The Boris Yeltsin of America

[BradleyPNW + 282]

9 hours ago, Douglas Buckland said:

Sand = Common Sense...apparently.

Why we can't treat Donald like a sophisticated person with sophisticated ideas worthy of sophisticated discussion. A mystery I fear I may never resolve. 

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

On 7/15/2020 at 12:32 AM, BradleyPNW said:

Why we can't treat Donald like a sophisticated person with sophisticated ideas worthy of sophisticated discussion. A mystery I fear I may never resolve. 

Since you can not resolve the mystery of which sock goes on which foot, this is hardly a surprise...

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

On 7/11/2020 at 8:18 PM, Tomasz said:

Now they know that the future is the alliance with China against the USA.

The future for Russia is for Russia to behave itself as a decent and respectful member of the world.  In particular and without limitation, Russia has to stop invading its neighbors, including with mercenary troops including the notorious gang of criminals called the "Wagner Brigade," the members of which are largely recruited from Russia's jails, to withdraw from Crimean and the Donbas, to remove itself from South Ossetia; Abkhazia;  and the Kaliningrad Oblast.  When Russia starts with that, then it will find itself welcome to trade with the West, to sell oil, gas, aircraft, auto parts, even gold and nickel, with the West, and its people and diplomats will be granted free entry everywhere. 

But Putin and his gang do not want to do that.  Instead, they like the idea of doing murders on London Bridge in broad daylight, just because they can get away with it.  They like to invade their neighbors because they think they are snubbing the Americans.  They like to interfere with Ukraine as they see the Ukrainians as an inferior species, a sub-human.  The Russians have this cruddy attitude towards everyone else, so the Russians are loathed and despised.  Think about it.  Stop apologizing for bums. 

[Yoshiro Kamamura + 274]

 

[BradleyPNW + 282]

On 7/15/2020 at 6:40 PM, Douglas Buckland said:

Since you can not resolve the mystery of which sock goes on which foot, this is hardly a surprise...

Your hero mocks handicapped people. Ergo, unworthy of high tea discourse at the gentleman's club. Fucking confounding that anyone would even make the ask. 

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

5 hours ago, BradleyPNW said:

Your hero mocks handicapped people. Ergo, unworthy of high tea discourse at the gentleman's club. Fucking confounding that anyone would even make the ask. 

If you just buy the cheap ‘tube socks’ you won’t need to worry about the mental challenge every morning....

[Yoshiro Kamamura + 274]

Okay, something to lighten up the mood.

 

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

⛰️ --     Groan.   Let's give Mr. Trump's admittedly erratic speaking format mimics a rest.  There are more important things to think about, folks. 

[Ward Smith + 6,615]

On 7/12/2020 at 8:38 PM, Zhong Lu said:

Excellent.  Good bye and good riddance.  It's not as if you bring much of any worth to these conversations.  What I find ironic is the guy who accuses other Americans of being Bolsheviks gets upset when others accuse him of being the same.  Double standards and a thin skin, it appears.

What an asshat.  

Dr. Maddoux has belly button lint smarter than you are and his posts demonstrate that superior intellect, while yours demonstrate your churlish and childish demeanor. There's a reason the saying goes, "children should be seen and not heard". Little millennial snowflakes like you haven't got anything useful to say. But I like smacking you down, intellectually speaking it's like killing a grasshopper with a hand grenade. Carry on. 

[BradleyPNW + 282]

7 hours ago, Douglas Buckland said:

If you just buy the cheap ‘tube socks’ you won’t need to worry about the mental challenge every morning....

Yes, tube socks. Thank you for the suggestion. Also, this...

 

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

On 7/12/2020 at 11:38 PM, Zhong Lu said:

It's not as if you bring much of any worth to these conversations.   Zhong is speaking to and about Dr. Maddoux.

Mr. Zhong, you might want to keep in mind that Dr. Maddoux is quite a bit smarter than I am - and knows bushels more about infectious diseases.  He brings more worth than you could possibly imagine.  I would suggest you temper that critical tongue of yours, you keep sticking it out and it gets bitten.  Or it will freeze to some cold iron fence post in the dead of winter.  Not smart. 

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

On 7/13/2020 at 4:44 AM, Rasmus Jorgensen said:

You have the politicians you deserve. And instead of demanding better politicians intelligent people like yourself support Trump. Regardless if he is the lesser evil America deserves better. The apathy of good men is truly destroying America. 

That is not really where the problems lie.  The USA has been sinking analogous to that of England - under the weight of the "tabloid press," except that in America it is ALL the press.  So what happens is that the truly exemplary candidates just flat-out refuse to run for public office.  Look, nobody is perfect.  If someone had an utterly unblemished career then that person never took any risks, and can be described as no more than a go-fer.  The "good men" are not apathetic, they are smart enough to realize that the press of today is more interested in writing up sleaze than reporting on complex policy.  So the good men simply stay away.

What that leaves the country with is two categories:  the career politicians, who by and large are either incompetent or marginally competent, but who have no grand visions and could not implement any if they did, and the outsiders who are brash enough and bold enough to take on the establishment "Deep State" as well as blow off the tabloid press.  You have to have steady nerves to do that, and it requires a certain audacity.  Trump fits that bill.  People vote for Trump because he has at least some vision, is disgusted with the status quo, and will dump all career politicians he possibly can.  Now, that thinking resonates with the public. 

Americans are fed up with the politicians.  And Americans are fed up with the tabloid press.  When Americans finally get fed up, look out below!

[BradleyPNW + 282]

3 hours ago, Jan van Eck said:

⛰️ --     Groan.   Let's give Mr. Trump's admittedly erratic speaking format mimics a rest.  There are more important things to think about, folks. 

When Donald says, "nobody knew" he means, "I had no clue and never bothered to ask because I was too busy telling everyone how smart I am."

 

 

[Tomasz + 1,608]

18 hours ago, Jan van Eck said:

The future for Russia is for Russia to behave itself as a decent and respectful member of the world.  In particular and without limitation, Russia has to stop invading its neighbors, including with mercenary troops including the notorious gang of criminals called the "Wagner Brigade," the members of which are largely recruited from Russia's jails, to withdraw from Crimean and the Donbas, to remove itself from South Ossetia; Abkhazia;  and the Kaliningrad Oblast.  When Russia starts with that, then it will find itself welcome to trade with the West, to sell oil, gas, aircraft, auto parts, even gold and nickel, with the West, and its people and diplomats will be granted free entry everywhere. 

But Putin and his gang do not want to do that.  Instead, they like the idea of doing murders on London Bridge in broad daylight, just because they can get away with it.  They like to invade their neighbors because they think they are snubbing the Americans.  They like to interfere with Ukraine as they see the Ukrainians as an inferior species, a sub-human.  The Russians have this cruddy attitude towards everyone else, so the Russians are loathed and despised.  Think about it.  Stop apologizing for bums. 

Please dont make me laugh. And please do not demand from Russia to obey all the rules that the West doesn't give a shit about because it smells of terrible hypocrisy

I really suggest to read Mr Kennan from 1998  and articles below. Every conscious Russian knows that you cinically broke agreement to not expand NATO one inch eastward.

You attacked Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya and Syria. so absolutely no- one should believe a single word spoken by Western politicians

I have a wish that the West will stop telling fairy tells about some international law or human rights, since it attacked Yugoslavia, Iraq and Syria, and the USA practically throughout its existence is constantly at war or makes military interventions all over the world and spends more than the next 7 countries combined on the list for the army and maintains over 800 military bases scattered around the world.

All the times the are western reports accentuating Russia's growing economic reliance on China. It may be sound geo-economic research, but its main political intention -- trying to drive a wedge between Russia and China -- is amiss.

Im sorry Moscow won't buy this stuff -- and for good reason. The Russians have no illusions about the rising economic dependence on China. They are aware of the risk that China could, at some point, resort to economic coercion, taking advantage of its economic superiority over Russia. 

Yet, for Russia, the China risk is hypothetical, whereas the threat of Western economic pressure (sanctions etc.) is reality. Moreover, the Kremlin calculates -- correctly, in my view -- that China will not risk antagonizing Russia as long as Beijing is in conflict with US.

Furthermore, Russia is used to asymmetric economic dependence on external powers. For centuries, Russia has been Europe's semi-periphery (to use a neo-Marxist term) while managing to keep its great power status. Why can't it try the same posture  China?

 US can and will crash any companies that became too dependent on US software and components. Witness Huawei and ZTE Weaponizing the $ , Threatening to cut countries off the Swift if it doesn't obey the US.

 I don't find the Russians seriously relying on China. Surely China's economy is much stronger than the Russia's. But the elites have been very careful trying to be not in debt to China.

Plus, other actors are as important as economic factor. Russia's military and political influence as major power are its leverages when dealing with China. Last point is that China also has been careful trying not to upset Russia too much because it is the only major power friend

It has no other options except deepening that reliance, because a) Russian is cheaper, which means cheaper energy with everything this entails; and b) Russia and blockade cannot be parts of the same sentence.

I would assume China also needs Russia as a stable energy source in case ME blows up. I also assume that's why China hedges against russian energy by supporting Iran and Venezuela

So give it up with all these articles about the threat China poses to Russia. This ship has already left. Through its many years of aggressive policy towards Russia, the West has led to a strategic Russian-Chinese allianceand this is probably the biggest mistake of American diplomacy since the end of World War II.

Please learn some history of modern diplomacy

1. First George Kennan about NATO expansion and its consequences

 https://www.nytimes.com/1998/05/02/opinion/foreign-affairs-now-a-word-from-x.html

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His voice is a bit frail now, but the mind, even at age 94, is as sharp as ever. So when I reached George Kennan by phone to get his reaction to the Senate's ratification of NATO expansion it was no surprise to find that the man who was the architect of America's successful containment of the Soviet Union and one of the great American statesmen of the 20th century was ready with an answer.

''I think it is the beginning of a new cold war,'' said Mr. Kennan from his Princeton home. ''I think the Russians will gradually react quite adversely and it will affect their policies. I think it is a tragic mistake. 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. We have signed up to protect a whole series of countries, even though we have neither the resources nor the intention to do so in any serious way. [NATO expansion] was simply a light-hearted action by a Senate that has no real interest in foreign affairs.''

''What bothers me is how superficial and ill informed the whole Senate debate was,'' added Mr. Kennan, who was present at the creation of NATO and whose anonymous 1947 article in the journal Foreign Affairs, signed ''X,'' defined America's cold-war containment policy for 40 years. ''I was particularly bothered by the references to Russia as a country dying to attack Western Europe. Don't people understand? Our differences in the cold war were with the Soviet Communist regime. And now we are turning our backs on the very people who mounted the greatest bloodless revolution in history to remove that Soviet regime.

''And Russia's democracy is as far advanced, if not farther, as any of these countries we've just signed up to defend from Russia,'' said Mr. Kennan, who joined the State Department in 1926 and was U.S. Ambassador to Moscow in 1952. ''It shows so little understanding of Russian history and Soviet history. 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.''

One only wonders what future historians will say. If we are lucky they will say that NATO expansion to Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic simply didn't matter, because the vacuum it was supposed to fill had already been filled, only the Clinton team couldn't see it. They will say that the forces of globalization integrating Europe, coupled with the new arms control agreements, proved to be so powerful that Russia, despite NATO expansion, moved ahead with democratization and Westernization, and was gradually drawn into a loosely unified Europe. If we are unlucky they will say, as Mr. Kennan predicts, that NATO expansion set up a situation in which NATO now has to either expand all the way to Russia's border, triggering a new cold war, or stop expanding after these three new countries and create a new dividing line through Europe.

But there is one thing future historians will surely remark upon, and that is the utter poverty of imagination that characterized U.S. foreign policy in the late 1990's. They will note that one of the seminal events of this century took place between 1989 and 1992 -- the collapse of the Soviet Empire, which had the capability, imperial intentions and ideology to truly threaten the entire free world. Thanks to Western resolve and the courage of Russian democrats, that Soviet Empire collapsed without a shot, spawning a democratic Russia, setting free the former Soviet republics and leading to unprecedented arms control agreements with the U.S.

And what was America's response? It was to expand the NATO cold-war alliance against Russia and bring it closer to Russia's borders.

Yes, tell your children, and your children's children, that you lived in the age of Bill Clinton and William Cohen, the age of Madeleine Albright and Sandy Berger, the age of Trent Lott and Joe Lieberman, and you too were present at the creation of the post-cold-war order, when these foreign policy Titans put their heads together and produced . . . a mouse.

We are in the age of midgets. The only good news is that we got here in one piece because there was another age -- one of great statesmen who had both imagination and courage.

As he said goodbye to me on the phone, Mr. Kennan added just one more thing: ''This has been my life, and it pains me to see it so screwed up in the end.''

 

Or this - What Gorbachev heard coming back to 1989/1991 according to US state archives

https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/russia-programs/2017-12-12/nato-expansion-what-gorbachev-heard-western-leaders-early

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Declassified documents show security assurances against NATO expansion to Soviet leaders from Baker, Bush, Genscher, Kohl, Gates, Mitterrand, Thatcher, Hurd, Major, and Woerner

Slavic Studies Panel Addresses “Who Promised What to Whom on NATO Expansion?”

Washington D.C., December 12, 2017 – U.S. Secretary of State James Baker’s famous “not one inch eastward” assurance about NATO expansion in his meeting with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev on February 9, 1990, was part of a cascade of assurances about Soviet security given by Western leaders to Gorbachev and other Soviet officials throughout the process of German unification in 1990 and on into 1991, according to declassified U.S., Soviet, German, British and French documents posted today by the National Security Archive at George Washington University (http://nsarchive.gwu.edu).

The documents show that multiple national leaders were considering and rejecting Central and Eastern European membership in NATO as of early 1990 and through 1991, that discussions of NATO in the context of German unification negotiations in 1990 were not at all narrowly limited to the status of East German territory, and that subsequent Soviet and Russian complaints about being misled about NATO expansion were founded in written contemporaneous memcons and telcons at the highest levels. 

The documents reinforce former CIA Director Robert Gates’s criticism of “pressing ahead with expansion of NATO eastward [in the 1990s], when Gorbachev and others were led to believe that wouldn’t happen.”[1] The key phrase, buttressed by the documents, is “led to believe.”

President George H.W. Bush had assured Gorbachev during the Malta summit in December 1989 that the U.S. would not take advantage (“I have not jumped up and down on the Berlin Wall”) of the revolutions in Eastern Europe to harm Soviet interests; but neither Bush nor Gorbachev at that point (or for that matter, West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl) expected so soon the collapse of East Germany or the speed of German unification.[2]

The first concrete assurances by Western leaders on NATO began on January 31, 1990, when West German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher opened the bidding with a major public speech at Tutzing, in Bavaria, on German unification. The U.S. Embassy in Bonn (see Document 1) informed Washington that Genscher made clear “that the changes in Eastern Europe and the German unification process must not lead to an ‘impairment of Soviet security interests.’ Therefore, NATO should rule out an ‘expansion of its territory towards the east, i.e. moving it closer to the Soviet borders.’” The Bonn cable also noted Genscher’s proposal to leave the East German territory out of NATO military structures even in a unified Germany in NATO.[3] 

This latter idea of special status for the GDR territory was codified in the final German unification treaty signed on September 12, 1990, by the Two-Plus-Four foreign ministers (see Document 25). The former idea about “closer to the Soviet borders” is written down not in treaties but in multiple memoranda of conversation between the Soviets and the highest-level Western interlocutors (Genscher, Kohl, Baker, Gates, Bush, Mitterrand, Thatcher, Major, Woerner, and others) offering assurances throughout 1990 and into 1991 about protecting Soviet security interests and including the USSR in new European security structures. The two issues were related but not the same. Subsequent analysis sometimes conflated the two and argued that the discussion did not involve all of Europe. The documents published below show clearly that it did.

The “Tutzing formula” immediately became the center of a flurry of important diplomatic discussions over the next 10 days in 1990, leading to the crucial February 10, 1990, meeting in Moscow between Kohl and Gorbachev when the West German leader achieved Soviet assent in principle to German unification in NATO, as long as NATO did not expand to the east. The Soviets would need much more time to work with their domestic opinion (and financial aid from the West Germans) before formally signing the deal in September 1990.

The conversations before Kohl’s assurance involved explicit discussion of NATO expansion, the Central and East European countries, and how to convince the Soviets to accept unification. For example, on February 6, 1990, when Genscher met with British Foreign Minister Douglas Hurd, the British record showed Genscher saying, “The Russians must have some assurance that if, for example, the Polish Government left the Warsaw Pact one day, they would not join NATO the next.” (See Document 2)

Having met with Genscher on his way into discussions with the Soviets, Baker repeated exactly the Genscher formulation in his meeting with Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze on February 9, 1990, (see Document 4); and even more importantly, face to face with Gorbachev.

Not once, but three times, Baker tried out the “not one inch eastward” formula with Gorbachev in the February 9, 1990, meeting. He agreed with Gorbachev’s statement in response to the assurances that “NATO expansion is unacceptable.” Baker assured Gorbachev that “neither the President nor I intend to extract any unilateral advantages from the processes that are taking place,” and that the Americans understood that “not only for the Soviet Union but for other European countries as well it is important to have guarantees that if the United States keeps its presence in Germany within the framework of NATO, not an inch of NATO’s present military jurisdiction will spread in an eastern direction.” (See Document 6) 

Afterwards, Baker wrote to Helmut Kohl who would meet with the Soviet leader on the next day, with much of the very same language. Baker reported: “And then I put the following question to him [Gorbachev]. Would you prefer to see a united Germany outside of NATO, independent and with no U.S. forces or would you prefer a unified Germany to be tied to NATO, with assurances that NATO’s jurisdiction would not shift one inch eastward from its present position? He answered that the Soviet leadership was giving real thought to all such options [….] He then added, ‘Certainly any extension of the zone of NATO would be unacceptable.’” Baker added in parentheses, for Kohl’s benefit, “By implication, NATO in its current zone might be acceptable.” (See Document 😎

Well-briefed by the American secretary of state, the West German chancellor understood a key Soviet bottom line, and assured Gorbachev on February 10, 1990: “We believe that NATO should not expand the sphere of its activity.” (See Document 9) After this meeting, Kohl could hardly contain his excitement at Gorbachev’s agreement in principle for German unification and, as part of the Helsinki formula that states choose their own alliances, so Germany could choose NATO. Kohl described in his memoirs walking all night around Moscow – but still understanding there was a price still to pay.

All the Western foreign ministers were on board with Genscher, Kohl, and Baker. Next came the British foreign minister, Douglas Hurd, on April 11, 1990. At this point, the East Germans had voted overwhelmingly for the deutschmark and for rapid unification, in the March 18 elections in which Kohl had surprised almost all observers with a real victory. Kohl’s analyses (first explained to Bush on December 3, 1989) that the GDR’s collapse would open all possibilities, that he had to run to get to the head of the train, that he needed U.S. backing, that unification could happen faster than anyone thought possible – all turned out to be correct. Monetary union would proceed as early as July and the assurances about security kept coming. Hurd reinforced the Baker-Genscher-Kohl message in his meeting with Gorbachev in Moscow, April 11, 1990, saying that Britain clearly “recognized the importance of doing nothing to prejudice Soviet interests and dignity.” (See Document 15)

The Baker conversation with Shevardnadze on May 4, 1990, as Baker described it in his own report to President Bush, most eloquently described what Western leaders were telling Gorbachev exactly at the moment: “I used your speech and our recognition of the need to adapt NATO, politically and militarily, and to develop CSCE to reassure Shevardnadze that the process would not yield winners and losers. Instead, it would produce a new legitimate European structure – one that would be inclusive, not exclusive.” (See Document 17) 

Baker said it again, directly to Gorbachev on May 18, 1990 in Moscow, giving Gorbachev his “nine points,” which included the transformation of NATO, strengthening European structures, keeping Germany non-nuclear, and taking Soviet security interests into account. Baker started off his remarks, “Before saying a few words about the German issue, I wanted to emphasize that our policies are not aimed at separating Eastern Europe from the Soviet Union. We had that policy before. But today we are interested in building a stable Europe, and doing it together with you.” (See Document 18)

The French leader Francois Mitterrand was not in a mind-meld with the Americans, quite the contrary, as evidenced by his telling Gorbachev in Moscow on May 25, 1990, that he was “personally in favor of gradually dismantling the military blocs”; but Mitterrand continued the cascade of assurances by saying the West must “create security conditions for you, as well as European security as a whole.” (See Document 19) Mitterrand immediately wrote Bush in a “cher George” letter about his conversation with the Soviet leader, that “we would certainly not refuse to detail the guarantees that he would have a right to expect for his country’s security.” (See Document 20)

At the Washington summit on May 31, 1990, Bush went out of his way to assure Gorbachev that Germany in NATO would never be directed at the USSR: “Believe me, we are not pushing Germany towards unification, and it is not us who determines the pace of this process. And of course, we have no intention, even in our thoughts, to harm the Soviet Union in any fashion. That is why we are speaking in favor of German unification in NATO without ignoring the wider context of the CSCE, taking the traditional economic ties between the two German states into consideration. Such a model, in our view, corresponds to the Soviet interests as well.” (See Document 21)

The “Iron Lady” also pitched in, after the Washington summit, in her meeting with Gorbachev in London on June 8, 1990. Thatcher anticipated the moves the Americans (with her support) would take in the early July NATO conference to support Gorbachev with descriptions of the transformation of NATO towards a more political, less militarily threatening, alliance. She said to Gorbachev: “We must find ways to give the Soviet Union confidence that its security would be assured…. CSCE could be an umbrella for all this, as well as being the forum which brought the Soviet Union fully into discussion about the future of Europe.” (See Document 22)

The NATO London Declaration on July 5, 1990 had quite a positive effect on deliberations in Moscow, according to most accounts, giving Gorbachev significant ammunition to counter his hardliners at the Party Congress which was taking place at that moment. Some versions of this history assert that an advance copy was provided to Shevardnadze’s aides, while others describe just an alert that allowed those aides to take the wire service copy and produce a Soviet positive assessment before the military or hardliners could call it propaganda.

As Kohl said to Gorbachev in Moscow on July 15, 1990, as they worked out the final deal on German unification: “We know what awaits NATO in the future, and I think you are now in the know as well,” referring to the NATO London Declaration. (See Document 23)

In his phone call to Gorbachev on July 17, Bush meant to reinforce the success of the Kohl-Gorbachev talks and the message of the London Declaration. Bush explained: “So what we tried to do was to take account of your concerns expressed to me and others, and we did it in the following ways: by our joint declaration on non-aggression; in our invitation to you to come to NATO; in our agreement to open NATO to regular diplomatic contact with your government and those of the Eastern European countries; and our offer on assurances on the future size of the armed forces of a united Germany – an issue I know you discussed with Helmut Kohl. We also fundamentally changed our military approach on conventional and nuclear forces. We conveyed the idea of an expanded, stronger CSCE with new institutions in which the USSR can share and be part of the new Europe.” (See Document 24)

The documents show that Gorbachev agreed to German unification in NATO as the result of this cascade of assurances, and on the basis of his own analysis that the future of the Soviet Union depended on its integration into Europe, for which Germany would be the decisive actor. He and most of his allies believed that some version of the common European home was still possible and would develop alongside the transformation of NATO to lead to a more inclusive and integrated European space, that the post-Cold War settlement would take account of the Soviet security interests. The alliance with Germany would not only overcome the Cold War but also turn on its head the legacy of the Great Patriotic War.

But inside the U.S. government, a different discussion continued, a debate about relations between NATO and Eastern Europe. Opinions differed, but the suggestion from the Defense Department as of October 25, 1990 was to leave “the door ajar” for East European membership in NATO. (See Document 27) The view of the State Department was that NATO expansion was not on the agenda, because it was not in the interest of the U.S. to organize “an anti-Soviet coalition” that extended to the Soviet borders, not least because it might reverse the positive trends in the Soviet Union. (See Document 26) The Bush administration took the latter view. And that’s what the Soviets heard.

As late as March 1991, according to the diary of the British ambassador to Moscow, British Prime Minister John Major personally assured Gorbachev, “We are not talking about the strengthening of NATO.” Subsequently, when Soviet defense minister Marshal Dmitri Yazov asked Major about East European leaders’ interest in NATO membership, the British leader responded, “Nothing of the sort will happen.” (See Document 28)

When Russian Supreme Soviet deputies came to Brussels to see NATO and meet with NATO secretary-general Manfred Woerner in July 1991, Woerner told the Russians that “We should not allow […] the isolation of the USSR from the European community.” According to the Russian memorandum of conversation, “Woerner stressed that the NATO Council and he are against the expansion of NATO (13 of 16 NATO members support this point of view).” (See Document 30)

Thus, Gorbachev went to the end of the Soviet Union assured that the West was not threatening his security and was not expanding NATO. Instead, the dissolution of the USSR was brought about by Russians (Boris Yeltsin and his leading advisory Gennady Burbulis) in concert with the former party bosses of the Soviet republics, especially Ukraine, in December 1991. The Cold War was long over by then. The Americans had tried to keep the Soviet Union together (see the Bush “Chicken Kiev” speech on August 1, 1991). NATO’s expansion was years in the future, when these disputes would erupt again, and more assurances would come to Russian leader Boris Yeltsin.

 

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Newly Declassified Documents: Gorbachev Told NATO Wouldn't Move Past East German Border

So what happenned?  by Dave Majumdar

Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev was given a host of assurances that the NATO alliance would not expand past what was then the East German border in 1990 according to new declassified documents.

Russian leaders often complain that the NATO extended an invitation to Hungary, Poland and what was then Czechoslovakia to joint the alliance in 1997 at the Madrid Summit in contravention of assurances offered to the Soviet Union before its 1991 collapse. The alliance has dismissed the notion that such assurances were offered, however, scholars have continued to debate the issue for years. Now, however, newly declassified documents show that Gorbachev did in fact receive assurances that NATO would not expand past East Germany.

“The documents show that multiple national leaders were considering and rejecting Central and Eastern European membership in NATO as of early 1990 and through 1991,” George Washington University National Security Archives researchers Svetlana Savranskaya and Tom Blanton wrote. “That discussions of NATO in the context of German unification negotiations in 1990 were not at all narrowly limited to the status of East German territory, and that subsequent Soviet and Russian complaints about being misled about NATO expansion were founded in written contemporaneous memcons and telcons at the highest levels.”

Indeed, Russian Presidents Boris Yeltsin and Vladimir Putin have complained bitterly about the expansion of NATO towards their borders despite what they had believed were assurances to the contrary. “What happened to the assurances our western partners made after the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact? Where are those declarations today?” Putin said at the Munich Conference on Security Policy in 2007.“No one even remembers them. But I will allow myself to remind this audience what was said. I would like to quote the speech of NATO General Secretary Mr. Woerner in Brussels on 17 May 1990. He said at the time that: ‘the fact that we are ready not to place a NATO army outside of German territory gives the Soviet Union a firm security guarantee.’ Where are these guarantees?”

As the newly declassified documents show, the Russians might have had a point. While it was previously understood that Secretary of State James Baker’s assurance to Gorbachev that NATO would not expand “not one inch eastward” during a February 9, 1990, meeting was only in the context of German reunification, the new documents show that this was not the case.

Gorbachev only accepted German reunification—over which the Soviet Union had a legal right to veto under treaty—because he received assurances that NATO would not expand after he withdrew his forces from Eastern Europe from James Baker, President George H.W. Bush, West German foreign minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher, West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, the CIA Director Robert Gates, French President Francois Mitterrand, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, British foreign minister Douglas Hurd, British Prime Minister John Major, and NATO secretary-general Manfred Woerner.

Indeed, as late as March 1991, the British were reassuring Gorbachev that they could not foresee circumstances under which NATO might expand into Eastern and Central Europe. As former British Ambassador to the Soviet Union recounted in March 5, 1991, Rodric Braithwaite, both British foreign minister Douglas Hurd and British Prime Minister John Major told the Soviet that NATO would not expand eastwards.

“I believe that your thoughts about the role of NATO in the current situation are the result of misunderstanding,” Major had told Gorbachev. We are not talking about strengthening of NATO. We are talking about the coordination of efforts that is already happening in Europe between NATO and the West European Union, which, as it is envisioned, would allow all members of the European Community to contribute to enhance [our] security.”

Of course, later, in 1994, Bill Clinton decided to expand NATO eastward despite the various assurances that the previous administration had offered Gorbachev—and despite legendary diplomat George F. Kennan’s repeated warnings.

 

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/newly-declassified-documents-gorbachev-told-nato-wouldnt-23629

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2017-12-13/the-story-behind-putin-s-mistrust-of-the-west - Russian response. What else could you reasonably expect after broken promise to not expand NATO? What goes around comes around.

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The Story Behind Putin's Mistrust of the West

A collection of declassified documents regarding a broken NATO promise explains a cornerstone of Putin's worldview - By Leonid Bershidsky

A relationship with baggage.

In many ways, Russia's current defiant geopolitical stance can be traced to a decisive moment in recent history: the belief that the West broke its promises not to expand the North Atlantic Treaty Organization eastwards. But experts argue over what exactly was promised, NATO itself calls the story of the broken promise a "myth," and the former Soviet president, Mikhail Gorbachev, who is critical of NATO expansion, has said the West kept all its binding commitments following from the reunification of Germany. 

Now, George Washington University has taken a major step toward clarifying what exactly was promised and how, collecting a wealth of documents, all declassified in recent years, from the time Germany's reunification was negotiated. The many redactions -- the U.S. has way too many secrets, as National Security Archive head Tom Blanton pointed out in a recent interview with my Bloomberg View colleague James Gibney -- may hide important bits of the story. But even with them, the collection shows that top officials from the U.S., Germany and the U.K. all offered assurances to Gorbachev and Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze that NATO would not expand toward the Russian borders. The documents make clear that the Western politicians meant no expansion to Eastern European countries, not just the East German territory.

The assurances were never put on paper. But anyone looking for insights into President Vladimir Putin's worldview should take an interest in the GWU documents. They back up, to a certain extent, conclusions he appears to have reached on the basis of the Soviet records of these discussions.

It was West German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher who was charged with getting Soviet consent for his country's reunification. He understood a guarantee of NATO non-expansion was a key precondition of success, and said so both to the German public and to allies such as British Foreign Minister Douglas Hurd. The U.S., keen to keep unified Germany in NATO rather than grant it a neutral status, went along with Genscher's view. On Feb. 9, Secretary of State James Baker told Shevardnadze:

A neutral Germany would undoubtedly acquire its own independent nuclear capability. However, a Germany that is firmly anchored in a changed NATO, by that I mean a NATO that is far less of a military organization, much more of a political one, would have no need for independent capability. There would, of course, have to be ironclad guarantees that NATO’s jurisdiction or forces would not move eastward. And this would have to be done in a manner that would satisfy Germany’s neighbors to the east.

On the same day, he repeated to Gorbachev, "If we maintain a presence in a Germany that is a part of NATO, there would be no extension of NATO’s jurisdiction for forces of NATO one inch to the east." That, he made clear, was the concession the Western bloc was offering in exchange for keeping Germany in NATO. Gorbachev replied that, in any case, "a broadening of the NATO zone is not acceptable." "We agree with that," Baker responded. 

In simultaneous talks, Central Intelligence Agency Director Robert Gates put the same proposal to KGB chief Vladimir Kryuchkov. 

As the discussions wore on, the Soviets pushed for a common security structure in Europe, based on the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, formed almost two decades before as forum for cooperation between the Soviet and U.S.-led blocs. Western negotiators agreed but said they wanted to keep NATO, making it more benign and open to cooperation with the Soviets and their Warsaw Pact allies. As late as March, 1991, six months after Germany became one country, British Prime Minister John Major was still assuring Soviet Defense Minister Dmitri Yazov -- who would soon take part in a conservative coup against Gorbachev that would end up destroying the Soviet Union -- that NATO was not going eastward, and that he "did not himself foresee circumstances now or in the future where East European countries would become members of NATO." For his part, then-NATO Secretary General Manfred Woerner assured a Russian delegation, which reported back to President Boris Yeltsin, that 13 out of 16 NATO members were against expansion as well as Woerner himself.

None of the reassuring talk turned into specific agreements because the Soviet Union was practically bankrupt, in need of the aid that Germany offered in exchange for acquiescence to its unification, and generally dependent on Western loans. It was in no state to demand anything from the West; even the insistence on a common security system was a bluff. That's why Gorbachev, who doesn't like to admit he was desperate and unable to push back, has said that the West kept its promises -- or at least one promise: That no non-German NATO troops would be stationed in the former East Germany.

The U.S., unlike cautious Germany, was talking to the Soviets as a winner speaks to a loser, not particularly careful about non-binding offers and assurances to Gorbachev and Shevardnadze. The Soviet leadership's power was eroding so fast that it was pointless to make carved-in-stone promises. So later, when the Soviet Union crumbled and East European countries wanted the Cold War victors' protection, there was also no point to keep them out of NATO. 

That brings us back to Putin's style and worldview. He has clearly pored over Soviet documents from 1990 and 1991 -- he quoted Woerner on non-expansion in his famous, belligerent 2007 speech to the Munich Security Conference. And he appears to want to negotiate with the West the way he feels Westerners negotiated with the Soviets back then. That means, to him, feinting, dissembling, offering meaningless assurances of non-aggression, denying Russia's military actions in Ukraine, offering concessions in Syria that he never intended to make. Irritated Western interlocutors find that it's impossible to negotiate with him because he doesn't mean what he says and doesn't say what he wants. He sees it differently -- as talking like a winner.

Putin the ex-KGB officer appeared for a while to be a convert to Western ideas -- at least when he worked for St. Petersburg Mayor Anatoly Sobchak. But studying the Soviet collapse, which he has described as a tragedy, was almost certainly one of the factors that led him to revert to type. He became convinced the West will only respond to force. As he projects it, whatever he tells Western leaders is only cover -- just the game that, he appears to believe, Baker and President George H.W. Bush were playing with Shevardnadze and Gorbachev. Putin's worldview is one of all-embracing cynicism and mistrust. The broken promise story is his excuse -- not an entirely groundless one, judging by the GWU documents -- to refuse to play fair.

That's why the West is getting nowhere, and will get nowhere, with Putin. Moreover, it's highly unlikely that any successor to Putin will simply cast aside the broken promise story, which is by now embedded in the Russian government's post-Soviet DNA. For years, perhaps decades, maintaining a confrontation with Russia will be easier than rebuilding trust. 

 

 

Edited July 19, 2020 by Tomasz

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

Nobody read all that nonsense.....

[Zhong Lu + 845]

20 hours ago, Jan van Eck said:

Mr. Zhong, you might want to keep in mind that Dr. Maddoux is quite a bit smarter than I am - and knows bushels more about infectious diseases.  He brings more worth than you could possibly imagine.  I would suggest you temper that critical tongue of yours, you keep sticking it out and it gets bitten.  Or it will freeze to some cold iron fence post in the dead of winter.  Not smart. 

Pffft.  Most of his biology posts are a bunch of fancy words, and little more.  The science on the current corona virus is in its infant stages.  Even if he is knowledgeable, most of it's going to be outdated in a year or two. I know a bit about how science works, and most of the papers he's quoting are going to be considered naive or incorrect or missing some critical details within a few years.  So even if he's doing it in good faith, it doesn't matter.  They'll be outdated anyays.

What I find amusing about him is how he's constantly hating on other Americans, calling them Bolsheviks and what not, and yet he gets angry when I call him out on it. Apparently he gets upset when I call him a Bolshevik.  Double standards, anyone? 

Edited July 20, 2020 by Selva
insulting other members by calling them names

[Zhong Lu + 845]

12 hours ago, Ward Smith said:

Dr. Maddoux has belly button lint smarter than you are and his posts demonstrate that superior intellect, while yours demonstrate your churlish and childish demeanor. There's a reason the saying goes, "children should be seen and not heard". Little millennial snowflakes like you haven't got anything useful to say. But I like smacking you down, intellectually speaking it's like killing a grasshopper with a hand grenade. Carry on. 

Why look, it's Mr. Angry Man.  What I find weird is why you get angry when people attack Trump.  

Getting angry because someone insulted you? Fine.  That's understandable.  Getting angry because someone insulted a political figure living hundreds or thousands of miles away from you, that you've [most likely] never met in person? Stupid.  Some people have gotten their heads so stuck up the ass of an ideology that they can't even tell the difference between personal and political matters.

Edited July 20, 2020 by Zhong Lu

[Eyes Wide Open + 3,537]

8 hours ago, Tomasz said:

Please dont make me laugh. And please do not demand from Russia to obey all the rules that the West doesn't give a shit about because it smells of terrible hypocrisy

I really suggest to read Mr Kennan from 1998  and articles below. Every conscious Russian knows that you cinically broke agreement to not expand NATO one inch eastward.

You attacked Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya and Syria. so absolutely no- one should believe a single word spoken by Western politicians

I have a wish that the West will stop telling fairy tells about some international law or human rights, since it attacked Yugoslavia, Iraq and Syria, and the USA practically throughout its existence is constantly at war or makes military interventions all over the world and spends more than the next 7 countries combined on the list for the army and maintains over 800 military bases scattered around the world.

All the times the are western reports accentuating Russia's growing economic reliance on China. It may be sound geo-economic research, but its main political intention -- trying to drive a wedge between Russia and China -- is amiss.

Im sorry Moscow won't buy this stuff -- and for good reason. The Russians have no illusions about the rising economic dependence on China. They are aware of the risk that China could, at some point, resort to economic coercion, taking advantage of its economic superiority over Russia. 

Yet, for Russia, the China risk is hypothetical, whereas the threat of Western economic pressure (sanctions etc.) is reality. Moreover, the Kremlin calculates -- correctly, in my view -- that China will not risk antagonizing Russia as long as Beijing is in conflict with US.

Furthermore, Russia is used to asymmetric economic dependence on external powers. For centuries, Russia has been Europe's semi-periphery (to use a neo-Marxist term) while managing to keep its great power status. Why can't it try the same posture  China?

 US can and will crash any companies that became too dependent on US software and components. Witness Huawei and ZTE Weaponizing the $ , Threatening to cut countries off the Swift if it doesn't obey the US.

 I don't find the Russians seriously relying on China. Surely China's economy is much stronger than the Russia's. But the elites have been very careful trying to be not in debt to China.

Plus, other actors are as important as economic factor. Russia's military and political influence as major power are its leverages when dealing with China. Last point is that China also has been careful trying not to upset Russia too much because it is the only major power friend

It has no other options except deepening that reliance, because a) Russian is cheaper, which means cheaper energy with everything this entails; and b) Russia and blockade cannot be parts of the same sentence.

I would assume China also needs Russia as a stable energy source in case ME blows up. I also assume that's why China hedges against russian energy by supporting Iran and Venezuela

So give it up with all these articles about the threat China poses to Russia. This ship has already left. Through its many years of aggressive policy towards Russia, the West has led to a strategic Russian-Chinese allianceand this is probably the biggest mistake of American diplomacy since the end of World War II.

Please learn some history of modern diplomacy

1. First George Kennan about NATO expansion and its consequences

 https://www.nytimes.com/1998/05/02/opinion/foreign-affairs-now-a-word-from-x.html

Or this - What Gorbachev heard coming back to 1989/1991 according to US state archives

https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/russia-programs/2017-12-12/nato-expansion-what-gorbachev-heard-western-leaders-early

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/newly-declassified-documents-gorbachev-told-nato-wouldnt-23629

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2017-12-13/the-story-behind-putin-s-mistrust-of-the-west - Russian response. What else could you reasonably expect after broken promise to not expand NATO? What goes around comes around.

 

Whoa point well taken. Now a question if I may. Just what has Russia done to improve the world in any sense over the past 200 yrs?

 

 

[Yoshiro Kamamura + 274]

On 7/19/2020 at 4:15 PM, Jan van Eck said:

⛰️ --     Groan.   Let's give Mr. Trump's admittedly erratic speaking format mimics a rest.  There are more important things to think about, folks. 

For example those 140k dead people that died because of Trump's stubborn refusal to acknowledge the facts, and all those who will yet to die because he refuses to head the expert advice of people like Fauci, who unlike Trump, actually posses relevant knowledge on the topic?

To say it bluntly - about the fact that he is willing to trade lives of tens of thousands of Americans for his fleeting chance of second term in the office? 

Well, you are right - those are more important things worthy of careful consideration. I advise you to think about them, long and hard. 

Edited July 20, 2020 by Yoshiro Kamamura

[Ward Smith + 6,615]

1 hour ago, Yoshiro Kamamura said:

For example those 140k dead people that died because of Trump's stubborn refusal to acknowledge the facts, and all those who will yet to die because he refuses to head the expert advice of people like Fauci, who unlike Trump, actually posses relevant knowledge on the topic?

To say it bluntly - about the fact that he is willing to trade lives of tens of thousands of Americans for his fleeting chance of second term in the office? 

Well, you are right - those are more important things worthy of careful consideration. I advise you to think about them, long and hard. 

You're delusional. Trump personally went out and killed 140k people? He personally ordered nursing homes to take in positive Covid cases? Oh wait, that was your democrat governors, literally murdering their own citizens. But yeah, they get a pass because demoncrat. 

I'd advise you to think period. I'm pretty convinced that's beyond your ken. 

[Zhong Lu + 845]

The irony is that after 4 years of Trump, career politicians are suddenly looking a lot better.  "If Trump is capitalism, maybe socialism isn't so bad after all." Etc. etc. 

Whatever.  That's why we have elections.  But if the Republican party gets crushed this election cycle and loses the Senate (and everything else), I know who to blame.  

Edited July 20, 2020 by Zhong Lu