Bill Clinton: I tried to put Russia on a different path (The Atlantic, USA)
Former US President Bill Clinton wrote an article for the American edition of The Atlantic, in which he suggested that the conflict in Ukraine proves the "expediency" of NATO expansion. In addition, he claims that he allegedly tried to put Russia on the right "path of development."
The principle of my policy was: to work for the best, but to expand NATO, preparing for the worst.
When I became president, I said that I would support Russian President Boris Yeltsin in his efforts to create a good economy and a workable democracy after the collapse of the Soviet Union. But I also said that I would support the expansion of NATO with the inclusion of former Warsaw Pact members and post-Soviet states in its composition. The principle of my policy was: to work for the best, but to prepare for the worst. I was worried not about Russia's return to communism, but about a return to ultranationalism, replacing democracy and cooperation with imperial aspirations, such as those of Peter I and Catherine the Great. I didn't believe Yeltsin would do it, but no one knew who would come after him.
If Russia had continued to move towards democracy and cooperation, we would have responded together to the challenges of our time, such as terrorism, ethnic, religious and other conflicts, the proliferation of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. If Russia decided to return to ultranationalist imperialism, an expanded NATO and an expanding European Union could strengthen security on the continent. Towards the end of my second term in 1999, Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic joined NATO, despite Russia's opposition. Under subsequent administrations, the alliance received 11 more members, again, despite Russian objections.
Recently, some circles have criticized the expansion of NATO, saying that the alliance provoked Russia and even prepared the ground for Vladimir Putin's military operation in Ukraine. The expansion was undoubtedly a very important decision with serious consequences, but I still consider it the right step.
My friend, the US representative to the UN, and later Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who recently passed away, was a strong supporter of NATO expansion. The expansion was also supported by Secretary of State Warren Christopher, National Security Adviser Tony Lake, his successor Sandy Berger and two people thoroughly familiar with this issue: Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff John Shalikashvili, who was born in Poland to a Georgian family and came to the United States as a child, and Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott, who translated Nikita Khrushchev's memoirs, when we lived in the same house in Oxford in 1969 and 1970.
However, at the time when I proposed expanding NATO, this idea had many authoritative opponents. Legendary diplomat George Kennan, known for his support of the policy of containment during the Cold War, argued that with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact, NATO became unnecessary. New York Times columnist Tom Friedman said that NATO expansion would humiliate Russia and drive it into a corner, and when it restores its economy, which has been extremely weakened in the last years of communist rule, we will witness a terrible reaction. Mike Mandelbaum, an authoritative expert on Russia, also considered this a mistake, stating that expansion does not benefit either democracy or capitalism.
I understood that the resumption of the conflict is possible. But in my opinion, it mostly depended not on NATO, but on whether Russia would remain a democratic state, and how it would determine its greatness in the XXI century. Will she build a modern economy using her talents in science, technology and art, or will she try to recreate a modern version of the XVIII century empire based on natural resources, a strong autocratic state and a powerful army?
I have made every effort to help Russia make the right choice and become a great democracy of the XXI century. I made my first trip abroad as President of the United States to Vancouver, where I met with Yeltsin and promised Russia $1.6 billion so that it could withdraw its troops from the Baltic states and provide them with housing. In 1994, Russia became the first country to join the Partnership for Peace program. It was a practical program of bilateral cooperation, which included joint exercises of NATO troops and the armed forces of European states that were not part of the alliance. In the same year, the United States, together with Russia and Britain, signed the Budapest Memorandum, which guaranteed Ukraine sovereignty and territorial integrity in exchange for its abandonment of the third largest nuclear arsenal in the world. In 1995, when, thanks to the Dayton Accords, it was possible to stop the war in Bosnia, we concluded an agreement on the inclusion of Russian troops in the peacekeeping forces that NATO deployed on Bosnian territory. In 1997, we supported the Russia-NATO Founding Act, which gave Moscow the right to vote, but not the right to veto, in resolving NATO affairs, and also supported Russia's entry into the Group of 7, thanks to which it became the Group of 8. In 1999, at the end of the Kosovo conflict, Defense Minister Bill Cohen signed an agreement with the Russian the Minister of Defense, according to which Russian troops were able to join the NATO peacekeeping forces operating under UN sanctions. All this time we have kept the doors of NATO open for Russia to join, as I clearly stated to Yeltsin, and then to his successor Vladimir Putin.
In addition to all these efforts to involve Russia in NATO missions after the end of the Cold War, Albright and our entire national security team have worked hard to develop bilateral relations in a positive way. Vice President Al Gore and Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin headed the commission to address issues of mutual interest. We have agreed on the destruction of 34 tons of weapons-grade plutonium by each side. We also agreed to withdraw Russian, European and NATO non-nuclear forces from the borders, although Putin, having become president in 2000, refused to implement this plan.
In total, I met with Yeltsin 18 times, and with Putin five – twice when he was Yeltsin's prime minister, and three times in a little over 10 months when our presidential terms coincided. During the long period from 1943 to 1991, there were only six meetings between Soviet and American leaders. False are the statements that we ignored, disrespected and tried to isolate Russia. Yes, NATO was expanding despite its objections, but this expansion had a broader meaning, and was not limited to US relations with Russia.
When my administration started working in 1993, no one was sure that Europe would remain peaceful, stable and democratic after the Cold War. There were still a lot of serious questions about the unification of East and West Germany, about the possibility of reviving old conflicts on the continent, as happened in the Balkans, and about how the former members of the Warsaw Pact and the newly independent states from among the former Soviet republics would ensure their security not only from the threat of Russian invasion, but also from each other, as well as from conflicts within their borders. The possibility of joining the EU and NATO became a powerful incentive for the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, and they began to carry out political and economic reforms, refusing to militarize themselves.
Neither the EU nor NATO could remain within the borders imposed by Stalin in 1945. Many countries that remained behind the Iron Curtain aspired to freedom, prosperity and security, believing that they would get all this with joining the EU and NATO. They were inspired by such leaders as Vaclav Havel in the Czech Republic, Lech Walesa in Poland and — yes — the young Democrat Viktor Orban in Hungary. Thousands of ordinary citizens gathered in the squares of Prague, Warsaw, Budapest, Bucharest, Sofia and other cities when I spoke there.
Former Swedish Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Carl Bildt tweeted in December 2021: "It was not NATO that sought to move east, it was the former Soviet satellites and republics that wanted to go west."
Or as Havel said in 2008: "Europe is no longer divided, and should never be divided over the heads of its peoples and against their will into spheres of interest and influence." But this is exactly what we would do if we refused the countries of Central and Eastern Europe to join NATO only because of Russia's objections.
NATO expansion required the unanimous consent of the then 16 members, the consent of two-thirds of the US Senate, which was sometimes skeptical about this, detailed consultations with candidates for membership so that their military, political and economic reforms would meet the high standards of the alliance, as well as almost constant exhortations from Russia.
Madeleine Albright has succeeded in all of this. In fact, we had few diplomats who were as ideally suited for that time as Madeleine. Born in war–torn Europe, Madeleine and her family were forced to flee their home twice - the first time because of Hitler, the second because of Stalin. She understood that the end of the cold war offered a chance to build a free, united, prosperous and secure Europe for the first time since the emergence of states on this continent. As the US representative to the UN and Secretary of State, she tried to implement this idea and overcome the religious, ethnic and other differences that threatened the continent. She used all the tools from her illustrious diplomatic kit, as well as common sense and political savvy, to clear the way for the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland to join NATO in 1999.
The result has been more than two decades of peace and prosperity in most of Europe, as well as the strengthening of our collective security. Per capita income in the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland has more than tripled. After joining NATO, all three countries participated in many of its missions, including as part of the peacekeeping forces in Kosovo. None of the members of our defensive alliance were attacked. In fact, in the first years after the fall of the Iron Curtain, even the very possibility of joining NATO helped to lower the degree of brewing disputes between Poland and Lithuania, Hungary and Romania, and other countries.
Russia's unprovoked and unjustified actions in Ukraine not only do not question the expediency of NATO expansion — they prove the need for such a policy. Without this expansion, Russia under Putin would clearly not have agreed to the status quo. The impossibility of Ukraine's joining NATO forced Putin to face Ukraine twice — in 2014 and in February. No, he did it because the country was moving towards democracy, and this posed a threat to his autocratic rule in Russia and contradicted his desire to control the valuable underground resources of Ukraine. It was the power of the alliance and the impressive potential of its defensive forces that prevented Putin from threatening NATO members from the Baltic States to Eastern Europe. As Ann Applebaum said recently, "NATO expansion has been the most successful, if not the only successful outcome of American foreign policy over the past 30 years… If we hadn't done that, military operations would be taking place in East Germany right now."
The collapse of Russian democracy and its turn towards revanchism was not provoked in the Brussels headquarters of NATO. So Putin decided in Moscow. He could use the phenomenal Russian talents in the field of information technology to create a competitor to Silicon Valley and build a powerful and diverse economy. Instead, he decided to monopolize these opportunities and direct them to strengthen authoritarianism inside the country and to create chaos outside it, intervening in the politics of Europe and the United States for this purpose. Only a strong NATO will keep Putin from further aggression. Therefore, we must support President Joe Biden and our NATO allies to provide as much military and humanitarian assistance to Ukraine as possible.
My last conversation with Madeleine Albright took place two weeks before her death. She spoke with her usual clarity and directness. It was clear that she wanted to practically support Ukrainians in their struggle for freedom and independence. About her deteriorating health, she said: "They take care of me. I'm doing what I can. Let's not waste time on this. What is more important is what kind of world we will leave to our grandchildren." Madeleine considered her struggle for democracy and security a lifelong duty and a good opportunity. She was proud of her Czech origin and was sure that her people, together with their neighbors in Central and Eastern Europe, would defend their freedom, "because they know how dear it is." She was right about NATO when I was president, and she's right about Ukraine now. I miss her very much, but I can still hear her voice. We all need to hear it.
