Read this thread. Guess who said all these nice, cooperative things about NATO? Guess when they were said? 1/. THREAD.
"My colleagues were not short of words to describe this [NATO] summit today, and this is probably no bad thing. I too used the term ‘historic’ to describe it, referring to the long way we have come... 2/
, shedding some of the illusions we perhaps had back in the 1990s, and entering the period of productive construction that the start of this decade ushered in. 3/
"Now we are starting to build up our cooperation, and so I would agree overall that this is indeed an important stage in building a full and productive partnership between Russia and NATO." 4/
"Incidentally, even the [NATO] declaration approved at the end of our talks states that we seek to develop a strategic partnership. This is not a chance choice of words, but signals that we have succeeded in putting the difficult period in our relations behind us now." 5/
The documents set out the specific results achieved at this [NATO] summit, but I will say a few words on the main points. First, we noted that the period of distance in our relations and claims against each other is over now. 6/
"We view the future with optimism and will work on developing relations between Russia and NATO in all areas." 7/
There are, however, some key areas that are equally important for NATO and its individual member states, and for Russia. 8/
They cover our cooperation in a range of areas: fighting terrorism, which is one of the biggest threats humanity faces today, drug trafficking, piracy, and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. We have practically no differences on any of these issues. 9/
Another important and much discussed issue is European missile defence... everyone realises now that overall, only universal missile defence systems offer any real value, and not systems built to protect particular countries only, or covering particular military theatres only.10/
As far as the traditional issues on the Russia-NATO cooperation agenda go, the situation is looking good. 11/
There are other areas in which we have our differences, but to be honest, they are not so many, and we have agreed that these issues must not be allowed to undermine our relations. 12/
On the contrary, we need to work together on finding solutions to these complicated situations, and listen to each other’s points of view. 13/
"Summing up, I can affirm that this NATO-Russia Council meeting was indeed a major step in strengthening our relations and really is a historic event, because all kinds of new ideas and new agreements are always part of world history." 14?
Did you guess? That was Medvedev speaking in November 2010 after attending the NATO summit in Lisbon. That was a Kremlin leader speaking AFTER 2 rounds of NATO expansion and after Bucharest 2008. AFTER. here is the full text: 15/ en.kremlin.ru/events/preside…
So those concerned with logical causal arguments cannot explain current Russia-NATO tensions today on "NATO expansion" from the past without accounting for the this cooperative speech (which is proxy for many other areas of cooperation at the same time) in between. 16/
In the language of political science, the same independent variable (NATO expansion) cannot explain two different outcomes on the dependent variable (cooperation & confrontation). 17/
Obviously, other factors (other independent variables) beyond "NATO expansion" must be added to the analysis to explain how we went from Russia-NATO cooperation in 2010 to our current confrontational moment in 2021. 18/ END THREAD
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