No, the War in Ukraine Is not about NATO
Svante E. Cornell
Introduction:
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has led to widespread condemnation and an unparalleled outpouring of support for Ukraine. At the same time, a motley crew, including some academics and former U.S. officials, has essentially blamed the war on the West, and in particular NATO enlargement. The argument is basically that Russia would not have become so aggressive if Western powers had been more accommodating. This line of thinking, however, is simply incorrect.
That’s because Russia rediscovered its imperial vocation before NATO enlargement, and the war in Ukraine is, in fact, about Putin’s great power ambitions.
Russian leaders have emphatically argued that NATO countries, led by the United States, violated assurances made to Moscow at the end of the Cold War that the alliance would not expand to the east. This claim, however, has been debunked as a myth. Even the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, has denied that the issue of NATO enlargement was even discussed at the time. Russian President Vladimir Putin himself did not have much to say about NATO enlargement until his infamous speech at the 2007 Munich Security Conference.
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