RUS0021

Sir Rodric Braithwaite GCMG, former British Ambassador to the Soviet Union and the Russian Federation—Written evidence

Western assurances about NATO enlargement 1990-91             

Summary

a)      The September 1990 treaty on German reunification contained nothing to rule out the Eastward expansion of NATO beyond Germany.

b)      Nor were any texts subsequently negotiated that gave such assurances.

c)      Some of the language used by American and West German officials in the run-up to the German reunification agreement was loose.

d)      Responsible Western officials speaking after the German reunification agreement did specifically say that there was no intention of enlarging NATO further.

e)      The Russians still refer regularly to this record, and claim that they were treated in bad faith.

The assurances

a)      Assurances given in 1990:

1. James Baker, US Secretary of State, 9 February 1990: "We consider that the consultations and discussions in the framework of the 2+4 mechanism should give a guarantee that the reunification of Germany will not lead to the enlargement of NATO's military organisation to the East";
2. Helmuth Kohl. German Chancellor, 10 February 1990: "We consider that NATO should not enlarge its sphere of activity".

b)      Assurances given in 1991:

1. John Major. British Prime Minister, Speaking to Defence Minister Yazov, 5 March 1881: "He did not himself foresee circumstances now or in the future where East European countries would become members of NATO”;
2. Douglas Hurd, British Foreign Secretary, speaking to Foreign Minister Bessmertnykh, 26 March 1991: "[T]here were no plans in NATO to include the countries of Eastern and Central Europe in NATO in one form or another";
3. Francois Mitterand, speaking to Mikhail Gorbachev, 6 May 1991: "Each of the [Eastern European] countries I have mentioned will seek to ensure its security by concluding separate agreements. With whom? With NATO, of course. … I am convinced that is not the right way forward for Europe." This was, of course, a prediction, not an assurance. [1]
4. In June 1991 the then secretary-general of NATO, Manfred Wörner, declared that enlargement would complicate the relationship with the Soviet Union and was not under consideration. [2]

This factual record has not been successfully challenged in the West.

Discussion

Russians say they were given assurances by Western leaders in 1990-1991 that NATO would not be enlarged beyond united Germany. They regard the subsequent enlargement of NATO as a breach of faith.

Some Western officials and historians say either that that no assurances were given, or that they were without significance, or that they have to be seen in the context of a rapidly changing situation.

An important distinction needs to be drawn between Western assurances given in 1990, and those given in 1991.

Somewhat ambiguous language was used by Western negotiators in the "2+4” negotiations between the Soviet Union, the United States, Britain, France and the two Germanies about the status of united Germany and its position in NATO.

American officials later argued that James Baker's remarks in that context referred only to the possibility that NATO forces would be introduced into Eastern Germany after reunification. As they stand, however, the remarks can be interpreted as referring to a wider expansion. In the event, Baker's point was dropped from the US negotiating position in the 2+4 negotiations, because his lawyers advised that it was not sustainable. A form of words concerning the deployment, exercising or stationing of non-German as well as German NATO forces in East Germany following reunification was agreed in the last hours of the 2+4 negotiations in Moscow on 13 September 1990.

The situation had, however, changed radically by the beginning of 1991, when the Warsaw Pact was on its last legs. John Major and Douglas Hurd were replying specifically to questions from their Soviet interlocutors about a speech by the Czech President Havel arguing that Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Poland should all be brought into NATO. Other American and European spokesmen, and the NATO Secretary General, were also speaking in this changed context. None of them seem to have been speaking to a line that had been formally agreed in NATO itself. It is however unlikely that there was no consultation between governments about what to say on such a sensitive issue.

Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary joined NATO in 1999; the other former members of the Warsaw Pact and the Baltic States joined in 2004. [3] Thereafter the Americans under President G W Bush, supported by the British, pressed hard for the NATO to take in Ukraine and Georgia as well. At that time Ukrainian opinion was on the whole against membership, while Georgian opinion was in favour. There seems to have been no official analysis of the central issue: if NATO took in these two countries, would it be able to generate the military plans, the resources, and the will to defend them against aggression? The movement was in any case halted by the French and the Germans at the Bucharest summit in 2008.

In 1990-1991 the world was in turmoil. Germany reunified much more rapidly than anyone expected, Communist governments were falling all over Eastern Europe, there was war in Iraq, and tragedy loomed in Yugoslavia. It is perhaps not surprising that Western leaders failed to consider the issue of NATO expansion more systematically. At that time the possibility seemed remote.

Nevertheless, it is also unsurprising that the Russians took seriously repeated the high-level oral assurances they were given by Western officials who, they naturally assumed, were speaking responsibly; or that, when NATO began the process of enlargement in 1994-5, they felt that they had been badly misled.

An alternative?

Although some Western commentators have argued differently, the Russians have never claimed that they were given written assurances. Indeed Yevgeni Primakov, Gorbachev’s adviser in 1991 and subsequently Prime Minister and head of the External Intelligence Service, along with other Russians, later argued that the Gorbachev government ought to have got Western assurances about NATO expansion in writing. Some Russians maintain that this was another example of Gorbachev’s failure to stand up for Soviet interests.

This is unrealistic. If the Russians had demanded written assurances, Western governments would have had to consider much more carefully whether or how they wished to bind their hands for the future. It is highly unlikely that they would have agreed. The chances of the Russians getting written assurances were close to zero.

Regardless of what assurances were or were not given, some people in the West argue that it was a major error of policy to alienate Russia by enlarging NATO into Eastern Europe without providing for a wider European security arrangement in which Russia was included.

But the uncertainty following the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the unsurprising concerns of the East European countries including the Baltic States that they would be left to deal with the consequences on their own, were powerful motives for NATO to move into a vacuum. NATO enlargement was almost inevitable in the circumstances, even though it was tainted by Western triumphalism and sloppy Western diplomacy.

How far the deterioration of relations between Russia and the West over the past twenty years would have been slowed or prevented if NATO had not expanded remains an open question. There have been plenty of other sources of friction.