The U.S. response to winning the Cold War set the stage for the current crisis with Russia, reports Joe Lauria.
(Creative Commons/Wikipedia)
By Joe Lauria
Special to Consortium News
The end of the Cold War with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the end of the Soviet Union two years later presented the United States with a choice: triumphalism or reconciliation.
There was hope of a “peace dividend” because the fortune spent on armaments for so long could now be spent on domestic needs. The Warsaw Pact dissolved and there was hope that its counterpart, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, would also pass into history. Rather its expansion has become a flashpoint in the current standoff over Ukraine.
To assent to the reunification of Germany, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev ultimately agreed to a proposal from then U.S. Secretary of State James Baker that a reunited Germany would be part of NATO but the military alliance would not move “one inch” to the east, that is, absorb any of the former Warsaw Pact nations into NATO.
On Feb. 9, 1990, Baker said: “We consider that the consultations and discussions in the framework of the 2+4 mechanism should give a guarantee that the reunification of Germany will not lead to the enlargement of NATO’s military organization to the East.” On the next day, then German Chancellor Helmut Kohl said: ““We consider that NATO should not enlarge its sphere of activity.”
Gorbachev’s mistake was not to get it in writing as a legally-binding agreement. For years it was believed there was no written record of the Baker-Gorbachev exchange at all, until the National Security Archive at George Washington University in December 2017 published a series of memos and cables about these assurances against NATO expansion eastward. The archive reported:
“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 …
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.’ …
President George H.W. Bush had assured Gorbachev during the Malta summit in December 1989 that the U.S. would not take advantage (‘I have not jumped up and down on the Berlin Wall”) of the revolutions in Eastern Europe to harm Soviet interests.’”
One Jan. 31, 1990 cable from the U.S. embassy in Bonn informed Washington that German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher’s speech that day made clear “that the changes in Eastern Europe and the German unification process must not lead to an ‘impairment of Soviet security interests.’ Therefore, NATO should rule out an ‘expansion of its territory towards the east, i.e. moving it closer to the Soviet borders.’”
Baker and Gorbachev. (The Baker Institute)
Drinks With Boris
On Tuesday, The New Yorker magazine published a detailed analysis of what transpired at that time. The piece reveals that H.W. Bush “strongly opposed Baker’s proposal [with Gorbachev], which was quickly abandoned.” What Gorbachev thought was a “deal” back in Washington was reduced to a “proposal” cast aside, despite Bush’s vow that the U.S. would not engage in triumphalism. Even then Russian President Boris Yeltsin, the piece says, eventually rejected NATO expansion, but not after first agreeing to it after Lech Walesa plied him with drinks:
“One night in Warsaw, over dinner and drinks, the Polish President at the time, Lech Walesa, managed to persuade Yeltsin to issue a joint statement that the prospect of Poland joining NATO was ‘not contrary to the interest of any state, also including Russia.’ But, faced with a domestic political backlash, Yeltsin quickly retracted that statement. In fact, Yeltsin and his diplomats eventually argued, the 1990 agreement on German reunification prohibited any further eastward NATO expansion … “
President Bill Clinton’s administration investigated the matter and concluded that Yeltsin was wrong and that no NATO expansion eastward was ever promised. The New Yorker reported:
“At a summit in Helsinki, Clinton promised to give Yeltsin four billion dollars in investment in 1997, as much as the U.S. had provided in the five years prior, while also dangling W.T.O. membership and other economic inducements. In return, Russia would effectively allow unencumbered NATO enlargement. Yeltsin worried that these measures could be perceived as ‘sort of a bribe,’ but, given Russia’s empty coffers and his uphill prospects for reëlection, he relented.”
NATO was set up in 1949 as a 12-nation military alliance against the hyped fear of an invasion of Western Europe by a devastated Soviet Union. In the 1950s, Greece, Turkey and Germany joined, and Spain in 1982, bringing the total of members to 16. But since 1997 when Yeltsin agreed to with “sort of a bribe,” NATO has added 14 new members, including nine that had been behind the “Iron Curtain.”
The “peace dividend” had turned into an expansion payoff, as arms contractors lobbied hard for these new NATO members to be accepted, as The New York Times reported in 1998.
Brzezinski Weighed In
Brzezinski at the chess board, 1978. (White House photo/Wikimedia)
As the NATO expansion debate was playing out, Jimmy Carter’s former national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, who still wielded influence in Washington, wrote a piece in 1995 for Foreign Affairs, entitled “A Plan for Europe,” in which he said:
“As a practical matter, the issue of formally widening the alliance .. can no longer be avoided. … The absence of a longer-range design for Europe can deprive the alliance of its historical raison d’être. … It is not carping criticism to point out that, so far, the Clinton administration has projected neither a strategic vision nor a clear sense of direction on a matter of such salience to Europe’s future as enlarging NATO. … Continued U.S. waffling could also consolidate Russian opposition to any expansion of NATO so that any eventual move to widen the alliance will unavoidably be seen as conveying a hostile message to Moscow.”
Ever focused on control of Eurasia, Brzezinski appeared to favor post-Soviet Russia drawing closer to Europe as opposed to Eurasia. “Fundamentally, the political struggle within Russia is over whether Russia will be a national and increasingly European state or a distinctively Eurasian and once again an imperial state,” he wrote.
Brzezinski worried what Moscow’s reaction would be if it were eventually denied an offer to join NATO. “If excluded and rejected, they will be resentful, and their own political self-definition will become more anti-European and anti-Western,” he wrote. It was an offer never made.
According to a 2014 article in Foreign Affairs: “’You say that NATO is not directed against us, that it is simply a security structure that is adapting to new realities,’ Gorbachev told Baker in May, according to Soviet records. ‘Therefore, we propose to join NATO.’ Baker refused to consider such a notion, replying dismissively, ‘Pan-European security is a dream.’”
Brzezinski urged that an announcement of expansion be made quickly, with the details to be worked out later. “The longer this is delayed, the more vociferous Moscow’s objections are likely to be,” Brzezinski wrote.
He added, however, that “talk of a … Russian military threat is not justified, either by actual circumstances or even by worst-case scenarios for the future. The expansion of NATO should, therefor, not be driven by whipping up anti-Russian hysteria that could eventually become a self-fulfilling prophecy.”
Brzezinski called for “‘no forward deployment’ of NATO forces in Central Europe [that] would underline the nonantagnonistic character of the expansion. This should mitigate some of Russia’s legitimate concerns.”
Anti-Russian feeling in the U.S. began to rise with the ascension of Vladimir Putin to power on the last day of 1999 after Wall Street and Washington had had dominant influence over Yeltsin’s post-Soviet Russia. It built into full-blown, anti-Russia hysteria by 2014 and has been cresting ever since, reaching new peaks with Russiagate (despite it having been proven false.) NATO forward deployments in Central Europe have been routine for years and are growing by the day in the midst of the current crisis.
Brzezinski, however, put a huge caveat in his understanding of Moscow’s position, saying that “not all of Russia’s concerns are legitimate — and the alliance should not shrink from making that known.” Brzezinski agreed with H.W. Bush scotching Baker’s agreement with Gorbachev:
“Just five years ago [1990], the alliance had to overcome Russian objections to the inclusion of the reunited Germany in NATO. Wisely, the Bush administration spurned those who favored acquiescence to the Kremlin. Face with U.S. determination to include the united Germany in NATO, with or without Russia’s assent, Moscow wisely assented.”
He said the issue of NATO expansion calls for “a similar display of constructive firmness. The Kremlin must be made to understand that bluster and threats will be neither productive nor effective and may even accelerate the process of expansion.”
In view of the current Russian demand for a treaty that would preclude Ukraine and Georgia joining NATO, Brzezinski said Russia does not have “the right” to “veto NATO expansion.”
Nevertheless, Brzezinski was more forward thinking than the Biden administration today. He said the “independent decision of the alliance to enlarge its membership should be accompanied by a simultaneous invitation to Russia to help create a new transcontinental system of collective security, one that goes beyond the expansion of NATO proper.” Putin is demanding a new “security architecture” for Europe.
Drawing the Line
It is difficult to fathom that the U.S. leaders in power in the 1990s would not understand future problems with Russia over this expansion, as even their man Yeltsin voiced concerns. They were confronted with those problems in Putin’s 2007 Munich speech: “We have the right to ask: against whom is this [NATO] expansion intended? And what happened to the assurances our western partners made after the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact? Where are those declarations today? No one even remembers them.”
Putin spoke three years after the Baltic States, former Soviet republics bordering on Russia, joined the Western Alliance. A year after his speech, NATO said Ukraine and Georgia would become members, which has not yet happened, but four more eastern European states joined in 2009.
Since then NATO has held many military exercises Russia has found threatening. TASS reported in December that NATO holds 40 exercises a year near Russian territory. It said:
“US strategic aviation has considerably increased flights along Russian borders. During such flights the planes simulated launches of cruise missiles against targets inside Russian territory. ‘Over the past month alone there have been 30 flights, twice more than in the same period last year,’ [chief of Russia’s General Staff Valery] Gerasimov said.”
In 2016, a 10-day maneuver was carried out in Poland with 31,000 NATO troops from 24 nations and thousands of tanks and other vehicles. The exercise was the first time German troops taking part crossed Poland towards Russia since the Nazi invasion of 1941.
These moves led then German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier to accuse NATO of “saber-rattling” and “war-mongering.” Steinmeier told Bild am Sontag newspaper:
“‘What we shouldn’t do now is inflame the situation further through saber-rattling and warmongering. Whoever believes that a symbolic tank parade on the alliance’s eastern border will bring security is mistaken. We are well-advised to not create pretexts to renew an old confrontation,” saying it would be ‘fatal to search only for military solutions and a policy of deterrence.’”
That year NATO also installed a missile base in Romania that can strike Russia, claiming it was only “defensive” against incoming missiles from Iran, though the weapons can also be used offensively. A similar missile base, previously canceled, is slated to be operational in Poland later this year.
Six years after NATO promised Ukraine would one day become a member, the U.S. led a coup in Kiev that overthrew a democratically-elected president who leaned towards Moscow. The U.S. move seemed to come from Brzezinski’s playbook. In his 1997 book, The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives, he wrote:
“Ukraine, a new and important space on the Eurasian chessboard, is a geopolitical pivot because its very existence as an independent country helps to transform Russia. Without Ukraine, Russia ceases to be a Eurasian empire. Russia without Ukraine can still strive for imperial status, but it would then become a predominantly Asian imperial state.”
Thus U.S. “primacy,” or world dominance, which still drives Washington, is not possible without control of Eurasia, as Brzezinski argued, and that’s not possible without control of Ukraine by pushing Russia out. What Brzezinski and U.S. leaders still view as Russia’s “imperial ambitions” are in Moscow seen as imperative defensive measures against an aggressive West.
Pushed Too Far
Public opening session between Lavrov and Blinken on Jan. 21. (Ruptly screenshot.)
Nearly 15 years after Putin’s Munich speech, in which he began to draw the line with the West, Russia has had enough. It chose this moment to confront the U.S. and demand a resolution to these issues in draft treaties that would halt NATO expansion, prevent Ukraine and Georgia from joining, and prohibit NATO states from deploying “ground-launched intermediate-range and shorter-range missiles outside their national territories from which such weapons can attack targets in the national territory of the other Party.”
The treaty proposal makes a clear reference to Ukraine, saying, “The Parties shall not use the territories of other States with a view to preparing or carrying out an armed attack against the other Party or other actions affecting core security interests of the other Party.”
As Western arms pour into Ukraine ostensibly to defend against the “invasion,” but quite possibly to arm a Kiev offensive in the east, the draft with the U.S. says:
“The Parties shall refrain from deploying their armed forces and armaments, including in the framework of international organizations, military alliances or coalitions, in the areas where such deployment could be perceived by the other Party as a threat to its national security, with the exception of such deployment within the national territories of the Parties.”
Last week, after talks with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Geneva, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said NATO “was set up against the Soviet Union and for some reason it still works against Russia.”
In the draft treaty with the U.S., Russia argues, among other points, that NATO’s insistence that it can admit any member that it wants clashes with its members’ obligations under the 1975 Helsinki Accords that the national security interests of one or more states parties should not threaten the security of another.
The proposed treaty says: “The United States of America shall undertake to prevent further eastward expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and deny accession to the Alliance to the States of the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.”
Russia sees itself as finally standing up to a bully. Often a bully will back down when finally challenged. But other times the bully, who’s been falsely accusing his victim of being the aggressor, twists this challenge into a new opportunity to play the victim and go on the attack.
Russia’s troop deployments on its territory near Ukraine and its vow to resort to “technical-military” means is not seen publicly by the U.S. as a Russian negotiating tactic to pressure Washington to take its draft treaties seriously, but as an “imminent” threat of invasion.
The U.S. portrays its talks this month with Russia not as an effort to create a new European security arrangement, which even Brzezinski had called for, but only to prevent a Russian invasion.
The war mania being drummed up in U.S. and British media recalls Brzezinski‘s warning that “whipping up anti-Russian hysteria … could eventually become a self-fulfilling prophecy.”
It is not a new trick. Mark Twain warned:
“The statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception.”
Joe Lauria is editor-in-chief of Consortium News and a former U.N. correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, and numerous other newspapers. He was an investigative reporter for the Sunday Times of London and began his professional work as a 19-year old stringer for The New York Times. He can be reached at [email protected] and followed on Twitter @unjoe
Fake CIA psyops “Russian bounties” and “Havana Syndrome” were daily reported by the hysterical MSM as well.
This provides excellent historical context, and I am glad to see the references to Russia’s proposed treaty. I think that the U.S. peace movement should demand that the U.S. sign Russia’s proposed treaty. Despite the usual framing and misinformation that we get from the corporate media, the treaty is eminently reasonable, indeed quite commendable, and in line with the cause of de-escalation and peace.
Baker, or anyone else in the USA or in Russia, not even the Pope, had a mandate or permission, in any shape or form, to decide how the recently free and democratic countries of Central Europe should organise their defence or economic direction. They had enough sense to realise that although the USSR had collapsed, Russia and the KGB still existed. They did two things, applied to join the EU and applied to join NATO to protect their future. If NATO had been dissolved in 1991, a follow-on European self-defense collective would surely have been stood up for EU members.
I have read
It’s all about Liquid Natural Gas from USA vs NG from Russia (a knockout of USA economy if operational).
Round One could be the coup and subsequent curtailment of transport via Nord Stream 1.
A win for USA LNG. But…here comes
Round Two featuring Nord Stream 2 which would cripple
LNG from USA, (regasified by the 29 or so billion dollar plants built around the EU for LNG).
The demise of NS2 would re-establish and unleash USA hegemony.
Plausible.
? Could re-opening NS1 be consolation?
A fine article by Joe Lauria. Thanks also for the Twain quote at the ending. Just before that, Twain says or warmongers:
“The handful will shout louder. A few fair men on the other side will argue and reason against the war with speech and pen, and at first will have a hearing and be applauded; but it will not last long; those others will outshout them, and presently the anti-war audiences will thin out and lose popularity. Before long you will see this curious thing: the speakers stoned from the platform, and free speech strangled by hordes of furious men who in their secret hearts are still at one with those stoned speakers – as earlier – but do not dare to say so. And now the whole nation – pulpit and all – will take up the war-cry, and shout itself hoarse, and mob any honest man who ventures to open his mouth; and presently such mouths will cease to open.”
This is precisely the problem of defective policy debate that I argue against in proposing the College of Policy Debate (CongressOfDebate dot org), where all are welcome to download the preliminary essays and materials. In a few weeks I will post there a book with the full presentation.
Those able to volunteer to do the initial software are welcome to contact me for details. The functional specs are in preparation.
Excellent recap Joe. Add in the profit-seeking necessity caused by the over-cooked shale gas boom, and the number of backs laboring to push this boulder off the cliff comes into focus. The sg boom overproduced and the Benjamins don’t flow unless the gas is sold and consumed, so Nord Stream II just can’t happen. The duplicity and hypocrisy is breathtaking: US tells Europe the Russkies will use the pipeline/gas to blackmail them, whilst that is EXACTLY what the US is now doing to them! To the tune of threatening a 21st century brush war – but of course it wouldn’t end there.
Another shade of the duplicity and hypocrisy lies in the fact that Biden’s/US’ promises of responsible action on climate change are a fraud so long as we’re liquifying gas and shipping it around the world. And “100 years of US energy security”? I give it 25 years, and “oh-by the way” the energy markets are global so don’t expect the cost to be stable.
I do so truly want to be proud of my nation, our people, but for my entire (68 year) life all I see around us is malfeasance. They are too far out of earshot to hear us and too far above us to see us. It matters not – and hasn’t for some time – what “we the people” want and would choose. Spread our wisdom to the uncouth and unclutured? Surely you jest.
Thanks for a very, very important detail, one which clears up the confusion on why European leadership willingly goes along with policy leadership from the US whose recklessness ultimately undermines their security. Another point often missed, is that from the American perspective, the idea of European independence is as unacceptable as Russian or Chinese independence, so undermining any movement in that direction in order to tie Europe permanently to the US apron string has long been policy.
Thank you for the terrific article…
I have a question for you:
Putin warned the US and NATO that Russia’s explicit security concerns must be addressed.
But the US and NATO have shrugged off Putin’s demands on NATO expansion and nuclear weapons in Romania and Poland.
That puts the ball in Putin’s court.
How do you think Putin should respond … or should he??
Thanks,
Mike
Thanks very helpful article The U.S. hm…. I was glad to hear Putin’s speach…. Eastern Europe has been a weapons bonanza for U.S. weapons manufacturers, who have tremendous political power.
Not only was Russiagate a lie, but The USSR never intended to invade Western Europe despite the cold war lies that it was intent on doing so. Also, Kennedy’s “missile gap” was a campaign lie to show that JFK was a more hawkish cold warrior than Nixon.
So, you now perceive that the United States was always everything that it claimed Russia (or the Soviet Union) to be: the actual warmongering bully that engaged in quite real bloody wars (and not just verbal assaults or empty rhetoric) around the entire globe, wars that spilt our own precious blood amidst torrents of foreign blood, oft times for decades on end, and ran up abysmal national debts whilst starving our people of essential infrastructure and badly needed social programs, including health care and education.
Good, the truth is the first step to setting you free. Now you know, without a shadow of a doubt, that when Washington lies it tells absolute, highly damaging whoppers with sneering impunity. Its word is no good, as worthless as a three-dollar bill. Why should we believe anything our leaders tell us now, based on their track record for such shameless deception? In light of all that, why do we even keep these people around? Why are they not in jail? If you lie to any law enforcement official, that is a crime for which you may be imprisoned. Joe Biden has a well documented biography of lying about practically everything he’s ever said. I’m sure you’ve seen the video compilations. They can last an hour. The problem with expecting the legislature to impeach and remove all the inveterate liars in the executive branch is that our legislators are just as egregious liars themselves. Unfortunately, we only get an opportunity to remove them once every two or six years at the polls. If this is the best system of governance there is, maybe we should give number 2 on list a shot.
Great summation. Bravo.
Sometime in the future there will be no Putin, then if his ilk do not gain control, Russia could perhaps turn to be admitted to NATO, thus linking the Atlantic to the Pacific. a move which would bring government of the people by the people another step closer.
What makes you think NATO stands for that?
A less intelligent and less cautious leader would have taken Washington’s bait for war long ago. If Stephen F. Cohen were still alive he could tell you of all the competing factions that Putin has to deal with in leading Russia. It’s much like occupying the American presidency, except that Putin is competent.
One of the most damaging and flat out false lies we are being told, is that Putin is some kind of despotic madman, a dictator not unlike Saddam Hussein, plotting to remake the Soviet Union.
The reality is of course that Putin has approval ratings most Western leaders can only dream about, and was elected in free and overall fair elections (as testified to by foreign observers.).
Is Russia a totally free and Democratic country? No, but far more so than China or some of America’s “friends” such as Rwanda.
Putin’s two REAL crimes are course:
1 He’s looking out for Russian interests, and is seeking a multipolar world, rather than looking out for American corporate interests and a world ruled by a Washington consensus.
2: He has been very good at it. Just look at the increased cooperation with both the EU and China, or Russia’s policy in the Middle East, where he has managed to balance cooperating with Syria and Iran on limited objectives, while at the same time not endangering Russia’s good relationship with Israel. Quite the balancing act to put it mildly.
LOLOLOL!
And what’s the definition of “of Putin’s ilk”? Strong, fairly popular leaders who look out for their country’s best interest?
In that case you’re right of course. If Putin is replaced by a weak puppet of US who’s beholden to the interests of the military-industrial complex, then there would be “peace” temporarily.
A Yeltsin-esque peace where the Russian economy is divided among American corporations, and tens of billions of dollars are invested in American military hardware to ensure compliance with NATO standards.
That peace would be short lived however, since Russia would only be used to complete the encirclement of China.
LOLOLOL!
And what’s the definition of “of Putin’s ilk”? Strong, fairly popular leaders who look out for their country’s best interest?
In that case you’re right of course. If Putin is replaced by a weak puppet of US who’s beholden to the interests of the military-industrial complex, then there would be “peace” temporarily.
A Yeltsin-esque peace where the Russian economy is divided among American corporations, and tens of billions of dollars are invested in American military hardware to ensure compliance with NATO standards.
That peace would be short lived however, since Russia would only be a pawn used to complete the encirclement of China.
The United States is a government of the wealthy, by the wealthy, and for the wealthy. Period.
“Anti-Russian feeling in the U.S. began to rise with the ascension of Vladimir Putin to power on the last day of 1999 after Wall Street and Washington had had dominant influence over Yeltsin’s post-Soviet Russia.”
Now there’s an interesting coincidence. Wall Street loses dominant influence in Russia and immediately anti-Russian feelings begin to rise. When has that ever happened before. (I’m not sure I can count that high.)
Excellent observation.
Smedley Buttler’s book “War is a Racket” explains well the ongoing tensions in Ukraine.
Perhaps, the only salvation for the US is to have a smooth and wise regime change that would confine the US “owners” to their well-appointed shelter-bunkers and remove the geriatric opportunists from the position of power.
For now, the country looks like the Titanic meeting the iceberg.
There are should be patriots in this country – those who would risk their lives to restore the sanity of governance by clipping the banksters’s powers and dismantling the thoroughly corrupt MIC. The US is a beautiful country blessed with natural resources. It is tragic that the FIRE/MIC parasitic ‘economy” has devoured the country.
Another brilliant piece, Joe, esp. with the Zbig focus. Has anybody studied his role as Obama’s main mentor and promoter at Columbia – and beyond? O did nothing to tone down a single element of the Grand Strategy, IMHO.
Thanks. That’s part of Joe’s next piece.
Can’t wait to read that. Whenever I think of that man these days, I simply experience this profound sense of utter betrayal, because there was not that much more to him really. Apologies to those still fooled by his schtick.
Everyone who is serious about world politics should read Brzezinski’s books. He sets out quite clearly what the long-term obsession of the United States is: world domination, particularly of what Mackinder described as the “world island”. Once people have digested the fact that this goal is the one overriding goal of U.S. imperialism, things become much clearer.
As usual an excellent article from Joe Lauria. As I have noted when sharing it, the
essential basis of anticommunist fervor was expressed by Harry Truman in The Truman Doctrine,
a speech made to Congress on March 7, 1947 (See Joyce and Gabriel Kolko, “The Limits of Power”
Ch. 12, (1976) for a thorough analysis.)
That the man who asked “it depends on what the meaning of ‘is’ is” would interpret “not an inch to the East” as not applying if it was much more than an inch is not surprising. Nor is it surprising that the Clintonian doctrine of loudly blaming everyone else for whatever you were guilty of with a crescendo of support from the verisimilitude of a free press which journalism became would infect all of his predecessors, indeed, the entire formerly liberal and pacifist Democratic Party. Thus, the “peace dividend” that should have paid for “free” healthcare and education for all, for vastly improved infrastructure and for a meaningful welfare system and to feed, clothe and house all the world’s desperately poor, sort of slid into the pockets of political patrons via defense contracts and pharmaceutical mandates, etc. Thus here we are, not “an inch” further away from Armageddon than we were in that optimistic autumn of 1991, now seemingly ages away, and the poor just as poor as ever, and Americans of African descent still trapped in the quicksand of Democratic Party politics, with a token appointment here and there to keep them voting.
With much gratitude to Consortium News for clear-headed analysis and revealing the war promoters. This is more of the anti-war quote from Mark Twain, which describes the same manipulations we face today:
“There has never been a just [war], never an honorable one–on the part of the instigator of the war. I can see a million years ahead, and this rule will never change in so many as half a dozen instances. The loud little handful–as usual–will shout for the war. The pulpit will–warily and cautiously–object–at first; the great, big, dull bulk of the nation will rub its sleepy eyes and try to make out why there should be a war, and will say, earnestly and indignantly, ‘It is unjust and dishonorable, and there is no necessity for it.’ Then the handful will shout louder. A few fair men on the other side will argue and reason against the war with speech and pen, and at first will have a hearing and be applauded; but it will not last long; those others will outshout them, and presently the anti-war audiences will thin out and lose popularity. Before long you will see this curious thing: the speakers stoned from the platform, and free speech strangled by hordes of furious men who in their secret hearts are still at one with those stoned speakers–as earlier–but do not dare say so. And now the whole nation–pulpit and all–will take up the war-cry, and shout itself hoarse, and mob any honest man who ventures to open his mouth; and presently such mouths will cease to open. Next the statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception.”
– from The Mysterious Stranger and Other Stories
Don’t forget the War Prayer, also by Twain. A devastating indictment.
Americans aren’t ignorant and bigoted. It’s just that they still think you can believe what you read in the paper and see on TV.
If they weren’t ignorant and bigoted, they could not possibly believe what they read in the paper and see on TV. It’s not possible to be well informed and. open minded and believe the MSM at the same time. It’s either one or the other, I am afraid.
But what do you mean by the MSM? Fox News, or MSNBC?
No, there’s more to it. Americans who are not ignorant and bigoted still have a blind spot when it comes to believing the official narrative. Admittedly that official narrative has become much more sophisticated in its learning to press the “human rights” and “struggle for freedom” buttons. … Or should I say “pull out the stops,” to fit the Mighty Wurlitzer metaphor?
Not all Americans are ignorant and bigoted. But a sufficient number of them are lulled into unconsciousness by corporate media, advertising, misinformation, lack of education and the ever-growing struggle merely to survive the day. All of this is deliberte, of course, on the part of the ruling class. This is why the French had the right idea in 1789.
Yeah, right. If Gorbachev had gotten it writing, making it legally binding, US lead NATO would’ve kept its promise.
In 1945, the US controlled over 80% of the world’s resources. Today it controls less than 40% and that number is rapidly shrinking. Since the European Colonial Project began, 500 years ago, the goal has always been to gain and maintain control over these resources. The US today spearheads the European Colonial Project, which passed its zenith is heading towards its nadir.
US and NATO expansion are but the latest and increasingly desperate attempts to retain global control. We all know legality is no obstacle in this quest.
Russia under Primakov knows too well that the best way to defeat an enemy hell bent on destroying himself, is to let him. Russia will not “invade”; but will call out the DC chicken hawks’ bluff. And it will defend its red lines. Russia is not the aggressor but will be the enforcer, if called upon, as we saw in Kazakhstan.
Plenty of Russians have been angry at Gorbachev for not getting it signed into a treaty.
“If Gorbachev had gotten it writing, making it legally binding, US lead NATO would’ve kept its promise.” I’m not sure if I believe that. Since when does the US respect treaties? But it certainly explains why Russia now wants everything in writing. Now if only the US media would learn about the draft treaties…
Yes, it’s time to dump NATO and move on with history.
NATO should have been disbanded in the early 90ies at the latest.
Their only purpose ever since then, has been ensuring American arms sales to new members.
New members who were only too happy to join because of the prospect of consulting gigs and jobs in Brussels for their corrupt elites.
Well presented piece and all quite valid and true – thank you Joe Lauria! However, what is needed is a deep dive into the role and activities of the mil-industrial-congressional complex during the 1990’s, when what passed for a debate about NATO was occurring. I’m sure the military and security contractors had a lot to say about NATO and its possible expansion, both directly and through their ever subservient think tanks.
As the piece makes clear, the ‘peace dividend’ from no longer spending so much on arms never came. But arms sales are never the sole driving force. Men are motivated by power and dominance, not just money.
With Human Caused Climate Change bearing down on all of us, the West and Russia alike, these, what history will describe as petty arguments, arguments between West and East will be our downfall. We must come together as human beings in our quest for mutual survival if any of us are to survive.
So you’re saying that Russia should have been allowed to join NATO?
Added to the article:
According to a 2014 article in Foreign Affairs: “’You say that NATO is not directed against us, that it is simply a security structure that is adapting to new realities,’ Gorbachev told Baker in May, according to Soviet records. ‘Therefore, we propose to join NATO.’ Baker refused to consider such a notion, replying dismissively, ‘Pan-European security is a dream.’”
Yes, my question was somewhat rhetorical. It makes no less sense for the former USSR nations to be part of NATO than it does for Greece or Turkey. What makes no sense is the existence of NATO in the first place. Once we realize that from the point of view of the UK, France, and the US the main purpose of WWII was not ending Fascism but ending Communism, that becomes clear. And now that the “threat” of Communism is gone there is no need for NATO – that is, the peoples of the various NATO nations have no need for NATO. What does need NATO is the existing world order based on total control over resources by the US and its allies in the interest of Capital. And maintaining the perception of the need for that control requires enemies – that is, enemies other than Capital itself.
Either that, or dissolve it. Otherwise, it’s objectively anti-Russian. What other country was told not to join, and to never to even try?
And if NATO is anti-Russian, then its rhetoric is a lie, and it’s continued existence is a clear danger to world peace. It should be dissolved as soon as practicable, in a way that threatens no one.
As well, up until now (1949–2022), all of NATO’s shots fired in anger have been offensive acts, targeting territories that were not threatening or attacking any NATO members. So much for being a “defensive” alliance.
Many of the ruling classes of Europe and America live on generational wealth from the colonial era so unsurprisingly its military alliance today pursues similar aims.
Skip that will take getting rid of democrat and republican parties first. Both need to be eunthanized.
I wish more Americans would heed such information and use their brains for understanding and compassion rather than ignorance and bigotry. To this day, I am shocked that there was so little outcry over James Clapper’s comments some years ago that postulated a genetic Russian tendency to lie. An excuse for genocide?