A non-partisan research post - London
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A spade is a spade, is a spade, is a spade ......*
* Call a spade a spade" is an idiom that means to speak directly and truthfully about something, even if it's unpleasant or embarrassing.
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Psychopathic tactic of repeating a lie until it is believed to be true !
Putin was brought crashing back to reality after his three-day summit by the BBC's Steve Rosenberg, who was granted the opportunity to ask the last question of the final media session
www.dailymail.co.uk
THE TRUTH
Did NATO Promise Not to Enlarge?
Gorbachev Says “No”
who was the Soviet negotiating president ? Gorbachev or Putin ?
Former Soviet President Gorbachev’s View
We now have a very authoritative voice from Moscow confirming this understanding.
Russia behind the Headlines has published an interview with Gorbachev, who was Soviet president during the discussions and treaty negotiations concerning German reunification. The interviewer asked why Gorbachev did not “insist that the promises made to you [Gorbachev]—particularly U.S. Secretary of State James Baker’s promise that NATO would not expand into the East—be legally encoded?” Gorbachev replied: “
The topic of ‘NATO expansion’ was not discussed at all, and it wasn’t brought up in those years. … Another issue we brought up was discussed: making sure that NATO’s military structures would not advance and that additional armed forces would not be deployed on the territory of the then-GDR after German reunification. Baker’s statement was made in that context…
Everything that could have been and needed to be done to solidify that political obligation was done. And fulfilled.”
Gorbachev continued that “The agreement on a final settlement with Germany said that no new military structures would be created in the eastern part of the country; no additional troops would be deployed; no weapons of mass destruction would be placed there. It has been obeyed all these years.” To be sure, the former Soviet president criticized NATO enlargement and called it a violation of the spirit of the assurances given Moscow in 1990, but he made clear there was no promise regarding broader enlargement.
Several years after German reunification, in 1997, NATO said that in the “current and foreseeable security environment” there would be no permanent stationing of substantial combat forces on the territory of new NATO members.
Up until the Russian military occupation of Crimea in March, there was virtually no stationing of any NATO combat forces on the territory of new members. Since March, NATO has increased the presence of its military forces in the Baltic region and Central Europe.
Putin is not stupid, and his aides surely have access to the former Soviet records from the time and understand the history of the commitments made by Western leaders and NATO. But the West’s alleged promise not to enlarge the Alliance will undoubtedly remain a standard element of his anti-NATO spin. That is because it fits so well with the picture that the Russian leader seeks to paint of an aggrieved Russia, taken advantage of by others and increasingly isolated—not due to its own actions, but because of the machinations of a deceitful West.
THE HYPOCRISY
At the time of Ukraine’s independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, Ukraine held the third largest nuclear arsenal in the world, including an estimated 1,900 strategic warheads, 176 intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), and 44 strategic bombers. By 1996, Ukraine had returned all of its nuclear warheads to Russia in exchange for economic aid and security assurances, and in December 1994, Ukraine became a non-nuclear weapon state-party to the 1968 nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT)
www.armscontrol.org
FACT
Russia controlled the nuclear warheads and weapons system in Ukraine during the Soviet Union era, even though the weapons were located on Ukrainian territory. Ukraine never had independent control of the weapons.
Nations Undergo Rigorous Process to Join NATO
- New members must uphold democracy, which includes tolerating diversity.
- New members must be in the midst of making progress toward a market economy.
- The nations' military forces must be under firm, civilian control.
- The nations must be good neighbors and respect sovereignty outside their borders.
- The nations must be working toward compatibility with NATO forces.
A key determining factor for potential NATO members is whether their admission will strengthen the alliance and further increase security and stability across Europe.
www.defense.gov
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