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Official NATO founding charter -

Pop quiz, hotshot. Count how many times Russia, or Soviet, appears ANYWHERE in it.

https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/official_texts_17120.htm

You’ll find NONE. Because the entire point of NATO was to create a subset of the United Nations WITH A MUTUAL DEFENSE CLAUSE.

The primary threat at the time was the Soviet Union, but there was nothing in the charter to limit its mission to ONLY the Soviets.

And even if it had done, the end of the Soviet Union allowed ALL states formally in the Soviet Union to join the club if they so wished.

At one point, Putin even entertained the idea of joining the club. Unfortunately, as we can see with his flagrant disregard for UN Charter principles, he disqualified Russia from joining.

Because signatories to the NATO alliance have to abide by these three paragraphs:

“The Parties to this Treaty reaffirm their faith in the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations and their desire to live in peace with all peoples and all governments.”

Russia doesn’t believe in any rules-based world order other than its own - and has said so at the UN. It’s only because of some idiotic oversight during the formation of the UN that Russia hasn’t already been kicked off the Security Council, and some would not be unhappy if it were booted out of the General Assembly.

“They are determined to safeguard the freedom, common heritage and civilisation of their peoples, founded on the principles of democracy, individual liberty and the rule of law. They seek to promote stability and well-being in the North Atlantic area.”

There’s literally not a single word of that, that Putin can reasonably be expected to comply with. He’s a rampant ethnonationalist with fascist mates, running an authoritarian regime where even calling his war a war can get you fifteen years in prison.

“They are resolved to unite their efforts for collective defence and for the preservation of peace and security.”

Russia keeps saying that it wants demilitarisation of NATO. Well, then Russia has disqualified itself from membership of NATO.