(programming note: off for holidays- Happy thanksgiving! In the meantime, I have received a ton of emails from full subscribers asking to re-share this particular post free from a paywall. So here we go.)
False Kremlin narratives around “NATO expansion” resurface - Vivek Ramaswamy edition.
There have now been some truly unfortunate reports that a number of US and European officials have (in their communications with Ukrainian counterparts) suggested revisiting the possibility of a negotiation with Russia - to find some sort of a negotiated settlement to end the war.
Needless to say, if true, this would be a total fiasco of Western policymaking - abandoning Ukraine, and going back on the promises to back them ‘‘for as long as it takes” (a public G7 commitment from as recently as May), rewarding Russia for its invasion, and granting it an additional territory the size of the UK, is the fastest way for both the US and the EU to lose their global credibility and influence.
The future of American national security will be bleak - with China (and its invasion-emboldened expansionist partner in Europe) on the ascent, and America’s security guarantees and deterrence credibility in tatters.
But like it or not, the calls for ‘‘negotiations’’ will come back, and it is important to rebut these appeals - revealing the fundamental unsoundness and baselessness of these arguments.
One such ‘‘negotiated solution” is offered by US Presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy.
In an interview with Piers Morgan, he fleshed out his vision for a deal with Putin: Russia gets to keep its conquered land, and NATO makes a ‘‘hard commitment” to not admit Ukraine in return for Moscow abandoning China as a ‘‘military ally” :
“He has to exit his military alliance with Xi Jinping. End the Russia-China military alliance”
Tangentially, Ramaswamy made two further claims: 1) Ukraine is not a democracy, since it banned ‘‘opposition parties’’, and that ‘‘Russian speaking’’ residents were not granted a representation in Parliament, and 2) The West went back on its word to Russia after promising not to expand NATO’s to the east.
The first part is easy - Ramaswamy has no idea what he is talking about here: a nation at war will naturally ban fake Kremlin-controlled “opposition parties” (it is notable that there was of course huge public support for them getting abolished, and there was absolutely no public backlash against the measures - something you would expect if a genuine political party was removed from the scene).
Ukraine is a democracy, and if it wasn’t, an organization as stringent as the EU (that constantly causes headaches to those leaders that start leaning towards anti-democratic practices - e.g. Hungary and Poland) would not rush to offer an accelerated pathway for Ukraine’s membership into the club.
Indeed, the EU’s Commission President Ursula Von Der Leyen had just confirmed that Ukraine had successfully completed 90% of the anti-corruption and judicial reforms necessary to become a member of the club - and formal accession talks are now expected to begin in December.
(side note: Ukraine is enough of an open democracy where the commander-in-chief wrote an essay where he candidly admitted a ‘‘stalemate’’ - something that certainly puts President Zelenskyy in a tough spot. Yet he managed to make this declaration without a major fear of ‘‘falling off balconies” - a perpetual threat to anyone that crosses Putin. It is hard to imagine Putin’s chief commander making similar admissions that would undermine the Kremlin narrative. It is inconceivable that General Gerasimov or Defense Minister Shoygu would ever admit to the existence of a stalemate (a conclusion that they almost certainly share with their Ukrainian counterpart) at the time when Putin is busy promising victory in public)
But the second part - that Ukrainian Russian-speaking minorities were not properly represented in the polity - is a remarkably sticky disinformation.
Ramaswamy is not alone in parroting this Kremlin propaganda piece either - Democratic Party presidential candidate RFK has also asserted on many occasions that Ukraine was somehow in default of the ‘‘Minsk agreements”.
Again, nothing can be further from the truth - with the exceptions of Switzerland and the UK, no other country in Europe had as much political power and autonomy granted to a significant portion of its population as it was the case in Ukraine.
(side note: readers who want additional context can take a look at this post published by these cables last year - outlining how much true power the annexed regions actually enjoyed under the very Minsk accords that a) Ukraine implemented fully, and b) Russia did not)
But before we rebut the nonsensical pie in the sky proposal (of ‘‘breaking apart” the Russia - China alliance) advanced by Ramaswamy (in the future Part II post), we need to first rebuke the false narratives around NATO expansion and the alleged broken promise not to do so.
Part I: Baseless claims around NATO expansion and “broken promises” to Russia.
There are two broad claims made by those desperate to find a rational reason for the invasion of Ukraine:
1) That the possibility of a significant NATO border with Russia (with a potential membership of Ukraine) posed an unacceptable security threat to Russia - and that invasion of Ukraine was thus predictable;
2) That the US promised no ‘‘eastern expansion’’ of NATO in the 1990s, and so, the ultimate blame for the resulting war lays with the West (this second part of the claim is usually made implicitly).
We shall disprove both of these claims in order.
Claim #1: That a significant NATO expansion so close to Russian borders posed an unacceptable security threat to the Russian state.
If NATO was truly a threat to Russia, if Putin really believed his own propaganda, then we would have expected conduct in alignment with this belief.
A common argument advanced by those straining very hard to find casus belli on behalf of Putin, was that Ukraine joining NATO would allow the alliance to place missiles (and other NATO hardware) very close to Russia - and that such a possibility would be too dangerous for Moscow to ignore.
But this is total nonsense:
1. Ukraine’s NATO membership was nowhere near.
First off, prior to the invasion of Ukraine, the country was probably decades away from ever becoming part of the alliance - there wasn’t even a hint of a membership action plan (MAP).
The US itself (for an acceptably long time) was hesitating to supply Ukraine with Javelin anti-tank missiles, let alone be open to the idea of admitting the country into NATO…
It is Russia’s invasion that is now expediting the process that he originally claimed to avoid.
2. NATO already had a better strategic location to threaten Russia - Ukraine was not necessary for this.
If NATO wanted to place missiles very close to Russia, then the logical place would be Estonia - in terms of distance to Moscow, it is approximately equidistant, and when it comes to St Petersburg (Russia’s second largest city and a region (along with Kaliningrad) that is home to Russian Navy’s Baltic Fleet) it is mere 260 miles away.
Yet there was no concern when Estonia (and other Baltic states) had joined NATO 19 years ago.
And Russia’s military posture in the area did not change in any meaningful way - we did not witness any conduct that would be consistent of higher levels of worry of a missile attack.
We didn’t see redeployment of troops or major repositioning of air-defense SAM systems like the S-300s and S-400s.
3. If NATO was a true threat, Putin would not redeploy troops away from Kaliningrad (bordering Poland) and move them into Ukraine.
And most importantly, now that Finland (a country that shares a 830 miles long border with Russia) is member of NATO, why aren’t Russian troops moving north to protect St Petersburg and Moscow from a NATO state with a far more modern air power?
Finland has a modern fleet of 4th fighter jets, long-range missiles & artillery and strategically dangerous proximity to Russia.
Why aren’t we hearing Putin make threats to Finland about hosting NATO missiles?
Why is Russia not redeploying troops to protect its northern flank?
The answer is simple: there is no NATO threat of a preemptive attack.
Putin knows that there is no NATO intention to attack Russia.
The decision to invade Ukraine may have had a number of reasons but a NATO threat/NATO expansion was clearly not one of them.
4. Putin’s real objectives and desires were not at all hidden..
In July 2021, full 7 months prior to the invasion, Putin published an essay - ‘‘On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians” - arguing for historic sameness of Russia and Ukraine - claiming that a Ukrainian state was an aberration as a concept and an unacceptable fiction (never mind that Kyiv was a major regional hub at the time when Moscow was not even a city.. ).
He simply did not respect Ukraine as a sovereign nation - months into the invasion, he furthermore compared himself to Peter the Great: claiming that he was ‘‘returning’’ historic Russian lands.
(side note: by that logic, Turkey would need to reinvade entire Northern Africa and Middle East - lands that belonged to it under the Ottoman Rule. And we are lucky that the UK does not have delusional leaders like Putin…)
In addition, Ukraine forming closer ties with the EU and becoming a thriving, prosperous slavic state - a successful democracy right at Russia’s borders, was an unacceptable juxtaposition to the Putin regime.
If a large slavic nation can succeed as a modern liberal-democracy with a rule of law, then the entire logic of the authoritarian Putin regime - the claim that Russia and Russians ‘‘have their own way of governance” - would be seriously undermined.
It is a tough sell to Russians that the kleptocratic & authoritarian system of governance is the only way to preserve the domestic political order and run Russia, if culturally and ethnically similar Ukraine was going to succeed in reforming itself and join the EU club of rich and democratic states.
What if there were ever a repeat of similar large-scale protest movements in Russia?
Like those Bolotnaya protests organized in 2011 by the Russian opposition, or those by (now jailed) Alexei Navalny in 2021?
The possibility of a ‘‘color revolution’’ in Russia was going to be much more likely if Ukraine was to prove its ultimate success as a result of similar revolutions in 2004 and 2013-2014.
Putin could not have allowed for a tempting example right on the doorstep of his regime - what he considers Russia’s sphere of influence.
5. Russia did everything to launch the war - ignoring US/NATO concessions.
From the get go, Putin advanced impossible to fulfill and highly delusional demands - these were intentionally set up not to be met, and therefore, act as a formal reason for escalation - as in: “look we tried, but they didn’t hear us”.
The demands were deliberate over the top - their impracticality and impossibility to fulfill was precisely the point.
Putin's November 30, 2021 speech and subsequent Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs' ultimatum document on December 17, 2021 sought "security guarantees" from the US and NATO.
These demands effectively aimed to dismantle the current NATO alliance.
The ultimatum insisted on reversing NATO's "open door" policy, denying eastward enlargement, and ceasing the deployment of forces to post-1997 member-states, among other provisions.
In effect, Putin sought a veto power over states seeking NATO membership and how the alliance operated militarily and politically.
These demands would necessitate the rewriting of NATO's founding North Atlantic Treaty and require re-ratification by all member states.
The process would likely lead to the dissolution of NATO and aimed at coercing the West into sacrificing Ukraine's sovereignty.
How could a military alliance agree to Putin’s demands that no weapons would be deployed to countries in the Baltics, or to Romania and Bulgaria?
Putin was effectively seeking a veto over NATO’s internal decision-making: agreeing to this would essentially turn NATO into a paper tiger.
And Putin most certainly understood these realities really well: he knew that these were preposterous demands that would only serve to add to formal grievances necessary to declare war.
6. In spite of all preposterous Russian demands, the US was ready to negotiate and offer significant realistic concessions.
The US proposed discussions on a transparency mechanism to verify the absence of Tomahawk cruise missiles at Aegis Ashore sites in Romania and Poland.
The condition was that Russia should reciprocate with transparency measures on the two ground-launched missile bases chosen by the US in Russia.
Russian diplomats were “pleasantly" surprised by the US proposals, believing they could enhance Russian security.
However, the Kremlin, notably Putin, was not interested in these negotiations.
Putin's intentions were not aimed at countering a supposed NATO threat but rather, at setting conditions for a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
And after all that, after revealing his true intentions time after time, Russia moved in for the kill: producing false flag attacks to claim ‘‘genocide’’ in Donbas.
This was the last major operation to set conditions for an invasion (a plan that was preemptively debunked by the US intel).
And in his speech immediately prior to his order for a ‘‘special military operation”, Putin once again spoke of the state of Ukraine as a historic nonsense - once again revealing his true thoughts.
Ukraine was ultimately invaded because Putin: 1) Wanted to restore Russian empire in the 21st century, 2) Thought that opportunity was there: that Ukraine was weak and would crumble instantly (and that its leadership would flee), and that the West would not back Ukraine to the extent that it did, and 3) As a grand strategic side-benefit, Russia would further weaken and divide the West and NATO over response to the crisis.
Putin’s assumptions were proven wrong - but security threat from NATO was not one of the actual reasons for a ‘‘preemptive attack”.
Claim #2: That Russia was promised no further eastward NATO expansion, and that the West betrayed Russia in going back on this commitment.
This is related but slightly different to the first claim above - the central claim here is that there was a strategic inevitability of a conflict with Russia, giventhe west’s u-turn on its commitments in relation to the eastern expansion of NATO.
Ramaswamy repeats this argument by saying that ‘‘Secretary of State James Baker” (who served under Bush senior) made a promise to Russia that there would be no more eastern expansion of NATO.
This too is of course a total nonsense.
Secretary Baker did not make such a commitment, and besides, Russians were not idiots: they understood that an informal statement by a chief diplomat in one US administration had no binding effect on: a) future US admins and, b) on any other NATO state.
Such decisions were to be made collectively, and Secretary Baker had zero authority to make credible promises of this nature (even if the claim that he did was factually correct - which it was not).
The reality of events is different: according to Robert Zoellick - a senior US diplomat who was in the room with Gorbachev during discussions that ended the cold war, in the 1990, President Gorbachev had actually accepted the idea of a German unification within the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, based on the principle that every country should freely choose its own alliances.
President Bush then asked Gorbachev if he agreed with the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe principle that nations are free to ally with others as they see fit.
Gorbachev agreed.
If it was true that 1) Secretary Baker made assurance on eastern expansion of NATO, and 2) Russia wanted these to be solid and reliable, then Moscow would have demanded assurances in writing if it genuinely believed the US had made such a promise.
In fact, not doing so, not seeking these in writing, would amount to diplomatic negligence.
(side note: they would still have zero binding legal effect on NATO - an organization that makes decisions unanimously - but Russians would at the very least have a concrete treaty/declaration to point at later on if/when the US did go back on such a commitment)
Accession of Poland, Hungary and Czech Republic took place on 12 March 1999.
Putin did not protest as a secretary of the Security Council of Russia (before being appointed prime minister in August 1999).
And Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia had all joined NATO in 2004 - when Putin was re-elected for his second term as President of Russia.
Here is a crucial extract from the New York Times report from April 2004 meeting between Putin and NATO Secretary-General - mere two weeks after the aforementioned states formally joined NATO:
Despite Moscow's opposition to the expansion of NATO, Mr. Putin said he hoped it would lead to ''the strengthening of trust in Europe and the entire world.''
He added that ''each country has the right to choose the form of security it considers most effective.''
Mr. de Joop Scheffer said he understood ''the Russian psychology, when a Russian citizen sees NATO enlarge and wonders, and asks what that is all about.''
He told Mr. Putin that Russia should work with the alliance in confronting today's global threats.
''The problems facing us are simply too big -- terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, Afghanistan, the Balkans, Iraq -- to think that we can go it alone, that Russia or NATO can go it alone,'' he said.
Before meeting the president, Mr. de Joop Scheffer signed an agreement with the Russian defense minister, Sergei B. Ivanov, to improve communications by setting up a Russian liaison office at NATO's military headquarters in Mons, Belgium.
Here we can see that not only was Putin not talking about betrayal, or NATO going back on its alleged assurances made up by Ramaswamy, but he 1) Confirmed each country’s choice in selecting allegiances in security matters, and 2) Expressed hope that this would lead to higher net-trust within Europe and the world.
Now, this does not of course mean that he genuinely held those beliefs - but it is definitely an evidence of his state of mind: this not the language of a person that feels betrayed by America somehow going back on its assurances not to expand eastwards.
And this is because, there simply were not any such assurances.
Here is one more proof of this: Putin’s own original desire to see Russia join NATO back in 2001 undermines the argument that there was a promise to not expand eastwards - how could Russia hope to join an organization that promised not to expand in its direction?
This there were no assurances against NATO’s eastern expansion is not even a matter of debate - it is a historical fact that we need to accept once and for all.
Hopefully you’ll have some comments soon on Orban blocking EU aid to Ukraine and frowning on Ukraine and Moldovan membership.