bother the Russians, we were very careful about that, and they gave us green lights during that day,” Heer said. “This was the speech he gave at the Munich Suraksha Sammelan that he had a sudden problem.”
If NATO has made a mistake, it is very different in the brain of the townsand. “If NATO took action, any child, [that might have destabilized the European security architecture]What is it not being quite strong. ,
This article was original in German.
