Can you think of a single good reason why a nation should countenance an aggressive, heavily-armed organisation, with a known track record of doing massive destructive damage, squatting on its doorstep?
The answer to the question above is of course that Russia would never do this. Ask yourself, would any nation with sufficient ability to resist do so? The national security of a country is quite clearly the first duty of any government. Protecting your population from danger is the number one responsibility of those charged with governing. When danger approaches your border it is the solemn responsibility of those in charge of any nation to drive that danger back and assert the strongest possible defence against any potential future threats. Russia has been doing exactly this in recent years.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation was left without an enemy to justify its existence with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Instead of being gradually disbanded and/or merged with the regular armies of its member states it remained intact. Since the fall of the Soviet Union it has been an active belligerent against both Serbia and Libya. Though NATO’s use as a potent weapon against these nations many western politicians claim that Russia has no need to fear NATO’s encroachment to its borders. The assertion is constantly made that NATO is merely a defensive rather than an offensive organisation. You may ask whether the people of Serbia (still protesting this week 25 years after the NATO attacks) and those of Libya are likely to agree.
Gorbachev was certainly assured that NATO would not move an inch toward the then Soviet Union upon his agreement that there would be no barriers placed upon the reunification of Germany. He was in fact assured by almost a dozen high officials from western nations at the time. However, tranche after tranche of ex-Warsaw Pact nations joined NATO in the years thereafter.
Newly Declassified Documents: Gorbachev Told NATO Wouldn't Move Past East German Border
Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev was given a host of assurances that the NATO alliance would not expand past what was then the East German border in 1990 according to new declassified documents.
Gorbachev only accepted German reunification—over which the Soviet Union had a legal right to veto under treaty—because he received assurances that NATO would not expand after he withdrew his forces from Eastern Europe from James Baker, President George H.W. Bush, West German foreign minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher, West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, the CIA Director Robert Gates, French President Francois Mitterrand, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, British foreign minister Douglas Hurd, British Prime Minister John Major, and NATO secretary-general Manfred Woerner.
The fact of NATO encroachment toward the Russian border was bemoaned in a phone call in 1998 to the man recognised as the primary architect of the West’s containment policy regarding the Soviet Union, George Kennan:
Foreign Affairs; Now a Word From X
''I think it is the beginning of a new cold war,'' said Mr. Kennan from his Princeton home. ''I think the Russians will gradually react quite adversely and it will affect their policies. I think it is a tragic mistake. There was no reason for this whatsoever. No one was threatening anybody else. This expansion would make the Founding Fathers of this country turn over in their graves. We have signed up to protect a whole series of countries, even though we have neither the resources nor the intention to do so in any serious way. [NATO expansion] was simply a light-hearted action by a Senate that has no real interest in foreign affairs.''
''What bothers me is how superficial and ill informed the whole Senate debate was,'' added Mr. Kennan.
''I was particularly bothered by the references to Russia as a country dying to attack Western Europe. Don't people understand? Our differences in the cold war were with the Soviet Communist regime. And now we are turning our backs on the very people who mounted the greatest bloodless revolution in history to remove that Soviet regime.”
''And Russia's democracy is as far advanced, if not farther, as any of these countries we've just signed up to defend from Russia,'' said Mr. Kennan. ''It shows so little understanding of Russian history and Soviet history. Of course there is going to be a bad reaction from Russia, and then [the NATO expanders] will say that we always told you that is how the Russians are -- but this is just wrong.''
''This has been my life, and it pains me to see it so screwed up in the end.''
https://www.nytimes.com/1998/05/02/opinion/foreign-affairs-now-a-word-from-x.html
In the light of NATO’s attacks on both Serbia and Libya, Mr Kennan’s comments above and the release of previously classified documents confirming the pledges to Gorbachev it is clear that Russia had many reasons to be concerned regarding NATO’s potentially highly destabilising effect upon its security. A primary concern was the strong likelihood that nuclear weapons would eventually be stationed within the nations on Russia’s doorstep. This eventuality would leave almost no time at all to initiate the vital checks concerning whether in fact some mistake had been made thus averting a full scale nuclear war. The close proximity of such nuclear weapons to Russian cities such as Moscow would present an enormous and unconscionable threat to Russian security. This simply COULD NOT be allowed to come to pass.
So it was in 2008 at the Bucharest NATO summit that George Bush Jnr pushed through the statement that both Georgia and Ukraine would be invited to join NATO at some future point in time. William Burns, now director of the CIA said at the time in a famous memo that Ukraine joining NATO was “The reddest of red lines for the Russians”. This decision by Bush and his people was pushed through and agreed upon despite opposition by several national leaders including Angela Merkel.
We are now seeing the utter folly of this decision and subsequent regular statements by successive heads of NATO reiterating this decision apparently quite oblivious of the certain consequences. Naturally it was in NATO’s continued existence to make as big an enemy of Russia as possible. This despite the fact that Putin had broached the idea of Russia joining NATO in conversations with then president Bill Clinton. Conversations that led nowhere as the western powers apparently saw Russia as weak and an opportunity existed to exploit her for their purposes, one of which was clearly to maintain and grow NATO.
All of the above should serve to show clearly why Vladimir Putin and the Russian government have extremely valid concerns regarding NATO and its arriving directly on its border, potentially with nuclear weapons within Georgia and Ukraine, as successive western leaders have desired. These many reasons all show why Russia will not and absolutely cannot relent in its special military operation in Ukraine. To do so would be to totally abandon concern for its national security and that of its entire population.
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