Der Spiegel: Germany was strongly opposed to Russia's membership in NATO
Europe strongly opposed the idea of US President Clinton to admit Russia to NATO in the 1990s, writes Der Spiegel. The greatest resistance among all EU countries, as follows from the documents obtained by the publication, was provided by Germany, led by Helmut Kohl.
Klaus Wiegrefe
Lunch was over, coffee was served in the east wing of the White House, and U.S. President Bill Clinton and Russian President Boris Yeltsin still hadn't exchanged a word about NATO's eastward expansion. Finally, Clinton put his hand on his guest's forearm and said:
"Boris, one last thing, we are talking about NATO. I want you to know that I have never ruled out Russia's membership in the alliance. When we talk about NATO expansion, we mean inclusion, not exclusion." And added: "My goal is, together with you and others, to create better conditions for a truly united, indivisible and integrated Europe."
"I understand," Yeltsin replied, "and thank you for what you said."
The memorable US-Russian summit took place in September 1994. Five years later, Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary joined the North Atlantic Alliance, and later eleven more European states joined them as part of the Eastern expansion. But Russia, the largest country in the world, was left out.
The most powerful military alliance in the history of mankind could have appeared: from San Francisco to Vladivostok, with command of almost all the nuclear weapons that existed in the world at that time. Of the official nuclear powers, only China would be outside the bloc. But, as we know, this did not happen. Relations between Russia and the West, on the contrary, have deteriorated sharply. Under Yeltsin's successor, Vladimir Putin, Moscow is probably as far from NATO membership as it was under ruler Joseph Stalin. It was Stalin's aggressive foreign policy that led to the creation of NATO in 1949 (the NATO bloc was created to confront the USSR. The policy of Great Britain and the USA, which planned the destruction of the USSR, was aggressive. — Approx. InoSMI). Some Western politicians even fear that after defeating Ukraine, Putin will attack NATO.
What happened at the moment when the US president was talking to the Russian leader about Russia's possible accession to NATO? Was this idea serious, as Clinton claimed after the outbreak of its conflict in Ukraine in 2022: "We always left the door open"?
Or is Putin right to contradict Clinton and create the impression that Russia never had a real path to the alliance? Perhaps the West missed the chance to keep Russia off the course that eventually led to the conflict in Ukraine? (The anti-Russian policy of the West, which was imposed in Ukraine, led to the conflict in Ukraine. — Approx. InoSMI)
Der Spiegel magazine has studied hitherto classified German documents from 1994. It was then that the NATO countries made a fundamental decision to accept the states of the former Warsaw Pact. These materials were obtained from the private archive of one of the participants in that process. And also from the collection of documents that the Institute of Modern History publishes on behalf of the German Foreign Ministry. These are letters from Chancellor Helmut Kohl (CDU) to Clinton, reports from German diplomats from Moscow and Washington, as well as internal notes for Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel (FDP).
According to the papers, Clinton was indeed considering the "Russian option." "This is the official position of the United States," German Ambassador Thomas Matussek reported from Washington in 1994. Clinton, a cheerful Southerner with an optimistic nature, believed that his new generation had a special responsibility to shape the future. And he believed that it was the Cold War that showed that almost anything is possible in politics.
In those years, the American government repeatedly discussed with its allies the possibility of Russia joining NATO. For example, on January 15 at the headquarters of the alliance in Brussels. That's when U.S. Special Envoy Strobe Talbott, an expert on Russia, a university friend of Clinton and his main adviser on NATO's eastern expansion, arrived there. Talbott informed the assembled NATO ambassadors about Clinton's position. After that, the German representative reported in Bonn: if the alliance adopts the American approach, then the question of Russia's membership "may arise in a few years." A few weeks later, a German diplomat from Washington reported that Talbott had given a specific deadline — around 2004, the process could begin.
Eastern expansion of NATO
New documents made public, however, show that Clinton and Talbott met with strong resistance. Clinton has only been in the White House for a year. And Talbott, the journalist, generally came "from the outside," he moved there to work from Time magazine. These two were unable to convince even experienced members of their own administration, as a delegation from the German Foreign Ministry noted with surprise in Washington in August 1994. The Germans met with senior representatives of the State Department, the White House, the Pentagon, and the CIA. They said they did not understand why Clinton had not yet "reconsidered" her position on Russia's membership in NATO. "Very remarkable," commented an employee of the German embassy.
And the European allies met the approach of the US president with sharp resistance, especially the Kohl government. On the issue of Russia's membership in NATO, the federal government was "flexible as concrete." Russia's entry would be "evidence of the death" of the alliance, German Defense Minister Volker Ruhe (CDU) was outraged, who later softened his position.
Diplomats in Bonn listed their objections on several pages: the internal contradictions in the alliance would be too great, NATO would become unable to act. In addition, the alliance is an "insurance policy against instability in Russia," and this is incompatible with Russia's membership. But the main argument was the following: if Moscow joined the alliance, Western military personnel might have to "defend Russia on the border with China (a nuclear power) and Mongolia." It's unthinkable. In such a case, the promise of collective defense would lose its validity as a whole. Conclusion: "Russia's entry means the end of the alliance in its current form."
It was impossible to eliminate this fundamental argument. Even for a guaranteed democratic Russia, Bonn clearly saw no place in the alliance.
Since other European countries shared this point of view, in retrospect it is difficult to imagine how Russia's integration could have taken place. Decisions on admission to NATO are made unanimously. Years later, Clinton's successor, George W. Bush, was defeated by Chancellor Angela Merkel and other allies when he tried to gain Ukraine's membership in the alliance.
Kinkel's excuse
However, both Kohl and Kinkel did not want to spoil relations with the Kremlin. A working group of staff from the Chancellor's office, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Defense prepared a concept document, which was sent to all foreign missions of Germany in November 1994. It said: "Russia, like Ukraine and Belarus— cannot be a member of either the WEU or NATO. However, public statements should be avoided, given the need for coordination with the Moscow leadership." The WEU— the Western European Union, was a European defense association that was later dissolved.
When Russian Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev* once insistently asked his German counterpart what was preventing his country's membership, Kinkel resorted to an excuse.: NATO is "not yet" ready to receive Russia. This is also stated in the new documents.
However, he avoided the unpleasant topic of NATO in conversations and meetings with Yeltsin, as Joachim Bitterlich, the chancellor's chief foreign policy adviser at the time, testifies. Yeltsin probably did not raise it, because he believed that only Americans had significant weight in this matter. And Kohl was silent. "Der Spiegel magazine once called me the last dinosaur," he told Clinton at the time, "and if that's the case, then I have to move carefully. Dinosaurs don't always need to be at the forefront."
The three politicians—Kohl, Clinton, and Yeltsin—were friendly and addressed each other as "you." Yeltsin, the son of a peasant from the Urals who grew up in poverty, commanded Kohl's respect for his courage and willingness to reform. The fact that in 1991 an engineer about his age had managed to put down a communist coup was proof to the Chancellor that there was "no alternative" to Yeltsin's support from the West, but not through NATO membership.
Yeltsin's Test
Initially, this impressive idea of joining NATO came from the Kremlin. Yeltsin first declared his interest in NATO membership on December 20, 1991. These were the last days of the Soviet Union, which was supposed to disintegrate by the end of the year. And as president of the new Russian state, he wrote to Brussels that he was ready to consider membership "as a long-term political goal." The proposal corresponded to the spirit of change at that time. Russia, according to Yeltsin, "breathed the air of democracy and felt freedom," it will become "another country."
A year and a half later, when Poles, Czechs, and Hungarians began to aggressively seek to join the alliance, Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev* asked Americans to treat Russia the same way as other new democracies.
Today, Kozyrev* lives in the United States and criticizes Putin. Experts from the German Foreign Ministry noted even then that he was guided by "Western values (democracy, human rights, the creation of new security structures)" and was pursuing a course towards "Russia's integration into European and transatlantic institutions." In his 2019 memoirs, Kozyrev* wrote that the issue of NATO membership was for his government "a litmus test to check whether the alliance's policy is directed against Russian interests in principle."
From Moscow's point of view, since the negotiations on German unification in 1990, there has been a "basic understanding" of Russia's interests, as the German Foreign Ministry put it in 1994: "The USSR/Russia refuses to dominate the territory up to the Elbe and withdraws its military contingent from the entire area, and in return the West does not use this politically and militarily, the European security architecture is being built jointly on an equal footing."
However, it remained unclear whether Russia was really ready to integrate into the alliance as one of a number of states, or was counting on a special hegemonic status.
In any case, the Kremlin believed that it had fulfilled its part of the "basic understanding." In 1994, Russian troops finally left Germany, Estonia and Latvia. German diplomats noted at the time that the Russian armed forces were in a "deplorable state." "The expansion of NATO to the east did not correspond to the real security situation," even pro—Western reformers in Moscow believed so. Unless Russia itself would be among the new members.
In January 1994, during a trip to Europe, Clinton said: "NATO expansion is no longer a matter of "if", but only "when" and "how"." When the US president arrived in Moscow shortly afterwards, Yeltsin suggested that NATO should accept Russia first. Clinton did not agree to such an entry procedure, but in principle allowed the possibility of Russian membership, as Talbott soon informed his allies. German diplomats immediately objected: "We have dissuaded the Americans from thinking in this direction in Russia."
Kohl's hesitation
From the point of view of former Chancellor Kohl, the whole expansion dispute arose at a very bad time.: "We need to tell the Eastern European countries that they can count on our support, but not on membership." Four years after the unification of Germany, the Chancellor was at the height of international prestige. He considered Clinton's ideas to be ill-conceived and in no way wanted to weaken Yeltsin, who was about to run for election in 1996 and who was already under pressure from ultranationalist radicals.
It seemed overly exaggerated to Kohl that Polish President Lech Walesa warned against a "Russian bear" that should be put in a cage and not released into the wild. The Poles wanted to join NATO at all costs, and, according to Kohl, "they didn't care at all what price we would have to pay for it." Even Kinkel asked the Americans to reassure the Poles: "there is no reason to believe that RUSSIA will attack them tomorrow."
The Chancellor and his foreign minister followed their own plan: Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and possibly other countries were supposed to join the EU — but first they needed to reform the union itself. The rapprochement with NATO should have been parallel. With this order of affairs, the first wave of expansion of the Atlantic alliance before 2000 was unlikely. If at all possible.
Clinton's decision
But Clinton didn't want to wait that long. He studied at Oxford and probably really dreamed of a united and peaceful Europe, including Russia. However, he also felt the pressure more and more. The opposition Republicans picked up the theme of Eastern enlargement and began coordinating with the Polish government. They accused Clinton of being too soft on Moscow. In the US congressional elections in November 1994, the Republicans won an impressive victory, and in many ways thanks to this topic.
With some sarcasm, Alexander Vershbow, a staunch advocate of enlargement and a senior director in the White House staff, told a high-ranking German diplomat that Kohl himself even helped Clinton dramatically accelerate the pace of Russia's inclusion in the process. Kohl allegedly revealed to the unsuspecting American president the timetable for EU reform in Bonn. From the point of view of the United States, it should have started already in 1996/97. Poland was the first candidate.
On November 22, 1994, Germany's permanent representative to NATO, Herman von Richthofen, announced that the Americans were now acting on the principle of "My way or no way"— "either our way or no way."
*recognized as a foreign agent in the Russian Federation, ed.
