So was there a promise? Just a misunderstanding? Perhaps misdirection?
Before giving my take, keep in mind two things.
First, you can (and should) read for yourself. Check out the declassified documents on the topic provided by the @NSArchive. They cover both what Gorbachev heard from US officials...
There are those more in the middle, like @JimGoldgeier, who emphasize that the problem isn't so much the existence of a "promise", but USA failure to account for Russia's sense of insecurity (and that expansion could feed into that insecurity)
There are those, like @e_sarotte, who cover all the angles. As she wrote in this 2010 @SHAFRDH piece, both sides, the USA and Russia, are right "to some extent" and "that is the heart of the problem."
First, some of the debate is over the "formalness" of the pledge. There was no written, signed, and ratified agreement explicitly stating that that NATO would never expand.
My take is that, written or unwritten, if a leader understands that a promise is (repeatedly) made and that promise is not followed through, they are going to be ticked. It's a breaking of "trust" (which is hard to build in the first place).
Second, it seems that a key source of the debate is related to the fact that NATO has two sides: a political side (see the gleaming building in Brussels)...
...and a military side (see austere S.H.A.P.E. compound in Casteau).
In other words, the sides seemed to have different conceptions of "NATO expansion" when deliberating.
Specifically, did "NATO expansion" mean "NATO membership" (i.e. who could be IN the alliance) or "NATO presence" (i.e. where NATO assets could be located)?
Moreover, these conceptions where not consistently held by either side. This internal inconsistency is likely due to changes in leadership and personnel...
...the fact that one of the parties completely changed as a political unit...
...and perhaps even due to one of the leaders having a drinking problem.
Throw in a program like Partnership-for-Peace, and the waters become even more muddy.
Is PfP a substitute for NATO or a path to NATO? The answer seems to be "yes" 🤔
Third, what's the time-frame? Even if "Not one Inch" was understood by both sides as not moving NATO membership or forces Eastward in 1990, is that pledge supposed to hold indefinitely? As @dmedelstein would ask, "what's the time horizon?"
Including, coincidentally, the North Atlantic Treaty itself (see Article 13). nato.int/cps/en/natoliv…
In sum, there were pledges and promises made by the United States towards Russia regarding NATO expansion.
But the sides held very different understandings (at different times) of what those promises meant, to whom they applied, and how long they had to be kept.
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When you hear "Liberal International Order", just think "the G-7, for better and for worse"
[THREAD]
While some scholars and policy makers like to speak of the "Liberal International Order" as the collection of post-World War II international institutions.... cambridge.org/core/journals/…
...the phrase itself is much more recent in origins, largely a product of the mid-1990s.
As I wrote in my latest for @WPReview, shifting patterns in population growth will inevitably influence international politics. worldpoliticsreview.com/global-demogra…
This isn't a new idea. It's one found in classic works on change in world politics.
I pointed out the difficulties in answering that question, namely that we don't actually know when deterrence works (i.e. selection bias)... tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.108…
R2P is "the responsibility to protect its populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity". This means nations can't hide behind the barrier of "sovereignty" to stop interventions.