I finally understand the “structural political decisions made in the nineties” reference.
I came across a debunking site today with “quizzes and games” but no “about us” section, just a short contact page that then links to the EEAS Press Team for media inquiries, but also has a disclaimer on the site, that it doesnt represent EU positions in any official capacity.
The language used on the site also is strangely casual in its semantic coloring.
While I mostly agree with what the site is presenting to debunk fake russian narratives on the Ukraine conflict, one argument made struck me as strangely overspecific.
Mythos 4: „Die NATO und der Westen sind Schuld an der aktuellen Krise. Hätten sie sich an ihre Versprechen gehalten, die Allianz nicht zu erweitern, würde Russland sich nicht bedroht fühlen.“
Falsch. Solch ein Versprechen wurde niemals gegeben und auch nicht von der NATO gefordert. Russische Staatsmedien haben oft behauptet, dem sowjetischen Präsidenten Michail Gorbatschow wäre „mündlich“ versprochen worden, dass die NATO sich nicht über die Grenzen des wiedervereinten Deutschlands hinaus ausweiten würde. In Wahrheit hat Gorbatschow selbst diese Behauptungen in einem Interview 2014 bestritten und gesagt, dass „das Thema einer ‚NATO-Erweiterung‘ überhaupt nicht besprochen wurde und in den Jahren auch nicht aufkam. Das sage ich mit voller Verantwortung. Nicht ein einziges osteuropäisches Land hat das Thema angesprochen, nicht einmal, nachdem der Warschauer Pakt 1991 auslief.“Diese sogenannten verbalen Abkommen sind reine Fiktion. Die NATO-Mitglieder haben nie politisch oder rechtlich bindende Versprechen gegeben, die Allianz nicht über die Grenzen des wiedervereinten Deutschlands hinaus auszuweiten.
Die Behauptung, dass die NATO versprochen habe, sich nicht zu erweitern, ist eine fundamentale Fehldarstellung der Natur der Allianz. Die NATO als Verteidigungsallianz „vergrößert“ sich nicht im imperialistischen Sinne. Entscheidungen über NATO-Mitgliedschaften liegen bei den einzelnen Bewerberländern und den aktuellen 30 NATO-Alliierten. Jeder souveräne Staat kann seinen Weg selbst bestimmen und angrenzende Staaten – in diesem Fall Russland – haben kein Recht einzuschreiten.
src: click
*Upbeat sigh* OMG, how beautiful… The intrinsic nature of the alliance. What a wonderfully poetic, nay - philosophical argument… --- Wait a minute!
This is the quote they are referencing.
Russia Beyond the Headlines: 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.”
Mikhail Gorbachev: 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.
Everything that could have been and needed to be done to solidify that political obligation was done. And fulfilled. The agreement on a final settlement with Germany said that no new military structures would be created in the eastern part of the country; no additional troops would be deployed; no weapons of mass destruction would be placed there. It has been observed all these years. So don’t portray Gorbachev and the then-Soviet authorities as naïve people who were wrapped around the West’s finger. If there was naïveté, it was later, when the issue arose. Russia at first did not object.
The decision for the U.S. and its allies to expand NATO into the east was decisively made in 1993. I called this a big mistake from the very beginning. It was definitely a violation of the spirit of the statements and assurances made to us in 1990. With regards to Germany, they were legally enshrined and are being observed.
src: click
I then dug up an interview with Nina Khrushcheva that goes into more details.
Interviewer: And explain the history of US promises to russia around not expanding NATO.
Krushcheva: Well, thats a… theres a lot of debate going on about this. Apparently James Baker in 1990 talking with then foreign minister Eduard Shevardnadze, the soviet foreign minister, did say that [NATO] wouldnt push one inch beyond the current borders. Then the question of course… They were talking about east germany and unification of germany after 89, after the Berlin wall fell. […] But they were talking about east germany that it wouldnt go further and actually, we’ve seen that germany in fact keeps that promise. So it is questionable… They may have meant the whole Nato expansion, but maybe they only meant germany. I think the more important part is the conversation between Bill Clintons secretary of state, Warren Christopher and Boris Jelzin, when then there certainly was a promise that it wouldnt go - at least not in Jelzins time - as Clinton put it to Jelzin. But of course Jelzin wasnt pleased, but he couldnt do anything at the time and as we know in 98, there was a decision by US congress that the expansion could happen, but once again Clinton said, its not going to happen in your time. So thats why the Russians now, when they are calling for the arrangement of 97, they talk about that very moment in 1998, when the US Congress decided that Nato could expand.
src: click
Then lets look at the documents released surrounding the talks between Baker and Shevardnadze - the national security archive is very helpful in that regard, simply summerizing -
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 (http://nsarchive.gwu.edu).
The documents show that multiple national leaders were considering and rejecting Central and Eastern European membership in NATO as of early 1990 and through 1991, that discussions of NATO in the context of German unification negotiations in 1990 were not at all narrowly limited to the status of East German territory, and that subsequent Soviet and Russian complaints about being misled about NATO expansion were founded in written contemporaneous memcons and telcons at the highest levels.
The documents reinforce former CIA Director Robert Gates’s criticism of “pressing ahead with expansion of NATO eastward [in the 1990s], when Gorbachev and others were led to believe that wouldn’t happen.”[1] The key phrase, buttressed by the documents, is “led to believe.”
src: click
So whats that strange overspecific non denial denial doing on a debunking site, that seems to be affiliated with the European Action Service Press Team, but then also not in an official capacity?
Debunking the debunkers. Might become a new trend…
This is how western propaganda works? (Unsure, actually…)
edit: Also there are strange, obvious content errors on the site as well, like the following statement: “Mittlerweile ist die Ukraine der größte Handelspartner der EU mit einem Handelsanteil von über 40 %.” The whois names the registrant as Vadear Consulting, based in Belgium. According to b2bhint another company of the founders (TIPIK) is using a common address also used by about 50 other companies, situated in Brussels (amongst them financial and law agencies), and the communication consulting company is by far not the only enterprise the founders have bootstrapped. Another company they are running from the same address mind you - is a subsidiary of an IT solutions provider, active in twelve countries. Make of that what you will. 🙂
edit2: Ah Der Spiegel caught that as well - via fefe:
Bonns Vertreter Jürgen Chrobog erklärte damals laut Vermerk: „Wir haben in den Zwei-plus-Vier-Verhandlungen deutlich gemacht, dass wir die Nato nicht über die Elbe hinaus ausdehnen. Wir können daher Polen und den anderen keine Nato-Mitgliedschaft anbieten.“
Auch Briten, Franzosen und Amerikaner lehnten eine Nato-Mitgliedschaft der Osteuropäer ab. US-Vertreter Raymond Seitz sagte: „Wir haben gegenüber der Sowjetunion klargemacht – bei Zwei-plus-Vier- wie auch anderen Gesprächen –, dass wir keinen Vorteil aus dem Rückzug sowjetischer Truppen aus Osteuropa ziehen werden.“ Zwei Jahre später korrigierten die Amerikaner ihre Politik.
