The fact is that they made the assurance, and then lied and said they never gave such an assurance. If you think lying isn't nefarious, that's your outlook.
The problem with this argument is that there is no particular "they" that lied here. George Bush (senior) negotiated these assurances and then, almost a decade later, Clinton reneged on them.
I think it is generally known that foreign relation promises not enshrined in formal treaties should not be expected to last across different administrations.
+1. I fail to see how the NATO is in the 'wrong' here. They broke assurances in 1994 that they made to an entity which failed to exist after 1991. WUT?
Russia isn’t the Soviet Union, it was a part of the Soviet Union, and a member of the “Commonwealth of Independent States” that nominally succeeded it. My understanding is that treaties were reaffirmed with the individual states.
Does every non-binding commitment to be Soviet Union apply to Uzbekistan? Estonia? Georgia?
What about when the desires of Estonia conflict with the Soviets?
What about when the interests of the United States and other big NATO states conflict with the commitments to the various Post-Soviet states?
Yet, that's exactly what happened and you "conveniently" forgot to mention that Russia also took all the SU wealth and reserves. They even pulled back all of the weapons and military vehicles out of the ex-member countries, leaving them exposed and then started to help separatists in the wars against sovereign nations. Russia is shittiest neighbor of them all.
Yet Russia took Soviet Union embassies. Even those that belonged to other countries before USSR annexed them. As well as grandfathered USSR seat in UN security council.
Kaliningrad was also given to Soviet Union Even though it was attached to Russian Federation to work around this. If Russia ain't Soviet Union successor, Kaliningrad should be no man's land or returned to Germany.
Talking about Estonia.. When Estonia tried to relocate USSR monument, it was Russia which objected.
Soviet Union did not accept the blame for occupation of Baltic states so I don't see how it should be Russia's obligation.
Repercussions of Holodomor were deaths of millions of Soviet citizens in Russia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine and Belarus. What do you want Russia to accept here ?
Russia denies it's Soviet Union obligations whenever talks turn to paying reparations for Baltic States occupation or military actions in Czechoslovakia or Hungary.
Yet they love Soviet Union obligations when they don't return Lithuania's interwar embassy in Rome. Or when May 8/9 comes around :)
Exactly, much of the eastward expansion of NATO was from parts of the Soviet Union joining NATO. If they didn't want NATO to expand eastward, then they shouldn't have joined it.
The problem is, that when Russia brought up those agreements pretty much everybody said "nu-uh, that did not happen, show me the agreements". When Russians mention that the agreement was verbal they are pretty much accused of lying. Now we have proof that the verbal agreement exists.
it isn't a binding agreement if there is no treaty. I'm sure russia had some treaties saying don't invade georgia, but they did. The old soviet union gave Crimea to Ukraine and Russia took it back by force. That was part of another country.
Russia's violates treaties when it wants. It is not a trustworthy country. I think Russia is afraid of countries that want to be independent of the Russia's greater power.
Like Libya. Qaddafi dismantled his nuclear weapons programme and chemical weapons programme, cooperated with efforts to end nuclear proliferation down to exposing everyone who sold or otherwise helped and shared intelligence on terrorist threats and organisations. And in the end he died of being sodomised by bayonet after the US supported an uprising he would have easily crushed otherwise.
Kim was watching and so was every other dictator. You need nuclear weapons if you want security. The US can’t credibly commit to leave any power alone that’s not a client.
It was mostly European countries that wanted to do it. That doesn't mean they did it. Just googling "Libya no fly zone" looking at the headlines and dates will tell that story. It had to be a NATO operation so it needed active US support and it couldn't have gotten UN Security Council Resolution in support without the US.
To be fair, there was a lot of tension there over how brutal exactly he was going to be in putting that rebellion down.
But yes, this is a huge problem. Once we convince someone to disarm, refusing to take force off the table completely undermines future efforts to disarm.
I often said throughout the 2000s that if with as much shit talk as the U.S. throws Hugo Chavez's way, if he's not either building nukes or hiring jihadis to teach his people guerilla warfare, he's stupid.
I harbored no love of Chavez but when your on the S list of a maurading superpower, you probably should have a plan B.
If I tell my kid he can have a cookie in the afternoon but between then and now he eats a pound of cake, the cookie is coming off the table. If that makes me a liar then so be it. As the situation changes, I change my mind.
Well, that seems dismissive in a needlessly rude way. I agree that realpolitik drives a great many of the decisions of government and that the true motivations are often papered over with slogans and feel good messages. On the other hand, diplomats aren't all hard-bitten cynics. Many of them are very passionate about the areas of the world they help make policy around. The results are often a tension between the two.
I think by the mid nineties, a lot of people were very hopeful about the opening of Russia. Joining the Eastern block nations to NATO didn't have the same conotation it would have had in 1991 or today for that matter.
On this we disagree but we might agree on a lot actually. There seems no need to be snide.
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