Was the expansion of NATO into former Iron Curtain countries a mistake? Did it provoke Russia into attacking Ukraine?
A view that I have seen recently is that the eastward expansion of NATO in the 1990s was a big mistake. See this opinion piece from Thomas Friedman In the New York Times for example https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/21/opinion/putin-ukraine-nato.html.
Was the expansion of NATO into former Iron Curtain countries a mistake? Did it provoke Russia into attacking Ukraine?
In my opinion, no, it was not a mistake; it was absolutely right thing to do.
The current crisis would be 100 times worse if NATO hadn’t expanded eastward. At least there is a barrier today (NATO) to forestall Russia from continuing westward after Ukraine, into the Baltics, into Hungary, Romania, into Poland, etc. Image the turmoil in those countriesif they weren’t members of NATO and an aggressive Russia with visions of restoring the Iron Curtain was at their doorstep!
It would be just a matter of time before this turmoil spread to western Europe. Instability in Europe caused two world wars. We don’t want out-of-control situation in Europe to lead to a third one.
The current crisis is much less likely to spiral out of control because of the NATO barrier. And that’s why the eastward expansion of NATO was absolutely the right decision.
Friedman also writes “ The mystery was why the U.S. — which throughout the Cold War dreamed that Russia might one day have a democratic revolution and a leader who, however haltingly, would try to make Russia into a democracy and join the West — would choose to quickly push NATO into Russia’s face when it was weak.”
The answer to his why question is simple — because the best time to expand NATO is when your opponent (Russia) is weak.
Know one knows the future. Perhaps Russia would never had invaded Ukraine if NATO hadn’t expanded. Perhaps they still would have.
From a planning standpoint, you have to hope for the best, but plan for the worst. President Clinton (it was his decision to expand NATO) would have had to assume that Russia someday would try to restore the old Iron Curtain.
What could be done to create a firewall, a circuit breaker, to stop an expansionist Russia? A broader NATO encompassing many of the former Soviet republics in Europe.
It was the only decision from a risk standpoint — and I’m glad today that NATO did expand because we are safer because of it.
