Has the West betrayed the USSR in 1990?

[Skybird]

I past years I repeatedly clashed with some forum members over the question whether or not NATO has promised the Russians that after German reunification NATO would not extend further to the East. They said no, that never happened, I said, it had not been fixed in a treaty or a binding document, but during negotiations the Russians were given verbal promises that such an extension would not happen - and they took these promises for certain. That was naive, of course, and later under Yeltzin, Russia added quite some more to that naivety; nevertheless: a promise given is a promise given. And yes, the promise got broken. And Putin did not keep that in good memory.

The following is by an american historian who examines this issue since 15 years and has published 2 books so far, mulling her third. She spend years with unlocking secret documents under the Freedom of Information Act. It is a summary of a speech she will hold early Novembre during wall memorial festivities in Germany. She fully confirms what I always have said. There was no written treaty or document, but the issue was raised during negotiations, and the Russians were promised it would not happen.

The Russians were naive in those early years after the Sovjet collapse, and under Putin they started to learn the lesson and to draw consequences from it. Much of the conflicts today maybe could have been avoided, if the western economy and powers would not have launched this predatory business onslaught and if NATO would not have creeped closer and lcoser onto Russia's Western borders. That Russia would react to all that sooner or later, in my opinion was inevitable. The reaction is part of the ingredients that form the reality of the world today. They got pushed - and so they started pushing back.

What those who thought that winning the cold war earned them the right to act as victors and claim all loot as prey have overseen, was this: while the construct of the Warsaw Pact and the Sovjet Union collapsed and was gone for the moment, this did not mean that Russia would be gone as well. And Russia was already before the Sovjet Union.



https://translate.google.de/translat...10788-all.html

[Jimbuna]

Good interesting article and pretty accurate as far as my opinion on the subject matter goes.

[Catfish]

Is this the same historian Mary Sarotte, who writes that
"contrary to Russian allegations, [Soviet President Mikhail] Gorbachev never got the West to promise that it would freeze NATO’s borders." ?

While i think that several chances have been wasted by "the west", no one could now in 1990 that the Warsaw Pact would collapse.

[Skybird]

Its the historian Mary Sarotte who writes: " Many asserted in the years after reunification American commentators mistakenly said that the issue of NATO expansion had never materialized in the negotiations between Germans, Americans and the Soviet Union. Interestingly, the former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev publicly supported this view in 2014. None of the Eastern European countries raised the issue, nor did any of the Western statesmen or diplomats. So stop, he revolted to portray it as if the Soviet representatives had been naive people who had been ripped off by the West. However, documents from 1990 show that there was a moment when Gorbachev felt he had been trapped - and complained very emotionally to Kohl about it. The documents also show that the question of NATO eastern enlargement was thoroughly discussed by Western diplomats. Kohl personally told Bush in 1990 that Gorbachev had "big problems. His Eastern European allies say they want to go to NATO ".

[Catfish]

Then she has changed her mind. Not that i doubt what she says now.

Also good material supporting the view of a betrayal:
Deal or No Deal? The End of the Cold War and the U.S. Offer to Limit NATO Expansion

"Additional archival evidence indicates that U.S. ofªcials repeatedly offered the Soviets informal assurances—a standard diplomatic practice—against NATO expansion during talks on German reunification throughout the spring, summer, and fall of 1990.
Central to this effort was a series of bargaining positions through which the George H.W. Bush administration indicated that Europe’s post–Cold War order would be acceptable to both Washington and Moscow:
NATO would halt in place, and Europe’s security architecture would include the Soviet Union.18

Collectively, this evidence suggests that Russian leaders are essentially correct in claiming that U.S. efforts to expand NATO since the 1990s violate the “spirit” of the 1990 negotiations"

[Kapitan]

While there are no written documents or treaties the west did give a half asses informal promise not to expand, of course the Baltic states who knew what Russia could do and had done even during the Break up were keen to distance themselves from Russia and really could you blame them?

With that said recently we have seen countries like Georgia express interest in joining NATO as have the Ukrainians naturally for obvious reasons.

The west always portrays it as Russian "aggression", how many western papers print headlines saying "RAF jets scrambled to intercept Russian aircraft near Estonia"? lets take a look at that first off RAF British jets in Estonia now lets look deeper Russian Jets near the Estonian border hmmmm which one is flying in its own airspace? is protecting your own airspace aggression? id call that one defensive, and its likely in response to RAF jets flying along the border too.

Here is a cracker for you, 1962 why did the Soviets put missiles in Cuba? Answer: because America put missiles in Turkey, the only reason the Soviet Union removed the missiles was because America agreed to remove the missiles from Turkey, realistically the Soviet Union could have sat that out and stone walled, what would the Americans have done then ? Invade with operational nuclear missiles ready to go immediately? unlikely.

So what did the Americans do? they used a "Quarantine" another word for Blockade and that was coined by Robert McNamara to avoid calling it a Blockade in the first place.
This action in itself is technically an act of war and is against international law re Chapter 1 Article 2 UN Charter, so when Rudolf Andersons U2 violated Cuban airspace it was shot down legally.

Ok how about another one "Russian battle group escorted through the English channel watched closely by the Royal Navy" our media in the UK loves this one, and lets take a look at some facts shall we.

English Channel Dover Straight = UN Decreed international waterway to which any vessel flying any flag be it civil or military has the right to passage (UNCLOS).
The UK media blows this one up and the amount of people that believe it because its called the English channel there fore its English waters is pretty unbelievable in itself.
Now all they were doing is taking a safer shorter passage as do over 400 vessels per day rather than going around the top of Scotland.
But its blown up as if the Russians are coming and there about to land a million troops on Bognor Beach (Should have gone to Southend they have a pier at-least)

But take note, not much mention when other foreign ships came through the Channel, i didn't really hear much when the Chinese ships came through, nor the Indian ships.

Shall we examine Syria?

While the Assad regime is not palatable to the west it is in fact the legitimate recognized government of Syria (as was 2005) and the current SNC is only recognized by about 7 member states of the UN.
When the civil war started Syria asked the Russians for help by way of formal request, they accepted on condition that they can re activate Tartarus the offer was accepted.

Now tell me when did Assad ask the American French and British governments to get involved? after all i always thought regime change (Something we back doored in Iraq and Libya) was against the UN Chapter 1 Article 2 subsection 4 ?

Now i'm saying the Western Powers are not there legitimately they have made an undeclared war, using the War on terrorism as an excuse to go in.

Now how does the media portray this? simply put Russians are there illegally and are bad killing people, but the west is helping everyone........ well i think they got that the wrong way around don't you? after-all wasn't it the Syrian government that asked for help from Russia? no mention of them asking France Britain or the USA is there.

What i'm getting at is that is the Western media is to blame for a lot of needless hype and also what i see as incorrect factual reporting they love to miss bits out or build up tension its a propaganda machine on overdrive.

So lets look at it from the other side too what does Russia see?

Well what they see is a Western Alliance gathering on their Western and Southern Borders en mass, they also see allied to western nations such as Japan and South Korea in the far east effectively they feel surrounded and they would be right.

Here is another thing they also see, while we think that Russia and China are on the same team they are not really, China and Russia are two very different countries and Russia eyes them with some suspicion, they remember the border clashes of the 60's and right now they are in little position to take the Chinese on except in a nuclear role.

So if we draw on a map every base of operation the west has around Russia it is pretty much encircled, yes we have troops in Uzbekistan, and logistics forces and advisers in Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Gerogia.

So in summary this is why i believe Russia does not trust the west and why in essence were both as bad as each other in a lot of ways.
But critically we should not have expanded NATO to encompass further members from the east it seems to me that was just a giant slap in the face, or to put it kick them while there down.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Kapitan

Here is a cracker for you, 1962 why did the Soviets put missiles in Cuba? Answer: because America put missiles in Turkey, the only reason the Soviet Union removed the missiles was because America agreed to remove the missiles from Turkey, realistically the Soviet Union could have sat that out and stone walled, what would the Americans have done then ? Invade with operational nuclear missiles ready to go immediately? unlikely.

That example is unluckily chosen. While later there was kind of an informal deal to trade the Kuban missiles versus the Turkish ones, the Rusians stopped not due to such a deal being existent, but because the outbreak of war was imminent and American cannons at sea were trimmed on Russian ships heading for Cuba. The Russians fell back do prevent a world war, that simple. Kennedy left no other choices than war - or falling back. Since the vital parts of the Russian missiles were not delivered and never woudl have been delivered later on, there was no need for an American invasion in Cuba with tactical nukes.

Also, both countries, USA and USSR, were different back then, and socialism still was in an enthusiastic, expansive phase, set to bring itself to the rets of the world whereever possible. A mission it was on. A similiar claim can be made about the US, I mean Vietnam has not fallen out of the blue. There were two big powers and both wanted to become the superpower (I follow Brezezinski's logic who said that there cannot be two superpowers at the same time, only one, if there are two, then both are no superpowers).

[Kapitan]

That night, Kennedy set forth in his message to the Soviet leader proposed steps for the removal of Soviet missiles from Cuba under supervision of the United Nations, and a guarantee that the United States would not attack Cuba.

It was a risky move to ignore the second Khrushchev message. Attorney General Robert Kennedy then met secretly with Soviet Ambassador to the United States, Anatoly Dobrynin, and indicated that the United States was planning to remove the Jupiter missiles from Turkey anyway, and that it would do so soon, but this could not be part of any public resolution of the missile crisis. The next morning, October 28, Khrushchev issued a public statement that Soviet missiles would be dismantled and removed from Cuba.

The crisis was over but the naval quarantine continued until the Soviets agreed to remove their IL–28 bombers from Cuba and, on November 20, 1962, the United States ended its quarantine. U.S. Jupiter missiles were removed from Turkey in April 1963.

https://history.state.gov/milestones...missile-crisis

So while there was no public announcement either side for the USA to dismantle the missiles in Turkey, the assurance of removal worked and the USA did remove the missiles and indeed this did assist in the deescalation of the situation.

Many of the Russian ICBM's on Cuba were already fully operational and according to Kruschev's son his father reasoned he did not need to run a blockade line as he had enough there already.

Now when you said

They fell back to prevent world war

that's not entirely accurate at all and here's why.

4 submarines sailing independently from the cargo ships, they were under the command of Captains Dubivko, Shumkov, Ketov, and Savitsky (Operation Kama) they had full authority to attack any warship that prevented them from making it to Cuba without direct authorization from Moscow, they also had on board nuclear torpedoes. so far be it from backing off they had full combat orders attack on sight if provoked.

The backing off was the result of the back office negotiations between Robert Kennedy and Anatoly Dobrynin.
Dobrynin sought the conformations that the missiles in Turkey would be removed and Cuba never again to be invaded or attacked, Anatoly Dobrynin confirmed that in 1998 for the series Cold War (Narrated by Kenneth Branagh), and also in his book if i can recall that (In Confidence: Moscow's Ambassador to Six Cold War Presidents) of 1995.
Assurances were given and this did indeed happen, Cuba has not since been invaded and the missiles were removed from Turkey in 1963.

It did leave us with two lessons One we needed more open direct communication with each other and two just how close we actually came.

We came as close again in 1983 during able archer.

[Skybird]

Your narration tells the story a bit different than I believed so far to know it but it sounds believable and somehow realistic. Think I need to change my view on these events back then. Thanks, Kapitan!

[Kapitan]

I did a lot of reading about the Cuban crisis using sources from both sides (its how i found dobrynins book), and what you find is the official US government story is surprisingly strikingly similar to the Russian story so for me its one of two things:

1 it actually happened as both stated
2 they cooked it up and ensured a straight story from both sides to be some what similar.

[Catfish]

The half-official/unofficial promises made to to Russia around 1990 sound similar like those made to the Kurds, and reflect general US foreign policy well enough.

If you believe our american friends and accept deals and promises it is better to have something up your sleeve. Like Mattis said.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Kapitan

I did a lot of reading about the Cuban crisis using sources from both sides (its how i found dobrynins book), and what you find is the official US government story is surprisingly strikingly similar to the Russian story so for me its one of two things:

1 it actually happened as both stated
2 they cooked it up and ensured a straight story from both sides to be some what similar.

Alright alright, as I already said you convinced me! I never spent much time to to read indepth abut it, just digested some general input from common TV coverage over the past years, and not even lots of that. And that movie with Costner. I can hardly claim to be an expert for this chapter of history. I am more an expert for the popcorn component involved in it.

[Kapitan]

Originally Posted by Catfish

The half-official/unofficial promises made to to Russia around 1990 sound similar like those made to the Kurds, and reflect general US foreign policy well enough.

If you believe our american friends and accept deals and promises it is better to have something up your sleeve. Like Mattis said.

So just for sake of argument would you say you wouldn't trust the American government without something in writing?

Alright alright, as I already said you convinced me! I never spent much time to to read in depth abut it, just digested some general input from common TV coverage over the past years, and not even lots of that. And that movie with Costner. I can hardly claim to be an expert for this chapter of history. I am more an expert for the popcorn component involved in it.

I can certainly say your knowledge of popcorn will be much greater than mine (i'm intolerant to corn)

Although if you like documentaries i highly recommend Cold war its a 24 episode series done by Kenneth Branagh as narrator and they interview people like Fidel Castro General Giap VC POTUS Jimmy Carter, George Bush they also interview Mikhail Gorbachev and many many other top names

[Catfish]

Originally Posted by Kapitan

So just for sake of argument would you say you wouldn't trust the American government without something in writing?

Exactly.

And thanks to the hint @Skybird regarding Kenneth Branagh and this24 episode series, will see if i get to watch it.

P.S.: Sorry I could not respond directly to your take on brexit, but i did get your point well enough and understand you a lot better. Some problems here, so currently on and off the 'net, and presumably off for a longer time from november.

[Kapitan]

Originally Posted by Catfish

Exactly.

And thanks to the hint @Skybird regarding Kenneth Branagh and this24 episode series, will see if i get to watch it.

P.S.: Sorry I could not respond directly to your take on brexit, but i did get your point well enough and understand you a lot better. Some problems here, so currently on and off the 'net, and presumably off for a longer time from november.

I dont take it personally we each have our opinions and i respect each persons view, i always try to explain my view the best i can (don't always succeed) but respect the fact others also have differing opinions.

As for the series you wont be disappointed