Posted on 11/07/2022 2:53:38 PM PST by hardspunned
Washington D.C., December 12, 2017 – U.S. Secretary of State James Baker’s famous “not one inch eastward” assurance about NATO expansion in his meeting with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev on February 9, 1990, was part of a cascade of assurances about Soviet security given by Western leaders to Gorbachev and other Soviet officials throughout the process of German unification in 1990 and on into 1991, according to declassified U.S., Soviet, German, British and French documents posted today by the National Security Archive at George Washington University
(Excerpt) Read more at nsarchive.gwu.edu ...
“Are we the baddies?”
This reminds me of a meeting between some Bureau of Indian Affairs a-hole and an old Indian chief.
“Ya see, Chief, that paper you signed with the general, about staying in this valley forever, if you laid down your arms? It wasn’t a REAL treaty. It was sort of like a temporary sort of promise. So the Army troops are here today to help you move to your new reservation, 800 miles away.”
This is a part of America that is finally coming back to haunt us.
Broken promises.
I do not believe for a second that Reagan would have been for NATO expansion, after the fall of the Soviet Union.
On the contrary, I KNOW NeoCon Warmongers From the Rear are Dishonorable Liars.
Said the BIA lying a-hole to the old Indian chief.
Are you a communist now? Or always and just fooled us.
Sadly this is true.
They could only commit their own administrations. They could not commit future administrations. So, Baker and Bush could only commit to no NATO expansion under the Bush administration. That’s it.
“ Hey, I can’t blame them for lying and getting over on the Soviet Union. This is the period when Reagan was destroying the Warsaw Pact.”
You don’t even read what you post.
It’s about the German reunification after Reagan was out of office.
Trying to appease and prop up the Soviets.
“There is no statute of limitations on the word of an honorable nation.”
Absent a signed treaty or pact, or a passed law, one administration cannot commit or bind a future administration on something like this.
Continue to Pound Sand.
When it comes to Hitler or those bloodthirsty Soviet thugs, there’s no honor. Given the chance to hit Hitler or Breznev in the back of the head and then stab them in the back, yeah, sure, why not? The Soviets were every bit as evil as Hitler or Soros. That being said, the Soviets acquiesced because there was still, as negotiated, the same balance of power that had kept the peace in Europe for 45 years. NATO unilaterally chucked the concepts of spheres of influence (except for ours) and the balance of power. Those new NATO countries are the dominos the Russians have seen falling for 30 years. Now, the largest offensive military behemoth the world has ever seen (outspending Russia on military 30-1) is sitting on their border, on the historical invasion route into Russia, a day’s tank ride from Moscow and the average Russian is supposed to “Unlax, it’s all cool”? What would you think if the situation was reversed and the Russian stooge state of Mexico had just become the 30th Warsaw Pact nation? This ends in WWIII before Russia allows one more inch eastward.
You do realize that Gorbachev said no such guarantee was ever given.
Moreover, the last sentence puts the alleged guarantee in the context of German unification (i.e., West Germany and East Germany uniting into one Germany), which would imply that “eastward” meant into East Germany.
Harvard 5/2/2022 There was no promise not to enlarge NATO
"When President George H.W. Bush sat down with Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev to negotiate the peaceful end of the Cold War and the reunification of Germany, former Under Secretary of State Robert Zoellick ’81 was in the room where it happened.""During the 1990 summit, Zoellick says President Gorbachev accepted the idea of German unification within the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, based on the principle that every country should freely choose its own alliances. Zoellick Robert"
“I was in those meetings, and Gorbachev has [also] said there was no promise not to enlarge NATO,” Zoellick recalls. Soviet Foreign Minister, Eduard Shevardnadze, later president of Georgia, concurred, he says. Nor does the treaty on Germany's unification include a limit on NATO enlargement.<.b> Those facts have undermined one of Russian President Vladimir Putin's justifications for invading Ukraine — that the United States had agreed that former Warsaw Pact nations would never become part of the North Atlantic security alliance."
Brookings, 11/6/2014: Did NATO Promise Not to Enlarge? Gorbachev Says “No”
Russia Beyond, 10/16/2014: Mikhail Gorbachev: I am against all walls
;"RBTH: One of the key issues that has arisen in connection with the events in Ukraine is NATO expansion into the East. Do you get the feeling that your Western partners lied to you when they were developing their future plans in Eastern Europe? Why didn't you insist that the promises made to you – particularly U.S. Secretary of State James Baker's promise that NATO would not expand into the East – be legally encoded? I will quote Baker: “NATO will not move one inch further east."""M.G.: The topic of “NATO expansion” was not discussed at all, and it wasn't brought up in those years. I say this with full responsibility. Not a singe Eastern European country raised the issue, not even after the Warsaw Pact ceased to exist in 1991. Western leaders didn't bring it up, either. Another issue we brought up was discussed: making sure that NATO's military structures would not advance and that additional armed forces from the alliance would not be deployed on the territory of the then-GDR after German reunification. Baker's statement, mentioned in your question, was made in that context. Kohl and [German Vice Chancellor Hans-Dietrich] Genscher talked about it."
Diplomatic talk and proposals are not hard agreements. Agreements and treaties supersede all the talk that lead up to them.
Gorbachev was there, he would know, and he said expanding NATO did not come up and was not agreed upon.
“Continue to Pound Sand.”
Do try to grow up, son. I assume it will get frustrating for you; but if you really keep at it, and persevere, you will eventually be much happier.
“That being said, the Soviets acquiesced because there was still, as negotiated, the same balance of power that had kept the peace in Europe for 45 years.”
The West bankrupted the USSR; the Soviets had no choice in the matter. That’s how we won and the USSR lost the Cold War.
Oh sure, the Russians negotiated and felt secure with a 30 member NATO, sitting on their border rattling their sabers with promises of Moscow regime change. Your vapid, stoogist take on how incredibly destabilizing and dangerous this is breathtaking. Nothing was signed, so ignore the threat of imminent nuclear war. Why are you ignoring the existential threat to our homeland in order to champion the globalist stratagems of the Obama/ Soros/WEF clique?
Continue to Pound Sand.
Hush, little one.
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