NATO is Not A Defensive Alliance
NATO has begun four offensive wars since the end of the First Cold War in 1991
Since the Russo-Ukrainian War began on 24 February, 2022, many Americans and western Europeans have argued that potential NATO membership for Ukraine didn’t constitute a provocation to Russia and, consequently, wasn’t a legitimate casus belli for Russia’s current “special military operation.” In fact, neither France, Germany, Italy nor even the UK agreed to Ukraine’s accession to NATO in 2008. And Ukraine didn’t qualify for NATO membership in 2008, nor does it today in 2022: it’s government isn’t democratic enough yet for NATO.
In spite of this, Ukraine is today a de facto NATO member, lacking only Article 5 protection. (Article 5 protection, granted only to de jure NATO members, would obligate other NATO members to come to its defense in the event of an invasion.) Ukraine’s de facto NATO status is reflected in the billions of military aid granted to it by the US since 2014, as well as its participation in NATO war games and naval maneuvers during both the Obama and Trump administrations. Additionally, Russia had been concerned with western missile systems being deployed in Ukraine.
Also, the point must be made: NATO is not a defensive alliance. Since the first Cold War ended in 1991, NATO has been involved in four offensive wars: Kosovo (1999), Afghanistan (2001-2021), Iraq (2003-2011), and Libya (2011), none of which had anything to with defending western Europe or the “North Atlantic.” Also, here’s what needs to be emphasized repeatedly: Less than 50 years after the end of the most destructive war in human history, in 1990, the Soviet Union, which lost 26.6 million people in WWII in less than four years, (15 percent of its population, equivalent to 49 million Americans today), agreed to allow the country that started that war against it, Germany, to reunite and remain a NATO member.
For this incredibly magnanimous offer, what did Mikhail Gorbachev’s Soviet Union ask the West in return? Just one, simple thing: Don’t expand NATO eastward. What an incredible deal! Too bad the West and the US couldn’t keep its end of the bargain and eventually turned Russia from an ally into an enemy, in no small part because of its broken promises over NATO. In 1990, NATO had 16 members; today it has 30. Almost all of the former Warsaw Pact members are now in NATO, and note specifically that current NATO members Hungary, Romania, and Slovakia joined Nazi Germany in Operation Barbarossa in 1941. There are still Russians alive today who remember WWII. Putin himself lost his maternal grandmother, his older brother, and many uncles in the Great Patriotic War. Also, both of Putin’s parents were injured in the war.
After 1991, the US should have left NATO and encouraged western Europe to phase it out by the end of the millennium. Finally, note that the late John David Lewis might have argued that Germany in 1990 had no right to reunify, since it had begun the most destructive war in history in 1941 and carried out mass genocide against millions. Note that the Kaiser’s Germany committed far fewer war crimes than did Nazi Germany, yet in “Nothing Less Than Victory” Lewis vehemently argues that the Allies should have required unconditional surrender of Germany in 1918 and that western conciliation and appeasement towards Germany throughout the 1930s precipitated WWII. On this view, the West should have opposed German reunification in 1990 (as did Margaret Thatcher). Also, as he assumed command of NATO forces in 1951, two years before he became US president, Eisenhower stated that “If in 10 years, all American troops stationed in Europe for national defense purposes have not been returned to the United States, then this whole [NATO] project will have failed." Too bad that as president, Ike didn’t pull US troops out of Europe. Also, note that his granddaughter, Susan Eisenhower, along with 49 other foreign policy notables wrote an open letter to President Clinton on June 26,1997, opposing NATO expansion. Note that the 50 names in the letter include some doves but also many hawks like Richard Pipes, Gordon Humphrey, Sam Nunn, Fred Ikle, Stansfield Turner, Edward Luttwak and even Paul “Rollback” Nitze. In reading the letter, it’s clear that what these 50 people warned us about NATO expansion 25 years ago has now transpired. Also, Nitze’s rival, George “Containment” Kennan, argued back then that NATO expansion was "... the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-Cold-War era." The next year, in 1998, Kennan elaborated in an interview with the NY Times’ Thomas Friedman. Again, history has proven Kennan and the other 50 foreign policy specialists right.