Crisis in Ukraine might have been averted had Washington taken Russia’s concerns over NATO’s expansion seriously- The Week

Some argue that NATO’s eastward expansion precipitated the conflict by threatening Russian security. Others retort that because the alliance is purely defensive, the only “threat” it posed was to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s irredentist. 

 

The latter argument is flawed. Whether or not NATO threatened Russia, Putin believed it did, and this belief informed his decision to invade. Moreover, Putin’s concerns were predictable, and the war might have been averted had Washington taken them seriously.

 

In the run-up to the military operation in Ukraine, the White House refused to discuss NATO expansion with Moscow. Senior official Derek Chollet defended the refusal. “NATO is a defensive alliance. NATO is not a threat to Russia,” he said – implying the issue was none of Russia’s business.

 

Making the same point, Ivo Daalder, former U.S. ambassador to NATO from 2009-2013, said the organization “is a defensive alliance, not just in theory; it is, in fact, in practice, a defensive alliance.”

 

But years before, in 1999, Daalder authored a report reflecting on “NATO’s evolution from a collective defense alliance to an organization primarily concerned with managing crises.” He pondered the use-of-force conditions for this new, evolved NATO: “The traditional criterion – self-defense against armed attack on any member’s home territory…is too narrow.”

 

Daalder observed that NATO had used military force in Bosnia and Kosovo “even though the Article 5 collective defense commitment was not directly at stake.” He said there was “no doubt” the alliance could initiate force and concluded that NATO should emphasize “its willingness in principle to engage in the full spectrum of possible military missions.” A few weeks later, NATO began bombing Serbia to punish human rights violations.

 

In 2011, NATO again used military force outside the purview of Article 5, this time against Libya. The NATO-enforced no-fly zone enjoyed U.N. backing, but morphed into a regime change operation. “The people of Libya have gotten rid of a dictator,” then-Vice President Biden proclaimed hours after Moammar Gadhafi, the Libyan leader, was killed. “NATO got it right…This is more the prescription for how to deal with the world as we go forward.” 

 

Unable to turn Ukraine into a NATO member, the U.S. turned it into a NATO outpost, delivering billions in military assistance, conducting joint military exercises, running clandestine paramilitary training programs, swapping intelligence, and even participating in cyber operations against the Russian government. The U.S. created the worst of all possible worlds for Ukraine – a provocative NATO proxy on Russia’s doorstep, but without NATO’s security umbrella.

 

https://theweek.com/nato/1013153/shut-natos-door-to-ukraine-permanently