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In the cold hush of a February morning in 1990, as the Berlin Wall crumbled and the Soviet empire wavered, a promise echoed through the halls of the Kremlin: NATO would not expand one inch eastward. This was no vague reassurance. U.S. Secretary of State James Baker said it not once, but three times to Mikhail Gorbachev on February 9, 1990:
“We understand the need for assurances to the countries in the East. If we maintain a presence in a Germany that is a part of NATO, there would be no extension of NATO’s jurisdiction for forces of NATO one inch to the east.”
German Chancellor Helmut Kohl echoed this the very next day, recognizing the Soviet need for security assurances:
“We believe that NATO should not expand the sphere of its activity… I correctly understand the security interests of the Soviet Union.”
British Prime Minister John Major told Soviet military officers directly:
“We are not talking about strengthening NATO… I do not foresee circumstances now or in the future where East European countries would become members of NATO.”
And French President François Mitterrand, in a conversation with Gorbachev on May 25, 1990, reassured:
“I always told my NATO partners: make a commitment not to move NATO’s military formations from their current territory in the FRG to East Germany.”
Yet, three decades later, NATO stands stretched from the Arctic to the Black Sea, with 32 members — including 14 nations once under the Warsaw Pact or part of the Soviet Union itself. How did a Cold War alliance born to contain Soviet power grow into the very presence Russia once feared at its doorstep?
Let’s step through this remarkable and consequential story.
The Birth of NATO: Shield Against Aggression
Formed on April 4, 1949, by twelve nations — including the U.S., U.K., France, Canada, and several European allies — NATO’s founding purpose was unmistakable: collective defence against aggression, particularly from the Soviet Union.
President Harry Truman, at the signing ceremony, emphasized NATO as:
“A shield against aggression and the fear of aggression — a bulwark which will permit us to get on with the real business of government and society, the business of achieving a fuller and happier life for all our citizens.”
The treaty’s heart was Article 5: an armed attack on one member would be considered an attack on all. Truman underscored its defensive purpose:
“The essential purpose of the North Atlantic Treaty is to prevent war through the creation of conditions under which resort to war is clearly unattractive to any potential aggressor.”
First Expansions: Greece, Turkey, and West Germany
In 1952, Greece and Turkey joined NATO, pushing the alliance’s influence into the eastern Mediterranean and pressuring the USSR’s vulnerable southern flank.
But the major turning point came in 1955: West Germany joined NATO, reintegrating into the Western defence system. The Soviet response was immediate — the creation of the Warsaw Pact on May 14, 1955, consolidating Soviet-aligned Eastern European nations into a counter-alliance. As Nikita Khrushchev later reflected, the Warsaw Pact was both a defensive mechanism and an acknowledgment that the arms race was escalating.
By 1982, after Spain transitioned to democracy, it too joined NATO, further strengthening the alliance’s reach into the Mediterranean and the Atlantic.
From Massive Retaliation to Flexible Response
During the Cold War, NATO’s strategic doctrines evolved. In the 1950s, under U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, NATO pursued a doctrine of “massive retaliation,” promising overwhelming nuclear response to Soviet aggression.
But by 1967, NATO formally adopted the “Flexible Response” strategy (MC 14/3), enabling a graduated military reaction — starting with conventional forces and escalating only if necessary.
The U.S. deployed thousands of tactical nuclear weapons across European NATO countries, including West Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, and Turkey, under a nuclear sharing framework with joint decision protocols.
There were also political fissures. In 1966, under Charles de Gaulle, France withdrew from NATO’s integrated military command, forcing the alliance headquarters to relocate from Paris to Brussels. France remained a political member and fully returned to NATO’s command structure only in 2009.
The Broken Pledge: Not One Inch East
As Germany reunified and the Soviet empire unraveled, the decisive diplomatic moment arrived in early 1990. U.S., German, British, and French leaders assured Gorbachev that NATO would not expand eastward.
Western leaders, such as German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher, were explicit:
“That the changes in Eastern Europe and the German unification process must not lead to an ‘impairment of Soviet security interests.’ Therefore, NATO should rule out an ‘expansion of its territory towards the east, i.e., moving it closer to the Soviet borders.”
However, no legally binding agreement was signed. Internal U.S. State Department memos by late 1990 show that despite public assurances, Washington was already discussing potential NATO membership for Eastern European countries.
By July 1991, even as Boris Yeltsin’s delegation visited NATO headquarters, NATO Secretary General Manfred Woerner assured the Russians:
“The principal task of the next decade will be to build a new European security structure, to include the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact nation… We should not allow the isolation of the USSR from the European community.”
But the strategic shift had already begun.
Expansion Waves: 1999–2024
1999: Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic joined NATO — the first former Warsaw Pact nations to do so, coinciding with NATO’s 50th anniversary. Moscow denounced the move as a violation of the post-Cold War consensus.
2004: The largest single enlargement — Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Romania, and Bulgaria — added seven nations, including three former Soviet republics. President George W. Bush celebrated this as advancing European unity, but Vladimir Putin warned NATO leaders in 2008 at the Bucharest summit:
“The emergence of the powerful military bloc at our borders will be seen as a direct threat to Russia’s security… It’s the potential, not intentions, that matter.”
2009: Albania and Croatia joined during the Strasbourg-Kehl summit, further extending NATO’s reach in the Balkans.
2017: Montenegro joined despite a Russian-backed coup attempt and Russian threats of “retaliatory measures.”
2020: North Macedonia entered NATO, following a protracted name dispute resolution with Greece. Russia’s reaction remained hostile, viewing it as destabilizing the Balkans.
2023: Finland, provoked by Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, abandoned its long-standing neutrality and joined NATO on April 4, 2023.
2024: Sweden, after two centuries of military non-alignment, became NATO’s 32nd member on March 7, 2024, following ratifications by Turkey and Hungary.
Russia’s Perspective: Encirclement, Not Integration
For Russia, NATO’s eastward advance wasn’t seen as cooperation, but as strategic encirclement. Russian leaders, from Yeltsin to Putin to Foreign Minister Lavrov, consistently viewed the expansion as a betrayal of the early 1990s’ spirit.
Yeltsin, in a 1993 letter to Clinton, warned:
“The spirit of the treaty on the final settlement with respect to Germany, signed in September 1990… precludes the option of expanding the NATO zone into the East.”
Putin, in 2008, stressed that NATO expansion to Ukraine and Georgia would cross a critical red line. Lavrov, more recently, lamented NATO’s trajectory:
“NATO’s reckless expansion eastwards, northwards or to other geographical areas undermines the very prospects to continue normal communication on European security… unfortunately, we are witnessing this process amid NATO’s absorption of almost all neutral nations… that’s sad.”
Conclusion: A Promise in the Snow, a Shadow on the Horizon
What began as a defensive shield has evolved into one of the most contested geopolitical expansions in modern history. NATO’s transformation from twelve founding members to thirty-two today tells a story of promises made, trust broken, and the volatile dance between power and security in Europe.
In the pale light of February 1990, when “not one inch eastward” was whispered across diplomatic tables, Mikhail Gorbachev chose trust over fear, hoping to build a “Common European Home.” But as the years unfolded, those words became a shadow over Europe’s future.
As NATO continues to define its next chapter, the ghosts of 1990 still whisper through its halls — and the map of Europe still bears the marks of promises unkept.
Interested to know more about the historic events that led to our current global turmoil, please check out my book: “Global Hegemony A Strategic Illusion”.
Why This Book Matters Now
With the world once again teetering on the edge of geopolitical rupture, this book is a must-read for scholars, diplomats, strategists—and every citizen who dares to ask, “How did we get here?”
This is your invitation to step behind the veil of power and witness how the illusion was built.
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This blog should NOT be read as either an investment, political, legal or a business advice, and it only represents the author’s views (Bahaa Arnouk) and does not represent any other body or organization perspectives, and the author has no liability for any reliance or reference made to it by any third party.