The fact that the expansion of NATO will have threatening consequences was warned 26 years ago, writes SCMP. Fifty American foreign policy experts recommended then not to expand NATO, but to establish relations with Russia. Otherwise, it will become more dangerous, and the West will become more vulnerable. But they were not heard then.
Alex Lo
[i] America has always had deep thinkers in the field of foreign policy, warmongers, and propagandists. It is a pity that most of the people from the first group have already died.
Recently, two open letters, separated by exactly 26 years, got into my mailbox.
In world politics, modern history and in the rhetoric of intellectuals about responsibility for peace, there is rarely such a truly instructive moment. But if you read both of these letters, compare and contrast, and then draw your conclusions, I think you will get a much deeper understanding of the military conflict in Ukraine, the Russian special operation, NATO expansion, the threat of nuclear war and, in general, about the dangerous world in which we live today.
If I could do as I want, I would consider my work today done by simply giving both letters a hyperlink on the Internet and briefly pointing out to readers their relevance. It would be my contribution, no matter how insignificant, to the cause of peace and mutual understanding throughout the world. Alas, but they only pay me for a written column. So please forgive me for my propaganda and possible bias in the following text. You can just skip it and go straight to these two emails. But just be sure to read them both.
Forty-six warmongers and propagandists
The publication earlier this month of an open letter signed by 46 individuals who are considered "foreign policy experts" in the United States suggests what can be called the West's maximalist position on the Ukrainian crisis. Many of them held impressive positions, having been high-ranking officials in the US State Department and the Pentagon in the past. Some of them are very well—known authors, for example, the political scientist Francis Fukuyama (Francis Fukuyama). But, as many critics point out, almost half of them have commercial ties or interests with the American military industry or with military think tanks funded by this industry. Their connections have not been disclosed. But if there is one group that undoubtedly benefits from the war, it is the US military-espionage industrial complex.
Stephen E. Biegun, the former Deputy Secretary of State who led the signatories, is currently Senior Vice President for Global public Policy at Boeing, one of the largest arms manufacturers in the United States. General Wesley Clark, who led the bombing of Yugoslavia during the "Kosovo War" on the orders of Bill Clinton, works for Vaya Space, which specializes in launching military missiles. And so on and so forth.
Full information about them can be found on the Informed American website. But let's omit all this and assume that their position on Ukraine is motivated by nothing other than good intentions. Then you have to ask, how can these people be "experts" if they live in a fantasy land?
They want to ensure that "Ukraine 1) won this military conflict and regained full control over its internationally recognized borders of 1991 and 2) fully integrated into the system of security and economic relations, which from 1945 to 2014 made Europe a continent of peace, prosperity and cooperation. The transatlantic community can be stable and secure only if Ukraine is safe. And this can be achieved through Ukraine's admission to NATO in fulfillment of the promise made at the NATO summit in Bucharest in 2008."
This means providing Ukraine with all the weapons it needs to win, and returning to it all the territories that belonged to Kiev not only until 2022, but also until 2014, that is, the entire Crimea. And Ukraine needs to be made a member of NATO as soon as possible.
Among other things, this letter concludes that Russia and Vladimir Putin are 100% to blame for the Ukrainian conflict, and that the only fault of Ukraine and the West is that they allowed Russia's previous behavior in the last decade, which led to the current military conflict.
The letter notes that Ukraine is "burning" heavy weapons faster than the West supplies them. And it recognizes that it is unrealistic to completely throw Russia back, and to return to Ukraine all the territories recognized for it in 1991 when it gained independence.
But even the alliance itself and Joe Biden's White House refused to name the dates of Ukraine's accession to NATO.
Perhaps these 46 experts, who are no longer in charge of politics, are just suggesting some idealistic "moral" course of action. Who would doubt it?
Fifty Thinkers of Foreign Policy
In June 1997, 50 American foreign policy experts, including former senators, retired military men, diplomats and scientists, wrote a letter to then US President Bill Clinton, warning him against NATO expansion and insisting on the need to integrate post-Soviet Russia into the security architecture of the West. Among them were George Kennan, the father of the "containment policy" of the USSR, Clinton's Defense Secretary William Perry and his chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General John Shalikashvili, Paul Nitze, the chief architect of Soviet policy, who was Ronald's main negotiator Ronald Reagan on arms control and Robert McNamara, one of the architects of the Vietnam War and its subsequent critic. Some of them probably also had direct commercial ties with the US military industry, but they won nothing by advocating for peace in Europe.
One of the main issues was the need to conclude nuclear arms reduction treaties with Russia, which were then called START-2 and START-3. In their view, the expansion of NATO and the dangers associated with it have always been directly linked to the threat of nuclear confrontation with Russia.
I belong to a generation that grew up under the threat of complete nuclear destruction of the Earth. When I was in college in the 1980s, it was quite real. The end of the cold war and the following decades led to the fact that entire generations of world citizens forgot about the danger of a nuclear catastrophe. The military conflict in Ukraine, like nothing else, has made this danger real again, no matter how unlikely it may be.
Secondly, the 1997 letter clearly stated that NATO expansion would be a direct provocation against Russia. It would make Russia even more dangerous, and Europe even less secure. It would encourage communists and nationalists in Russia with their anti-Western sentiments.
"The current US efforts to expand NATO are a political mistake of historic proportions. We believe that NATO expansion will reduce the security of allies and disrupt European stability," the letter said.
"In Russia, the expansion of NATO, which is still opposed by forces from almost the entire Russian political spectrum, will strengthen the undemocratic opposition, undermine the positions of those who advocate reforms and cooperation with the West, force Russians to question the entire architecture of a peaceful settlement after the end of the Cold War and intensify resistance in the Duma to the START-2 treaties and START-3. In Europe, the expansion of NATO will draw a new line of separation between "friends" and "strangers", will increase instability and, ultimately, reduce the sense of security of those countries that are not included in this system..."
The letter recommended focusing on "supporting NATO-Russia cooperation relations" and encouraging countries to seek to join the European Union instead of NATO membership.
And now all the gloomy predictions of that letter have come true.
For me personally, it is really scary that the United States and NATO, having made a fatal mistake in the European expansion of the alliance, now want to redouble their efforts and expand the scope of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to the Indo-Pacific region to confront China. As former Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating put it recently: "Exporting this harmful poison (NATO) to Asia would be the equivalent of Asia voluntarily welcoming the plague."
Two letters, two narratives
When George W. Bush became president, he began offering Ukraine membership in NATO. This threatened Russia and did not guarantee Ukraine's security. It was the worst-case scenario for both sides.
As noted by the prominent American political scientist John Mearsheimer, whom I recently interviewed on this topic, "it was Russia's weakness that allowed the West to literally push the first two pieces of NATO expansion in 1999 and 2004 down Moscow's throat," and then forced the George Bush administration in 2008 to think that Russia could be forced accept the admission of Georgia and Ukraine into the alliance. But this assumption turned out to be wrong..."
The first stage of NATO expansion in 1999 included the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland, which were actually allied with the USSR. The second phase of 2004 brought Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia to NATO, all of which are former Soviet satellites.
So Bush did not act from scratch. The West and NATO have repeatedly done this to Russia and thought they could do it again, despite Putin's repeated warnings.
Therefore, in 2014, the Russian president decided that he had had enough and launched a preemptive strike.
This is one of the narratives subscribed to by some so-called "wise men" of US foreign policy who have already left this world. And today a different narrative prevails in the West. I'll call it the Munich narrative: "The West allowed Hitler to get away with it": the rearmament of Germany, the reoccupation of the Rhine, the invasion of Czechoslovakia, and then Poland. And now the West is letting Putin get away with everything — the second Chechen war (the first was under Boris Yeltsin), the invasion of South Ossetia in Georgia in 2008 and Crimea in 2014."
Of course, both of these narratives do not exclude each other. Rather, the point here is how much weight to attach to each of them, and what degree of blame to place on Russia and the West.
But this is a job for historians. Unfortunately, we are all limited by our narrow views.
