He proposed it. And both Edvard Scheverdnaze and Mikhail Gorbachev turned it down. If you understood anything at all about the USSR at all, you’d understand why they turned it down.
It’d also then be obvious why Bush backpedaled.
The only deal under negotiation at the time was with the USSR (the thing that Russia, Ukraine and Belarus were inside).
The Soviet Union got completely abolished in the 1990s, while the specific country called Russia, whose full name was the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, became the Russian Federation.
The deal under discussion had to presuppose that the Warsaw Pact would remain intact, and the USSR would also remain intact. Baker MISSPOKE when he pitched a promise that IF THE WARSAW PACT DID COLLAPSE, NATO would not expand towards the USSR.
Gorbachev couldn’t say yes to Baker because that would’ve been tantamount to an open admission from the Supreme Soviet leader that the Soviet Union really could lose the Warsaw Pact.
Bloody hell, how dumb do you have to be to not see why the Soviet Union made damned sure Baker’s pitch never made it into the final signed agreement?!
Scheverdnaze and Gorbachev couldn’t admit on the record that ANY country inside the Warsaw Pact might one day be free to apply to join NATO.
Bloody hell, how dumb do YOU have to be to realize that talks go on behind talks.
I lived through the cold war. I know what the USSR was and what was ‘inside of it”? What the hell kind of phraseology is that? LOL!
Bottom line is this. When you are the enemy, and you, as my enemy promote a culture that is morally rotten to the core and devoid of any self-sustaining common sense, don’t be coming to MY doorstep with your excrement and expect me not to blow your f’n head off.
I don’t blame Putin a bit. He knows first hand how corrupt to the very core western leadership is (population control, faggetry, Satanism, fake-enviromentalist nazis, etc.)
The corruption of the west is such that it has no concern about killing its own host-even to the pint on nuclear and AI destruction. It is fathoms deeper than the corruption of the Russians, which does not seek to kill its own host.
The “NOT ONE INCH” aspect of historical negotiations stands as fact - it happened. It helped shape discussions. DEAL WITH IT.