Posted on April 4, 2008 - by Venik

Putin and NATO expansion

A little bit of history first. In 1948 the Treaty of Brussels was signed by the Netherlands, Luxembourg, France and the United Kingdom to protect themselves from unspecified evildoers (the Soviets). All parties involved clearly realized that the combined military might of post-war France and Luxembourg was probably not enough to counter hundreds of Soviet divisions in Europe.

So the authors of the Treaty of Brussels hopped on the next plane to Washington, where a year later they signed the North Atlantic Treaty, giving birth to NATO in April of 1949. In 1954 the USSR expressed a desire to join NATO, figuring that – no matter how you spin it – the Soviet Union had to be of some importance when it came to matters of European security. But NATO rejected the Soviet offer and, to add insult to injury, accepted West Germany as a member on May 9, 1955 – the day Russians were celebrating the tenth anniversary of their Victory over Germany.

Less than a week later the USSR, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, and Poland signed the Warsaw Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance, thus forming the Warsaw Pact, modeled after NATO and aimed against it. The Cold War would have never happened if in 1954, a year after Stalin’s death, the USSR would have been allowed to join NATO.

And another interesting tidbit: unhappy with the US domination of NATO and the special role assumed by the Great Britain within the Alliance, in 1959 France withdrew its fleet from NATO command, banned stationing of foreign nukes on its territory, and made the US remove some two hundred military aircraft from France and return control of the ten major air force bases. Suddenly the US found a big gap in its nuclear fence around the Warsaw Pact. To compensate, the US deployed nuclear weapons in Turkey and the USSR countered by deploying nukes in Cuba, leading to the 1962 Cuban missile crisis.

So, back to Putin and NATO: following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Russia withdrew troops from Eastern Europe, closed its bases in Cuba and Vietnam, and complied with the Conventional Forces in Europe treaty. And today Putin asks NATO: “What did we get in return? A base in Romania, a base in Bulgaria, positioning of a missile defense system in Eastern Europe… We don’t think expansion leads to the solution of contemporary problems. Today there’s no Soviet Union and no Eastern Europe and no Warsaw Pact.” (Putin Says NATO Expansion Is Direct Threat to Russia, by Sebastian Alison and James G. Neuger, Bloomberg, April 4, 2008)

But this is precisely the reason for NATO’s expansion: there is no more Soviet Union and there is no more Warsaw Pact; there are no more significant obstacles for the expansion of this essentially anti-Russia military alliance. And this is why it’s expanding. And every day that Russia cooperates with NATO is a day it could have spent to better prepare for the inevitable confrontation. This conflict will not happen this year, or next year. It may not happen for another decade, but eventually the day will come. NATO expansion is a nearly 60-year-old drive toward Russia’s border in search of lebensraum and hydrocarbons that can only end in two ways: Russia’s surrender and breakup or war. I can’t imagine Russia surrendering. Can you?

The best thing Russia can do today is to prepare for this war to make sure that, when the time comes, Russia is strong enough to hopefully force the cold warriors in Brussels and Washington to reconsider their plans.

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