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You are here: Home / Open Threads / If NATO Hadn’t Expanded

If NATO Hadn’t Expanded

by Cheryl Rofer|  July 31, 202112:10 pm| 59 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads

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A Swedish fighter-bomber that never was. Source

There’s an ongoing argument about NATO expansion after the fall of the Soviet Union. Within the western political science community, there have been a number of sub-arguments, including whether Russia was promised that NATO would not expand. That has more or less been settled: Although some statements were made to that effect, they were not official commitments.

More broadly, arguments about NATO expansion tend to assume that if NATO hadn’t expanded, Europe would look about the same as it does now, but Russia would be less aggressive, and more accommodations would be possible.

Having co-chaired a NATO Advanced Research Workshop in Estonia and spent some time working with Estonians on a major environmental cleanup, I’ve recognized that there were many paths that could have been taken by the many actors involved, which could lead to quite different outcomes.

Would the newly independent countries trust Mother Russia? Could Mother Russia keep her hands off them? It would not be a single big decision, but a series of small ones.

At the Duck of Minerva, I’ve written a counterfactual in which NATO doesn’t expand. I’ve based it on events that have actually happened, although in different historical order. The outcome is different than has been assumed. It was fun to write and I think will be enjoyable to read.

Cross-posted to Nuclear Diner

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Reader Interactions

59Comments

  1. 1.

    ExpatDanBKK

    July 31, 2021 at 12:37 pm

    1st! Good morning all. Almost midnight here. Saab 1300? My 5yo could have drawn that!

  2. 2.

    Chief Oshkosh

    July 31, 2021 at 12:39 pm

    Who is Dan Nexon?

  3. 3.

    MattF

    July 31, 2021 at 12:39 pm

    Sorry, but I’m leery of counterfactual history being considered as anything but a fictional genre.

  4. 4.

    Cameron

    July 31, 2021 at 12:41 pm

    @Chief Oshkosh: He’s one of the crew at LGM

  5. 5.

    Another Scott

    July 31, 2021 at 12:42 pm

    “Dan Nexon”??

    It would not be a single big decision, but a series of small ones.

    I think this is really important, and self-evident if people think about their own lives and histories. “What if that guy hadn’t pulled me out of the pool when I was inhaling water??” And history is replete with examples – “What if Schwarzkopf had extended the post-war ban on Iraqi fixed-wing aircraft to helicopters??”

    Thanks. I look forward to reading and thinking about it, once I wake up. :-)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  6. 6.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    July 31, 2021 at 12:44 pm

    At first I read “As the Duck of Minerva, I’ve written,” which seems fitting.

    Good piece.

  7. 7.

    Kent

    July 31, 2021 at 12:44 pm

    This isn’t at all an area of expertise of mine.  But that has never stopped me from tossing out opinions.

    It seems to me that over 200 years of Russian Imperialism under the Tzars and later the Soviets has led to a situation where ethnic Russians are large minority populations in every eastern European country from the Baltics in the north to Ukraine and Georgia in the south.   And the very real belief on the part of Russians that all of these “border lands” rightly fall under the Russian sphere of influence.

    And, of course, Russian history from Napoleon to WW2 has taught the Russians that they do, indeed, need to control a buffer zone between them and the west.

    Somehow I doubt that anything NATO chose to do or not do in the 1990s and early 2000s would have changed any of that.

  8. 8.

    MontyTheClipArtMongoose

    July 31, 2021 at 12:50 pm

    nuclear sweden?

    norway just got nervous.

  9. 9.

    J R in WV

    July 31, 2021 at 12:53 pm

    @Chief Oshkosh:

    Who is Dan Nexon?

    Daniel H. Nexon is a professor in the School of Foreign Service and the Department of Government at Georgetown University.

    From the GU web:

    Daniel Nexon has held fellowships at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation and at the Ohio State University’s Mershon Center for International Studies. During 2009-2010 he worked in the U.S. Department of Defense as a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellow. He was the lead editor of International Studies Quarterly from 2014-2018.

    Professor Nexon’s work covers issues in international-relations theory, American foreign policy, power politics, the politics of religious contention, and the relationship between popular culture and world politics. He is the author of The Struggle for Power in Early Modern Europe: Religious Conflict, Dynastic Empires, and International Change (Princeton University Press, 2009), which won the International Security Studies Section (ISSS) Best Book Award for 2010, and co-author of Exit from Hegemony: The Unraveling of the American Global Order (Oxford University Press, 2020).

    Also a LG&M guy. Most of those guys are professors of one thing or another. I can’t tell from the Duck of Minerva site whether he also authored the “Counterfactual” think piece with Rofer or not.

  10. 10.

    MontyTheClipArtMongoose

    July 31, 2021 at 12:53 pm

    @Kent: same can be said of japan n’ peru.

    i only wish russia would get at least as much pushback for its feints into ukraine, georgia, estonia, et al, as japan got for harbouring fujimori while albie tried to evade trial.

  11. 11.

    WhatsMyNym

    July 31, 2021 at 12:55 pm

    @Kent:

    Russian history from Napoleon to WW2 has taught the Russians that they do, indeed, need to control a buffer zone between them and the west.

    No more than anyone else. The only thing that saved the UK was the English Channel and the Channel Islands were taken over by the Germans in WWII.

  12. 12.

    Cheryl Rofer

    July 31, 2021 at 12:59 pm

    Like many blogging sites, Duck of Minerva automatically inserts an author as the user at the time. I’m not a regular at the Duck, and Dan published my piece for me, He thought he fixed the author line, but evidently not. I’ve got a message in to him.

  13. 13.

    WhatsMyNym

    July 31, 2021 at 1:01 pm

    Deleted

  14. 14.

    Omnes Omnibus

    July 31, 2021 at 1:05 pm

    @Kent: ​
     

    And, of course, Russian history from Napoleon to WW2 has taught the Russians that they do, indeed, need to control a buffer zone between them and the west.

    That, and a warm water port have been part of Russian foreign policy since well before Napoleon.

  15. 15.

    Kent

    July 31, 2021 at 1:09 pm

    @WhatsMyNym: Exactly.  You are making my point.  The UK, USA, and Japan are all protected by moats.  Russia is not.

    And, in any event, how is the Monroe Doctrine and US meddling in Central and South America any different from Russian meddling in Eastern Europe?

    I’m not some pro-Russian stooge defending their actions in Eastern Europe.   I’m only saying I doubt NATO and the actions of the west has much to do with any of it.

  16. 16.

    Geminid

    July 31, 2021 at 1:27 pm

    Thank you, Ms. Rofer, for another thought provoking post. And it has ducks! At least, a Duck.

  17. 17.

    Kent

    July 31, 2021 at 1:31 pm

    Cheryl ends her article with the following:

    My goal is to provide a jumping-off place for discussion of how events might have gone without NATO expansion. Surprisingly little has been done to really work through the possibilities. Constructive contributions from critics of NATO expansion should include counterfactuals that show one or more pathways from the Soviet breakup to a stable central and eastern Europe that does not leave Russia feeling threatened or insecure.

    While I agree, I don’t think the objective of not “leaving Russia feeling threatened or insecure” really has all that much meaning or weight.

    The US has not been meaningfully threatened on its southern border for over 150 years.  It is probably the most militarily secure major land border on the planet.   Yet that hasn’t reduced our military and political meddling in the affairs of our neighbors to the south in the slightest.  In the 1980s we had Ronald Reagan talking about Nicaragua being a red dagger pointed at our soft southern underbelly. and in 2018 we had “build the wall” Trump rattling on about caravans of immigrants threatening our sovereignty.  Demagogues are going to demagogue.

    I’m not sure why we expect an undemocratic nation like Russia, with more legitimate security concerns, to behave differently than us.

  18. 18.

    Benw

    July 31, 2021 at 1:33 pm

    The best counterfactuals involve time travel and/or dinosaurs. I suppose we’re learning that ducks are just teeny dinosaurs :)

  19. 19.

    Gin & Tonic

    July 31, 2021 at 1:35 pm

    @Kent:

     And the very real belief on the part of Russians that all of these “border lands” rightly fall under the Russian sphere of influence.

    It’s worse than that. Many Russians, including one V.V. Putin, believe that Ukrainians are not a distinct nationality, and that the Ukrainian language is some stunted hillbilly dialect of Russian. They appropriate for themselves the history of Kyivan Rus’, ignoring the fact that Kyiv is where it has always been, and in the 10th Century was the seat of a kingdom, while Muscovy was a swamp.

  20. 20.

    WhatsMyNym

    July 31, 2021 at 1:39 pm

    @Kent:

    I’m only saying I doubt NATO and the actions of the west has much to do with any of it.

    I see an expanded NATO as deterant to a mother Russia who is always looking to control nearby natural resources that they don’t have.

  21. 21.

    Mike in NC

    July 31, 2021 at 1:40 pm

    As noted a few days ago, in “I Alone Can Fix It” the authors claim that after seizing power, newly minted fascist dictator Trump wanted to drop out of NATO because he disliked the European leaders he met in Brussels and needed to pay back his mentor and master, Putin. I believe that 100%. He needs to die.

  22. 22.

    Gin & Tonic

    July 31, 2021 at 1:43 pm

    Speaking of alleged “spheres of influence”

    Russian armies of occupation are in Ukraine (Crimea & Donbas), Georgia (Abkhazia & Tskhinvali), Moldova (Trans-Dniester), Azerbaijan (Nagorno-Karabakh), Syria (Tartus & Latakia), Japan (Northern Territories), Germany (Königsberg), Finland (Viipuri), Chechnya and Belarus.
    — Michael MacKay (@mhmck) July 30, 2021

  23. 23.

    Captain C

    July 31, 2021 at 1:44 pm

    @Kent:

    And, of course, Russian history from Napoleon to WW2 has taught the Russians that they do, indeed, need to control a buffer zone between them and the west.

    You could make a very good argument that Russia’s neighbors all need a buffer zone between themselves and Russia, who has been a rather shitty, expansionist neighbor for hundreds of years.

  24. 24.

    PsiFighter37

    July 31, 2021 at 1:45 pm

    I will have to read a history of the 1990s in Russia; my lasting memory (as a kid) was that Clinton and Yeltsin were very chummy, but simply put, the West failed miserably when it came to fostering sustainable change in the country – and now you have had Putin running the show ever since.

    A huge missed opportunity, although given the long historical context within which Russia operates, I am not sure much could have been changed. Same goes for China – perhaps things turn out differently if Clinton wins in 2016, but Xi Jinping already seems to have made up his mind to go in a more authoritarian, closed-world route. Trump just gave him the opportunity to accelerate that initiative on many fronts. I do think, though, that the recent crackdown (or whatever it is – companies not paying enough fealty to the Communist Party?) on companies is a clear strategic mistake on China’s part.

  25. 25.

    Another Scott

    July 31, 2021 at 1:46 pm

    @Kent: US Counterpoint – October 1962.

    Things happened so quickly with the collapse of the USSR that it was destined to be a messy situation for a very long time.  Not having a major civil war immediately develop was an excellent outcome and everyone involved should be proud of that accomplishment.

    Politics is slow and takes time.  The peoples over there have to figure out their way forward.  But the idea of “spheres of influence” and “great powers” and all the rest needs to be left behind.  Ukraine and all the others are either independent and able to make their own alliances, or they’re not.  If Russia really wants a peaceful buffer to protect The Homeland, the way to get it is to encourage economic and political development and peaceful stability.  Not send little green men into countries that don’t toe Putin’s line to be vassals to Moscow.

    Yeah, easier said than done, agreed.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  26. 26.

    Chief Oshkosh

    July 31, 2021 at 1:51 pm

    @Cheryl Rofer: Bummer. I thought the explanation would be that you’re leading a double life  as Cheryl/Dan and slipped up with the byline.

    Come to think of it, that might still be true– DAN.

     

    ;)

  27. 27.

    Baud

    July 31, 2021 at 1:51 pm

    @Gin & Tonic:

    Germany (Königsberg), Finland (Viipuri),

     
    Huh? Do you know more about this? The other ones make sense.

  28. 28.

    Hilfy

    July 31, 2021 at 1:57 pm

    You can’t be Dan Nexon. The pictured cat is not yours.

  29. 29.

    Brachiator

    July 31, 2021 at 2:03 pm

    My goal is to provide a jumping-off place for discussion of how events might have gone without NATO expansion. Surprisingly little has been done to really work through the possibilities. Constructive contributions from critics of NATO expansion should include counterfactuals that show one or more pathways from the Soviet breakup to a stable central and eastern Europe that does not leave Russia feeling threatened or insecure.

    Hasn’t Russia always felt threatened or insecure?

    This is interesting stuff. I don’t know what is happening in the region, and most news stories seem to suggest that Putin is trying to re-establish the old Soviet Empire.

    But weren’t there efforts to reach out to new Russia with the collapse of the old Soviet Union? I know that I didn’t think that an enemy had been defeated, but that the stupidity of communism had collapsed from its own contradictions.

    But any analysis that looks for realistic ways to reduce tension is a good idea.

  30. 30.

    Kent

    July 31, 2021 at 2:04 pm

    @Baud: Both cities were captured by the USSR during WW2 and remain Russian territory.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%B6nigsberg

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vyborg

  31. 31.

    Baud

    July 31, 2021 at 2:06 pm

    @Kent:

    Ok, thanks.  I thought that the country names indicated present borders.

  32. 32.

    Tony Jay

    July 31, 2021 at 2:08 pm

    @Baud:

    Yeah, the German example is especially bullshit. Russia annexed that chunk of East Prussia after WW2. Might as well talk about the ‘Polish Occupation of Germany’ because of Silesia, or the American Occupation of Texas and California.

  33. 33.

    Poe Larity

    July 31, 2021 at 2:15 pm

    There’s NATO and then there is the EU. The EU wants security, no immigrants and Russian gas too while messing about with Ukraine, Libya and Syria.

    Someone is not acting rationally here and I’m not sure it’s all Vlad.

  34. 34.

    lashonharangue

    July 31, 2021 at 2:18 pm

    There were indeed those who thought NATO expansion was a mistake at the time. I could argue we “owed” Poland, the Czech Republic and maybe the Baltic states NATO protection. Cheryl’s article suggests that while Putin is horrible we probably make a mistake if we think Russia’s actions would be very different with someone else in charge.

  35. 35.

    Major Major Major Major

    July 31, 2021 at 2:26 pm

    Open thread? Here’s an amazing thread from what I can only assume is an extraordinary scholar

    No one: "Say I wonder how many references to @rushtheband someone could fit in a paper"

    me: I accept your challenge pic.twitter.com/ThITTaQSXV

    — Jonathan Peelle (@jpeelle) July 30, 2021

  36. 36.

    Major Major Major Major

    July 31, 2021 at 2:30 pm

    Also, I look forward to reading this! I know surprisingly little (surprising to me at least) about this stuff.

  37. 37.

    Gin & Tonic

    July 31, 2021 at 2:52 pm

    @Tony Jay: Sure, Kaliningrad/Königsberg is a stretch there, but the larger point stands.

  38. 38.

    Another Scott

    July 31, 2021 at 2:54 pm

    @Major Major Major Major: Excellent.

    Thanks.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  39. 39.

    patrick II

    July 31, 2021 at 3:14 pm

    Putin considers the loss of the Soviet Empire the greatest tragedy of the twentieth century. His singular goal, aside from self-preservation and enrichment, is to restore the power and prestige of the Soviet Union. There was never going to be a less hostile Russia under Putin, only one that saw more opportunities.

  40. 40.

    Another Scott

    July 31, 2021 at 3:14 pm

    I’m closer to being awake now.

    I assume that Ukraine remains with Russia relative to defense issues.

    I’m not sure what this means. Given NATO troops in the country in exercises, it seems like some words are missing. It’s before your “counterfactual” section, so is it out of place? Or are you assuming some sort of “nuclear umbrella” from Moscow over Ukraine now (or up until some recent time)?

    Excellent as always. Clear and thought-provoking.

    Thanks.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  41. 41.

    Cheryl Rofer

    July 31, 2021 at 3:16 pm

    @Another Scott: I assume that for the counterfactual. As I said in the article, Germany and Ukraine deserve their own counterfactuals. Any other assumption would have complicated the counterfactual too much.

  42. 42.

    Another Scott

    July 31, 2021 at 3:17 pm

    @Cheryl Rofer: Ah, thanks.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  43. 43.

    Mallard Filmore

    July 31, 2021 at 3:25 pm

    At the Duck of Minerva, I’ve written a counterfactual in which NATO doesn’t expand.

    I have not been over there in a few years, but I think you would be welcomed over at

    https://www.alternatehistory.com

  44. 44.

    mrmoshpotato

    July 31, 2021 at 3:26 pm

    @Major Major Major Major: Hhahahahahahaha!!!!!  Excellent!

  45. 45.

    mrmoshpotato

    July 31, 2021 at 3:27 pm

    So, open thread.

    Via ahumorlessfem

    By popular demand, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz running from their own protest rally…but set to the Benny Hill theme song.Enjoy. pic.twitter.com/OJamj15aC6— Gabe Sanchez (@iamgabesanchez) July 29, 2021

  46. 46.

    The Pale Scot

    July 31, 2021 at 3:37 pm

    @PsiFighter37:

    but simply put, the West failed miserably when it came to fostering sustainable change in the country

    It was worse than that. The US government ignored the situation, that left an opening for libertarian and American Heritage types to send ideologues fresh out of college to explain how privatizing everything, before a functioning legal and court system was created would solve everything. KGB types came back from their Western posts already versed in how to BS American Style and “privatized everything that was not nailed down. Those stranded assets were stripped and given to locals to own.

  47. 47.

    Geminid

    July 31, 2021 at 3:43 pm

     

     

    @Baud: Vipurii, or Vyborg, is a port on the south side of the Karelian Penisula, 80 miles west of St. Petersburg. It was taken by the Soviet Union in it’s 1939-40 “Winter War” with Finland.

    In the runup to the war, the U.S.S.R. demanded that Finland cede a portion of the Peninsula closer to Saint Petersburg, along with islands covering the sea approaches to the city. In return for a more defensible “Petrograd,” Stalin and company offered to swap land along the two countries’ central border. Field Marhall Mannerheim, Finland’s army commander, advised his civilian superiors to take the deal, but they would not, and the Soviets attacked. Mannerheim’s forces repulsed the first Soviet offensive, but not the second. Finland had to cede the Karelian Peninsula up to Vipurii in the Treaty of Moscow.

    The Finns retook the city when they joined Germany’s attack on the U.S.S.R. in June of 1941. The Soviets took Vipurii back in August, 1944, and they and then Russia have held it ever since.

  48. 48.

    The Pale Scot

    July 31, 2021 at 3:45 pm

    @Poe Larity:

    messing about with Ukraine, Libya and Syria.

    That’s the UK and rest of the Anglo 5 Eyes. The Uk is no longer a member of the EU. Please, do keep up.

  49. 49.

    NotMax

    July 31, 2021 at 3:47 pm

    Maybe Putin can nudge Mexico to pay for a wall.

    //

  50. 50.

    The Pale Scot

    July 31, 2021 at 3:48 pm

    @mrmoshpotato:

    The piece is called Yakety Sax

  51. 51.

    Tony Jay

    July 31, 2021 at 3:54 pm

    @Gin & Tonic:

    It’s a good larger point and it deserves to stand on its own merits. Adding the German and Finnish examples effectively labels every single postwar land transfer in history as an ‘Occupation’, which is just super silly.

  52. 52.

    mrmoshpotato

    July 31, 2021 at 4:04 pm

    @The Pale Scot: I am not Gabe Sanchez. :)

  53. 53.

    Geminid

    July 31, 2021 at 4:05 pm

    @Tony Jay: The Russian naval and air bases in Syria are also different in kind from Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, I think. Not that this makes them benign.

  54. 54.

    Robert Sneddon

    July 31, 2021 at 4:09 pm

    @Tony Jay: ​
      It also misses out, for example, the Okinawa situation where the US military still occupies about half of the land area of the islands or the Diego Garcia airbase facility which was gifted to the US in the 1960s by the UK in lieu of granting the BIOT independence. Guantanamo Bay in Cuba is, of course, still in US hands a century after the Spanish-American War.

    The Kurile and Sakhalin islands were lost during the Russo-Japanese war of 1905 and the Soviet (re-) conquest of the islands at the end of WWII was a big deal for Russian nationalists at the time despite their lack of strategic importance or utility then and indeed now.

  55. 55.

    NotMax

    July 31, 2021 at 4:21 pm

    @Robert Sneddon

    Guantanamo is a rental. Should the U.S. ever move out, betcha we don’t get back the security deposit.

    //

  56. 56.

    Tony Jay

    July 31, 2021 at 4:26 pm

    @Geminid: @Robert Sneddon: 

    Quite. The original quote is supposed to be a list of modern Russian military occupations, and that’s worth clarifying as a topic for discussion. Slamming in examples of ‘military advisor’ placements and land transfers agreed at postwar peace settlements just muddies the hell out of the intended clarity and practically begs for the topic to be buried in endless and quite genuine “whatabouts?”.

  57. 57.

    jl

    July 31, 2021 at 7:09 pm

    Thanks to Cheryl and commenters for a very interesting discussion. I’ve been a critique of how the US handled some of the post Cold War expansion. I think most of it was appropriate and advisable. I think some of the Russian provocations were bluffs and symbolic maneuvering for bargaining, and it seems to me that more hawkish elements in US foreign policy took that to justify barging in on some of NATO expansion.

    My main criticism is that it was extended to countries that I do not think met NATO criteria for entry. The US felt like it should expand asap and as far as possible while the getting was good . I think there was always a concern about the robustness of democracy in Hungary, and to a much lesser extent Poland (but I think recent good signs there). I can be accused of a double standard because of the original entries of Spain and Portugal, but those problems solved themselves peacefully, and should be viewed as unfortunate situations that should not be repeated. In terms of realities on the ground, they were not on the border of NATO, so the problems they could cause were limited.

  58. 58.

    Bill Arnold

    July 31, 2021 at 7:16 pm

    @Steeplejack (phone):

    At first I read “As the Duck of Minerva, I’ve written,” which seems fitting.

    Likewise. I was momentarily surprised that Cheryl was revealing her secret identity. :-)

  59. 59.

    Parmenides

    August 1, 2021 at 5:31 pm

    This is really good, too often are the interests of the central European states not considered and what actions they might take when talking about NATO expansion. Thank you, a very informative read.

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