THE STATE OF THE EUROPEAN UNION. Reforming Europe in a time of war

THE STATE OF THE EUROPEAN UNION 72 although it might not be the formula spelled out by the Soviet president. When the question of German reunification was raised in 1990, to get Moscow on board, it was agreed that NATO would not be expanded into East Germany. Although the conversations revolved around Germany, many leaders from the United States, Germany and other European countries assured Gorbachev and other Soviet leaders that they would not lay claim to any strategic advantage, and that NATO would not expand eastwards. There was great controversy around what was actually said during these conversations, although in December 2017, the Digital National Security Archive at The George Washington University published 30 American, Soviet, German, British and French declassified documents on line 1 regarding German reunification, which make it clear that Western leaders at the time made a succession of guarantees regarding Soviet security and the non-expan- sion of NATO to Gorbachev and other Soviet civil servants throughout the process, in 1990 and 1991. It is also clear that the famous, much-discussed guarantee from the US Secretary of State, James Baker, in his meeting with Gorbachev on 9 February 1990 that NATO would expand “not one inch eastward” really existed. 2 However, although these informal conversations might encourage the Soviet leaders to believe that NATO would not expand, in no case would these words real- ly prevent enlargement given that nothing was put in writing, never mind signed, and therefore there was no binding agreement.After the Soviet Union was dissolved, Russia was substantially weakened politically, economi- cally and militarily, under the presidency of Boris Yeltsin. This led Russia to sign the Budapest Protocol in 1994 that recognised Ukraine’s borders, even though Crime- an authorities had requested support from Moscow to secure their independence, in exchange for Ukrainian nu- 1  Available: https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/russia- programs/2017-12-12/nato-expansion-what-gorbachev-heard- western-leaders-early#_edn1 2  Available: https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/document/16117- document-06-record-conversation-between clear disarmament. In 1997, in a similarly weak position, Russia signed the Founding Act with NATO on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and Security, where no mention was made of future expansion, although it did cover mil- itary deployment encompassing possible new members. This led to Russian accepting the first enlargement of the Atlantic Alliance in 1999. Russia also had to stand by helplessly during wars in the former Yugoslavia, watching its traditional ally, Serbia, suffer defeats including NATO bombing its capital, Belgrade, and the illegal secession of Kosovo. In 2002, the Russia-NATO Council was set up to ad- dress common security issues. Its implementation her- alded a period of very positive cooperation in several areas such as tackling proliferation (regarding Iran for instance), the fight against terrorism, logistical coopera- tion for NATO’s mission in Afghanistan, the fight against drug trafficking and industrial and aerospace coopera- tion. This initiative, the closest that Russia has ever come to a common security project with NATO, did not prevent a second, larger enlargement of the Alliance in 2004, in this case with strong reservations from Moscow, particu- larly because it included the three Baltic States, once part of the Soviet Union and directly bordering Russia, and they were home to significant Russian minorities who were effectively left behind. Justified or not, Russia was totting up its grievances and it accused NATO or the “West” in general of act- ing unilaterally without considering Russian concerns or interests. In February 2007, Vladimir Putin gave an important speech to the Munich Security Conference in which he wondered against whom NATO was progres- sively expanding and what had happened to the guaran- tees made by Western countries after the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact, mentioned in the speech by the NATO Secretary General, Manfred Wörner, in Brussels on 17 May 1990, where he stated that: “The fact that we are ready not to deploy NATO troops beyond the territory of the Federal Republic gives the Soviet Union a firm secu- rity guarantee.” Putin let it be known that Russia was no longer prepared to passively accept an allied expan-