NATO Expansion: The Source of Russia's Anger?

NATO Expansion: The Source of Russia's Anger?

May 01, 2014 02:00 am | Edward P. Joseph

Edward P. Joseph

Nothing confounds the Western response to Russian aggression in Ukraine more than its incremental character. By shrewdly focusing on one localized crisis at a time, camouflaging the role of Russian forces, and contriving pretexts to intervene from hallowed principles like protecting human rights, Moscow has studiously managed to stay below the threshold for a serious Western response. Only when the threat to Western interests is seen in a wider frame—not to some obscure piece of Eastern Europe real estate, but rather as a challenge to the entire post–Cold War order—does the sacrifice and risk of confronting Russia seem worth it.
Unfortunately, a growing chorus in the United States has seized on the Ukraine crisis to challenge one of the pillars of that order, NATO expansion. Far from academic, the suggestion that NATO is the source of core Russian grievances makes it much harder to formulate tough measures. Now is the time to dispense with the canard that NATO expansion was a mistake, returning the policy debate to where it belongs—on how to urgently deter further Russian adventurism.
Critics claim that by expanding NATO, the West violated the terms for ending the Cold War. The argument has a certain moral logic to it, suggesting that if only the West—the United States, really—hadn’t been so arrogant towards a defeated and demoralized foe, then relations with Russia would be far less difficult today. But this morality play only holds water if we believe that NATO expansion, first, violated Western promises to Russia and, second, threatened Russian security. The record demonstrates the opposite.
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