Thread by @keithgessen

One more time about NATO expansion.

There has always been a robust debate, including inside the US Government, on wisdom and feasibility of NATO expansion. 1/n

The practical objections have been: Can we actually defend, eg, Estonia, in the event of an invasion? And, equally important, are we undermining a potential long-term detente with Russia by expanding an anti-Russia military alliance? 2/

(Note: NATO may not *think* of itself as an anti-Russian alliance anymore, but that is exactly how countries near Russia think of it. They join NATO for protection against Russia, not because they want to take part in a Global War on Terror mission in Afghanistan or Iraq.) 3/

Given that detente with Russia has always been abstract, whereas specific country memberships have been concrete, NATO has always chosen expansion. As Strobe Talbott put it to me, we have chosen the bird in the hand rather than the two birds in the bush. 4/

There has always been a moral argument for expansion. What right have we to say no to countries that have suffered from Russian aggression—whether it was Poland and the Czech Republic and Hungary in the 1990s, or Ukraine now? They have a living memory of Russian aggression. 5/

In early 1990s, this was decided at the highest levels. More recently it’s been on autopilot. In the words of one former US official: "You have a long enough period of people not being able to speak honestly about things and next thing you know you’re admitting Montenegro.” 6/

In Ukraine this policy of expansion has, perhaps, reached its outer limit. The reasons are multiple: Ukraine is close to Russia; it has deep historic ties to Russia; it has a weak government. But it is also a matter of time—Russia is stronger now and can enforce a veto. 7/

The hawks say: We must defend Ukraine! Russia should not be allowed to dictate who can and cannot join which international body! -- I can agree with that, maybe, in principle. But in practice, what can the West do about it? 8/

To me, the morally indefensible thing has been our dishonesty. We have allowed Ukraine to think that we would do things that we, in fact, are never going to do. You can blame that on Ukraine; you can blame it on Russia; I blame us. 9/

In 2014 and 2015, the U.S. government debated whether to send "lethal defensive" weapons to Ukraine, specifically anti-tank Javelin missiles. Obama decided against it. Russia had too much "escalation dominance." This was wise. 10/

That changed with the Trump Administration. On matters beneath presidential notice, it ran a traditional Republican foreign policy. In early August 2019 I interviewed Kurt Volker, a longtime U.S. foreign policy official and at the time the U.S. Special Envoy to Ukraine... 11/

This was just a week after Trump tried to extort an investigation of Joe Biden from President Zelensky. It was a month before Volker's life got blown up by the first impeachment. But at the time he said that things were going great! 12/

He was getting everything he wanted: a tough line on the negotiations with Russia; the anti-tank Javelins that Obama had refused to send. In Volker's view, we were finally taking concrete steps to help Ukraine. 13/

In retrospect, I'm not so sure that we were helping. If Russia ends up invading Ukraine, it will be an interesting question of who did more harm to Ukraine: Trump with his phone call, or Volker and Congress with their Javelins and promises? 14/

The NATO expanders will say: It's not our fault! None of this would have happened if only we'd been tougher and more menacing. Well--I don't know. I just know that they're not going to be the ones under aerial bombardment in Ukraine. END