Formed in 1949, NATO has steadily expanded, with milestones like the 1994 Partnership for Peace program. Key figures like Yeltsin and Albright played roles, while events like the 1997 Bucharest Summit and 2004 Color Revolutions marked its growth.

Since January of this year, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s official website has included an entire page devoted to “debunk[ing]” what it refers to as “Russian disinformation on NATO.”

The “myths” that the official NATO page attempts to debunk in one section make fun of the phrase “NATO expansion” itself, implying that it is so deceptive that people shouldn’t even use it in casual speech or news reports.

This is what NATO says it is “debunking” and presenting as “facts”…

The wording “NATO expansion” is already part of the myth. NATO did not hunt for new members or want to “expand eastward.” NATO respects every nation’s right to choose its own path. NATO membership is a decision for NATO Allies and those countries who wish to join alone.

Terry Cowan, a history lecturer at the University of Texas at Tyler and geopolitical analyst, has recently put together a brand-new, extremely useful timeline that traces NATO’s history of eastward expansion to Russia’s border.

Professor Cowan’s NATO Expansion: A Timeline is shown below.

Our battle with Russia through Ukrainian proxies has an official storyline. Undoubtedly, Russian forces did indeed breach the Ukrainian border; yet, we value territorial integrity—except, of course, when it isn’t. On the day that Russian troops began pouring across the Ukrainian border, President Biden declared:

“This was never about genuine security concerns on their part. It was always about naked aggression, about Putin’s desire for empire  by any means necessary–by bullying Russia’s neighbors through coercion and corruption, by changing  borders by force, and, ultimately, by choosing a war without a cause.”

Although Biden has expressed this opinion less clearly in recent days during the D-Day remembrances in Normandy, the general idea remains the same, namely:

1. Our heavy involvement in Ukraine since 1991 did nothing to contribute to the conflict.
2. Russia’s security concerns about the advancement of NATO eastward are silly.
3. There are bullies in the world, but the bully is never us.
4. Although the 4th largest economy in the world (in purchasing power), Russia still longs to recreate the Soviet Union.
5. Russia is corrupt, although its current leader is elected, while Ukraine is not corrupt, although its current leader rules by martial law.
6. Changing borders is wrong, when Russia does it. When we do it (Kosovo), it is for humanitarian reasons.
7. No actions by the West or Ukraine over 8 years against Russian speakers in the Donbas that resulted in 14,000 deaths provide any justification for Russia’s actions.
8. Russia is bad, the West is good.

That’s it, then. This is the story we officially tell. Even if it lacks much self-awareness, this supports our ideological preconceptions and fits our sentiments.

But there is also another story, one supported by real data and devoid of ideological bias. Glenn Diesen’s book The Ukraine War & the Eurasian World Order explains the tale. Utilizing Diesen’s story as a guide, I created a timeline of NATO expansion. It’s compelling to me.

NATO Expansion: A Timeline

1975

The Helsinki Accords

Outlined a common framework for European security

1987

George Kennan: 

“Were the Soviet Union to sink tomorrow under the waters of the ocean, the American military-industrial complex would have to go on, substantially unchanged until some other adversary could be invented.  Anything else would be an unacceptable shock to the American economy.”

1989

“Common European Home”

Gorbachev’s plan to demilitarize Europe by disbanding both the Warsaw Pact & NATO

“Europe Whole and Free”

The U.S. rejected Gorbachev’s plan; offers universalism of liberal democracy as the foundation for a common Europe

Malta Summit

Negotiated end to the Cold War; Russia would not use military to suppress democracy movements in eastern Europe; Russia agreed to unification of Germany; the U.S. (Bush & SoS James Baker) promised NATO would expand “not one inch eastward.”  These promises were not only  made by Bush & Baker, but by Hans-Dietrich Genscher (the West German foreign minister), Helmut Kohl, Robert Gates, Francois Mitterrand, Margaret Thatcher, Douglas Hurd, John Major, and Manfred Wörner.

1990

The Charter of Paris for a New Europe

Based on Helsinki Accords, sovereign equality with no dividing lines, to preserve principles of CoP, NATO would have to remain a status quo power

1994

Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE)

Translated Helsinki Accords & Charter of Paris into an actual security organization; dismissed by the U.S.

1994

Following the end of the Cold War, the West failed to reform or modify itself and instead became essentially militaristic with the assumption of supremacy in light of Russia’s weakness. The U.S. then continued pursuing NATO expansion under the old motto, “Europe Whole and Free.”

1994

“Partnership for Peace”

President Clinton advocated this as an alternative to NATO expansion; instead became stepping-stone t0 NATO membership. “Clinton was talking out of both sides of his mouth.”  Boris Yeltsin saw this as the beginning of a new split in Europe. Secretary of Defense William Perry argued against expansion, but was met with response of “Who cares what they think?  They’re a third-rate power.”

1994

Boris Yeltsin

“History demonstrates that it is a dangerous illusion to suppose that the destinies of continents and of the world community in general can somehow be managed from single capital.”

1995

“Convincing most Russians that the United States and the West are attempting to isolate, encircle and subordinate them, rather than integrating them into a new European system of collective security,” twenty former U.S. officials published an open letter opposing NATO expansion.

1996

President Clinton:

“We keep tellin ol’ Boris, ‘O.K., now, here’s what you’ve got to do next–here’s some more shit for your face.”

1997

NATO expansion “is a policy error of historic proportions,” according to a letter to President Clinton signed by 50 eminent American foreign policy professionals.

George Kennan: 

“expanding NATO would be the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-cold war era…Why with all the hopeful possibilities engendered by the end of the cold war, should East-West relations become centered on the question of who would be allied with whom and, by implication, against whom.”

1997

Ambassador Jack Matlock contended that by keeping Russians out and instituting a security order that would prolong Russia’s vulnerability, Washington was repeating the same error committed at Versailles in 1919.

1997

Madeleine Albright: 

“…if Russia doesn’t work out the way that we are hoping it will…NATO is there.” 

The justification of NATO’s post-Cold War existence was therefore to respond to the security threats that had been created by its expansion.

James Baker, a former secretary of state, issued a warning that the supposed requirement for insurance coverage would turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy.: “The best way to find an enemy is to look for one, and I worry that that is what we are doing when we try to isolate Russia.”

Ambassador Jack Matlock:

“May well go down in history as the most profound strategic blunder made since the end of the Cold War.”

Zbigniew Brzezinski

“Without Ukraine, Russia ceases to be a Eurasian empire.”

1998

George Kennan:

“I think it is the beginning of a new cold war…There was no reason for this whatsoever.  No one was threatening anybody else.  This expansion would make the Founding Fathers of this country turn over in their graves…Of course there is going to be a bad reaction from Russia, and then [the NATO expanders] will say that we always told you that is how the Russians are–but this is just wrong.” 

1999

NATO invasion of Yugoslavia

NATO represents European security and can supersede international law.  Henry Kissinger warned that this transformation of NATO from a defensive alliance into an offensive alliance contradicted our repeated assurances to Russia that they had nothing to fear from a NATO expansion.

NATO occupies Kosovo

NATO obtains UN mandate to occupy the Kosovo region of Yugoslavia under the specific condition of upholding Yugoslavia’s territorial integrity.  Used as venue for NATO base in the Balkans, and to change realities on the ground.  

Vladimir Putin becomes President Boris Yeltsin’s successor after he stands down on New Year’s Eve.

2001

The United States declared that it would unilaterally leave the 1972 AMB Treaty to advance its “preemptive counterforce capability against Russia and China,” or strategic missile defense.

Putin is the first foreign leader to reach out to George W. Bush after the events of 9/11. He expresses condolences and support and gives crucial information and network support for the invasion of Afghanistan.

2004

Color Revolutions

The U.S. promoted successful coups around Russia’s periphery:  Ukraine & Georgia. Orange Revolution in Ukraine:  popular demands for democratic reforms and tackling corruption were hijacked by international NGOs (NED, Freedom House, USAID); “an American creation, a sophisticated and brilliantly conceived exercise in western branding and mass marketing…” a “postmodern coup d’état…CIA-sponsored third world uprising of cold war days adapted to post-Soviet conditions.”

“Single Economic Space”

Proposal by Russia to include Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan; denounced in the West as an expression of “imperial ambitions” that had to be resisted.

2005

Common Spaces Agreement

Committed both Russia and EU to preventing new dividing lines; regional cooperation.

2007

Munich Security Conference

Putin summarizes Russia’s concerns about “one centre of authority, one centre of Force, one centre of decision-making…that NATO has put its frontline forces on our borders…against whom is this expansion intended?”

Condoleezza Rice

Mocked Russia’s concerns about the U.S. placing 10 interceptive missiles in Eastern Europe:  “purely ludicrous, and everybody knows it.”  Within a few years, the number had risen to several hundred.

2008

The West resisted Moscow’s proposal for a new pan-European security architecture because they believed it would erode NATO.

NATO Bucharest Summit

“We agreed today that these countries [Ukraine and Georgia] will become members of NATO.” A Gallup poll taken in Ukraine at the time revealed that 46% valued closer ties to Russia, while only 10% favored closer ties with the U.S. over Russia.

Ambassador William Burns

“Not only does Russia perceive encirclement, and efforts to undermine Russia’s Influence in the region, but it also fears unpredictable and uncontrolled consequences Which would seriously affect Russian security interests…Russia is particularly worried  that the strong divisions in Ukraine over NATO membership, with much of the ethnic-Russian community against membership, could lead to a major split, involving violence or at worst, civil war.  In that eventuality, Russia would have to decide whether to intervene; a decision Russia does not want to have to face.”

“Ukrainian entry into NATO is the brightest of all redlines for the Russian elite (not just Putin)…I have yet to find anyone who views Ukraine in NATO as anything other than a direct challenge to Russian interests…Today’s Russia will respond.”

British Ambassador Roderic Lyne

“It was stupid on every level. If you want to start a war with Russia, that’s the best way of doing it.” 

Fiona Hill

She warned Bush that “bring Ukraine and Georgia closer to NATO as a provocative move that would likely provoke pre-emptive Russian military action. But ultimately, our warnings weren’t heeded.”

Angela Merkel

Russia would view this as a “declaration of war.”

2010

The EU-Russia Free Trade Zone is being proposed by Moscow “to facilitate a Greater Europe from Lisbon to Vladivostok.” dismissed as a dark conspiracy to split the West.

A bill that affirmed Ukraine’s neutrality was approved by President Yanukovich, stating that the country’s “intention is to become a permanently neutral state that does not participate in military blocs.”

2013 

In effect, the EU gave Ukraine an ultimatum to choose between the West and Russia by pressuring it to renounce its neutral position and accept the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area. The EU angrily rejected Russia’s trilateral EU-Uraine-Russia accord, claiming that “the times for limited sovereignty are over in Europe.”

Hillary Clinton

On the Eurasian Economic Union:  “We are trying to figure out effective ways to slow down or prevent it.”

2014

National Endowment for Democracy (NED)

“Ukraine is the biggest prize…Putin may find himself on the losing end not just in the near abroad but within Russia itself.”

Coup

Victoria Nuland:  “the U.S. had invested almost $5 billion since 1991 to assist Ukraine in achieving ‘the future it deserves.’”  Nuland caught deciding who should be in the new Ukrainian government and who should be kept out, at a time when Yanukovich was still the lawful president of Ukraine.”

“The most overt coup d’état in history”

“In 2014 the United States backed an uprising–in its final stages a violent uprising–against the legitimately elected Ukrainian government of Viktor Yanukovych, which was pro-Russian.”

Crimea

Vladimir Putin: “They cheated us again and again, made decisions behind our back, presenting us with completed facts.  That’s the way it was with the expansion of NATO, in the east, with the deployment of military infrastructure at our borders.  They always told us the same thing: ‘Well, this doesn’t involve you.’”

Vladimir Putin speech

“After the revolution, the Bolsheviks, for a number of reasons–may God judge them– added large sections of the historical South of Russia to the Republic of Ukraine. This was done with no consideration for the ethnic makeup of the population, and today these areas form the southeast of Ukraine.  Then, in 1954, a decision was made to transfer the Crimean region to Ukraine, along with Sevastopol, despite the fact that it was a city of union subordination.  This was the personal initiative of the Communist Party head Nikita Khrushchev.

Henry Kissinger

“…if Ukraine is to survive and thrive, it must not be either side’s outpost against the other-it should function as a bridge between them…any attempt by one wing of Ukraine to dominate the other–as has often been the pattern–would lead eventually to civil war or break up.”

“Washington’s planned seizure of Russia’s historic, legitimate warm-water naval base in Crimea failed.”

The right to self-determination was presented as a competing value to territorial integrity by the West’s rules-based international system, making Washington’s commitment to the holy principle of territorial integrity in line with international law unconvincing. Therefore, it was difficult to present a strong legal argument as to why the independence of Crimea differed from that of Kosovo.

Roughly 75% of Ukraine’s naval personnel either left the Ukrainian military or defected to Russia.

Stephen Walt

“The real question, however, is why Obama and his advisors thought the United States and the European Union could help engineer the ouster of a democratically elected and pro-Russian leader in Ukraine and expect Vladimir Putin to go along with it.”

NATO nations use liberal democratic values as a means of escaping the limitations imposed by international law, in conformity with the rules-based international order.

2015 

Minsk-2 Agreement

Ukraine, Donbass, Germany, France, Russia agreed to pursue diplomatic reform for Donbass autonomy; never pursued.  Victoria Nuland described Angela Merkel as “defeatist,” John McCain referred to it as “Moscow Bullshit.”

Mikhail Gorbachev

“NATO’s eastward expansion has destroyed the European security architecture as it was defined in the Helsinki Final Act in 1975.  The eastern expansion was a 180-degree reversal, a departure from the decision of the Paris Charter in 1990 taken together by al the European states to put the Cold War behind us for good.  Russian proposals, like the one by former President Dmitri Medvedev that we should sit down together to work on a new security architecture, were arrogantly ignored by the West.  We are now seeing the results.”

2019

The U.S. unilaterally withdraws from the INF Treaty

Russia demanded that the U.S. not place missiles in Ukraine as they had done in  Poland and Romania.

2021

Ukraine and the UK inked a naval agreement.

NATO pushed the prospect of membership for Ukraine

“We reiterate the decision made at the 2008 Bucharest Summit that Ukraine will become a member of the Alliance.”

A draft treaty defining the terms for reestablishing security and stability in Europe was sent by Russia to the United States. “I don’t accept anyone’s red line,” was President Biden’s response.

2022

Vladimir Putin

“Listen attentively to what I am saying.  It is written into Ukraine’s doctrines that it wants to take Crimea back, by force if necessary.  This is not what Ukrainian officials say in public.  This is written in their documents…Imagine that Ukraine is a NATO country and starts these military operations.  What are we supposed to do?  Fight against the NATO bloc?  Has anyone given at least some thought to this? Apparently not.”

Ambassador Jack Matlock

“The war might have been prevented–probably would have been prevented–if Ukraine had been willing to abide by the Minsk Agreement, recognize the Donbass as an autonomous entity within Ukraine, avoid NATO military advisors, and pledge not to enter NATO.”

John Mearsheimer

“The United States and its European allies share most of the responsibility for the crisis.  The taproot of the trouble is NATO enlargement.”

President Biden

“This was never about genuine security concerns on their part.  It was always about naked aggression, about Putin’s desire for empire  by any means necessary–by bullying Russia’s neighbors through coercion and corruption, by changing  borders by force, and, ultimately, by choosing a war without a cause.”

Nato Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg:

“Weapons are the way to peace.”

A deal is reached between Russia and Ukraine through Turkish mediation. “Ukraine would pledge not to pursue NATO membership in exchange for security guarantees from several nations, and Russia would retreat to its position on February 23, when it controlled part of the Donbas region and all of Crimea.”

“The first is that Putin is a war criminal and that he should be pressured, not negotiated with,” said Boris Johnson upon his arrival in Kiev. And the second is that even if Ukraine is ready to sign some agreements on guarantees with Putin, they [the UK and the U.S.] are not.

“The war in Ukraine can end only with Vladimir Putin’s defeat.”  President Zelensky invoked a degree making it illegal to negotiate with Putin.  Any political settlement would require the removal of Putin from power.

2023

Victoria Nuland:

“I am, and I think the Administration is, very gratified to know that Nord Stream 2 is now, as you like, to say, a hunk of metal at the bottom of the sea.”

The United States had attacked the gas pipelines with Norway’s assistance.

Recently, GreatGameIndia reported that Lt. Gen. Alexander Sollfrank, chief of NATO’s Joint Support and Enabling Command, stated that NATO plans to deploy its troops, primarily U.S. soldiers, to the front lines in the conflict against Russia.