NATO Did Not 'Provoke' Russia

What Is This Myth About?

One of the most widespread arguments of Russian propaganda and some Western commentators is the claim that “NATO’s eastward expansion” was the main cause of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. It is alleged that the West supposedly promised not to expand NATO after German reunification, and then broke this promise, thereby “provoking” Russia.

This argument is false both factually and morally.

Was There a “Promise”?

What Was Actually Said in 1990

The primary source of the myth is a phrase by US Secretary of State James Baker during negotiations with Gorbachev on February 9, 1990: “not one inch eastward.” The context of this conversation is critically important:

1. The discussion concerned exclusively the territory of East Germany — whether NATO troops would be deployed there after reunification. No other country was discussed
2. This was a verbal probe at an early stage of negotiations, not an official proposal
3. Gorbachev himself later acknowledged: “The topic of NATO expansion was never discussed, and it was not raised in those years”
4. The final treaty — the “2+4” Treaty on German reunification (1990) — contains no restrictions on NATO expansion beyond Germany

What Researchers Say

Mark Kramer (Harvard) in his thorough study “The Myth of a No-NATO-Enlargement Pledge to Russia” (2009) analyzed all available archival documents from the 1990 negotiations and reached an unequivocal conclusion: no legally binding promise not to expand NATO was made.

Mary Elise Sarotte (Johns Hopkins University) in her book “Not One Inch” (2021) investigated this question in the greatest detail, studying previously unavailable archives. Her conclusion: during the negotiations, various ideas and probes were floated, but none was formalized as a commitment.

What Russia Itself Signed

Russia voluntarily signed documents that directly contradict its current claims:

• The Helsinki Final Act (1975) — every state has the right “to belong or not to belong to international organizations, to be or not to be a party to bilateral or multilateral treaties, including the right to be or not to be a party to treaties of alliance”
• The Charter of Paris (1990) — confirms the right of every state “to freely choose and develop its political, social, economic and cultural system”
• The NATO-Russia Founding Act (1997) — Russia recognized NATO’s right to accept new members and committed to building relations on the basis of mutual respect

Why Countries Join NATO

The Choice of Sovereign States

NATO expansion is not “Western aggression,” but the free choice of sovereign states seeking to protect themselves from a real threat. Every country that joined NATO went through:

• A democratic decision — parliamentary votes and/or referendums
• A lengthy reform process — adaptation to NATO standards
• Unanimous approval by all existing Alliance members

No country was “dragged” into NATO by force. On the contrary — they aspired to join, often for decades.

Why Did They Aspire?

The countries of Central and Eastern Europe had bitter historical experience of Russian/Soviet domination:

• Poland — 18th-century partitions, occupation 1939–1989
• Czech Republic and Slovakia — the 1968 invasion
• Hungary — the suppression of the 1956 revolution
• The Baltic States — occupation 1940–1991
• Romania, Bulgaria — decades of Soviet control

These countries joined NATO not because the West “enticed” them, but because they knew from their own experience what threatens countries that remain in Russia’s “sphere of influence.”

Proof They Were Right

The events of February 24, 2022 confirmed the correctness of the decision to join NATO:

• No NATO member state has suffered military aggression from Russia
• Ukraine, which was not a NATO member, suffered a full-scale invasion
• Georgia, which was not a NATO member, suffered aggression in 2008
• Moldova, which is not a NATO member, has had territory occupied by Russia (Transnistria) since 1992

The “Spheres of Influence” Argument

Moral Bankruptcy

The argument that NATO “should not have expanded” effectively means:

1. Great powers have the right to control their neighbors — this is 19th-century imperial thinking
2. Small countries have no sovereignty — their choices are subordinate to the interests of larger neighbors
3. The victim is to blame for the attack — “they shouldn’t have joined/aspired to NATO”

This is morally equivalent to blaming a domestic violence victim for “provoking” the aggressor by calling the police.

Legal Bankruptcy

International law does not recognize “spheres of influence”:

• The UN Charter (Article 2) guarantees the sovereign equality of states
• The Helsinki Act (1975) confirms the right of states to freely choose their alliances
• The Budapest Memorandum (1994) — Russia committed to respecting Ukraine’s borders and sovereignty

The Real Causes of the War

If NATO is not the cause, then what is? An analysis of Putin’s own statements provides a clear answer:

• The essay “On the Historical Unity” (2021) — Putin denied the existence of the Ukrainian people as a separate nation
• The speech of February 21, 2022 — Putin declared that “Ukraine is not simply a neighboring country for us. It is an inalienable part of our own history, culture, spiritual space”
• The demands of December 2021 — Putin demanded not only halting NATO expansion but also withdrawing all NATO forces from countries that joined after 1997 — effectively demanding the dismantlement of the Alliance in Europe

The real cause of the war is Russia’s imperial ambitions and the denial of Ukrainian sovereignty, not a “NATO threat.”