How NATO expansion brought the Ukraine crisis.
The media has been covering the Ukraine crisis non-stop but very few will talk about the incontinent facts that led to the current crisis.
This is a continuation of my writing on the Ukraine situation. To read my article going over how the 2014 Maidan coup contributed to the current situation click here
The Ukraine crisis is starting to heat up. Recently Russian President Vladamir Putin has recognized Donetsk and Luhansk, two breakaway regions within Ukraine as their own independent regions and has ordered what they refer to as “peacekeeping troops”. The United States has argued against Russia’s characterization of the troops as peacekeepers. This is not the full-scale invasion of Ukraine that the United States intelligence agencies and media have been fear-mongering about for weeks but it is a major development in the crisis. In any situation like this, the situation that led to it needs to be examined. Within this article, I will review the events that led up to the current crisis. This article is not a defense of any actions Russia has or will take towardsUkraine but a journalstic examination of the events that led up to it.
NATO expansion
No one seriously can discuss this situation without first examining how NATO expansion led to it. In 1991 after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Russia was promised there would be no expansion of NATO eastward. This claim is often disputed by the West and western media but recently the German Press uncovered documents that proved this was the case. This promise was kept until 1999 when Bill Clinton admitted Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic into NATO. George W. Bush expanded NATO further eastward when he brought in the Baltic States and offered NATO membership to Ukraine. This is a solution that would never be accepted by Russia as they see it with good reason as aggression. While NATO is often portrayed in the West as solely a defensive alliance, Russia doesn’t see it that way, especially after their offensive wars against Libya and Serbia. As American dissident and intellectual Noam Chomsky explained to the independent media outlet Truthout
The NATO assaults on Libya and Serbia, both a slap in Russia’s face during its sharp decline in the ‘90s, is clothed in righteous humanitarian terms in U.S. propaganda. It all quickly dissolves under scrutiny, as amply documented elsewhere. And the richer record of U.S. reverence for the sovereignty of nations needs no review.
Russia made it clear what concessions they are looking for from the West at the UN. They are as Journalist John Pilger reported
NATO guarantees that it will not deploy missiles in nations bordering Russia. (They are already in place from Slovenia to Romania, with Poland to follow)
NATO to stop military and naval exercises in nations and seas bordering Russia.
Ukraine will not become a member of NATO.
The West and Russia to sign a binding East-West security pact.
The landmark treaty between the US and Russia covering intermediate-range nuclear weapons to be restored. (The US abandoned it in 2019)
NATO guaranteeing not to deploy weapons in nations bordering Russia, stopping naval exercises, and not allowing Ukraine to become part of NATO is just Russia demanding NATO keep its promise to them. A good intellectual exercise in a situation like this is to imagine how the United States would respond if the roles were reversed. One does not need to imagine as history shows the United States almost went to war with the Soviet Union over the possibility of Russian nukes being placed in Cuba with the infamous Cuban missile crisis. The last part referring to the landmark treaty is the INF treaty, a nuclear treaty between the United States and Russia established in 1987. In a hawkish move towards Russia, Donald Trump withdrew from the treaty in 2019. This as shown above is a big part of Russia’s anger towards the West. Of course, this fact gets ignored in the mainstream as it goes against the ridiculous Russiagate narrative that is still pushed by many sectors of the mainstream press. The West could easily stop the current crisis by negotiating these reasonable demands with Russia instead of sending more arms and ramping up tension with another Nuclear power. This would not be some sort of Neville Chamberlain-style appeasement as many neocons have claimed. Journalist Robert Wright debunked this claim in his article where he explained in the case of Chamberlain he allowed Hitler to take a part of Czechoslovakia without repercussions. In this scenario, NATO would promise it would not admit Ukraine and Biden would get back into the INF treaty in exchange for no Russian troops entering Ukraine. This deal would protect Ukraine’s sovereignty by making a deal with Russia that would result in no invasion. As Wright explains
Chamberlain replaced one kind of violation of Czechoslovakia’s sovereignty—losing territory via invasion—with what was, in effect, another kind: losing territory without the invasion. No one was asking Biden to do that with Ukraine. We’ve been asking him to prevent a violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty (losing territory via invasion) by doing something that violates no one’s sovereignty.
There is an easy diplomatic solution to this situation, one that would both protect Ukraine’s sovereignty and address Russas concerns about NATO expansion. Unfortunately, this solution seems unlikely as it would not be profitable to the arms manufacturers and bloodthirsty neocons that control Western foreign policy.
Anyone who claims NATO expansion led to the Russian invasion of Ukraine is a manifestly unserious person. The documents you refer to do NOT in fact contain any promise that there would be no expansion of NATO. Whether Russia "accepts" it or not, the fact is it's none of their business whether Ukraine decides to join NATO.
If there had been no NATO expansion, Russia would've also invaded the Baltic states and possibly even Poland, instead of just Ukraine. Or at the very least, Russia would've used the THREAT of invasion to try to force those nations back into their "sphere of influence", demanding that they join the Collective Security Treaty Organization and operate as Russian vassal states.
There was nothing reasonable about any of Russia's demands. And in fact the agreement you suggest should've happened WOULD have been exactly Neville Chamberlain-style appeasement. You claim that such a deal wouldn't involve Ukraine "losing territory via invasion", but that's exactly what it would've done because it would've legitimized Russia's annexation of Crimea.
when Trump pulled out of the agreement he explained he had evidence to show russia wasn't keep their end, but never shared it..he said he wanted to renegotiate