IntroductionSome have tried to debunk the view that the West implicitly or explicitly promised Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev that NATO would not expand east after German reunification and dissolution of the Warsaw Pact (see
here and
here). These claims are misleading and obfuscate the historical record of at least a clear understanding, if not promise that there should be no NATO expansion eastward in any way, shape or form. At the very least the West made an implied commitment not to expand NATO east. It is more precise to say, however, that the West gave an explicit verbal, that is, unwritten guarantee not to expand NATO beyond a united Germany; something both sides understood.
This broken promise or understanding and the expansion of NATO to Russia's borders has led now to the misnamed 'new cold war.'One commentator, for example, argues there was no promise, claiming the discussions only touched on NATO deployments to the territory of what would become the former GDR after German reunification. But the writer obfuscates the meaning of a recent Gorbachev statement in making his claim. He quotes Gorbachev from an RBTH interview this way: "'The topic of 'NATO expansion' was not discussed at all, and it wasn't brought up in those years. ... Another issue we brought up was discussed: making sure that NATO's military structures would not advance and that additional armed forces would not be deployed on the territory of the then-GDR after German reunification. Baker's statement was made in that context... Everything that could have been and needed to be done to solidify that political obligation was done. And fulfilled'" (
link and
link).
To be sure, Pifer acknowledges that Gorbachev also said that NATO's expansion beyond Germany was "a violation of the spirit of the statements and assurances made to us in 1990" (
link and
link). The vagueness lies in the fact, as Gorbachev notes, that NATO expansion per se was never explicitly discussed. How can something that was not discussed be considered a violation of a trust when it later happens? Because it was assumed by all sides and implied by various Western statements that the West understood that USSR was opposed to NATO expanding to the former GDR's territory, no less its expanding much farther east, and that per the 1990 discussions it was implicitly understood that NATO would not expanding to GDR territory or anywhere further east.
Comment: $150 million in aid from the United States is hardly a drop in the bucket compared to the $100 billion needed by Iraq. It's a slap in the face. The US has no problem spending billions to destroy a country. When it comes to rebuilding, it only has peanuts to spare.