Těmi, kteří stojí neochvějně za americkou zahraniční politikou a expanzí NATO na východ k ruským hranicím jsem byl opakovaně důrazně umlčován, že žádný slib, že se NATO nebude rozšiřovat na východ, nikdy neexistoval a Rusko hysterčí (a já lžu), když se mu to nelíbí. A jako důkaz mi byl opakovaně předkládán článek na pro-NATO webu. Naštěstí neexistují jen pro-NATO weby v češtině, ale jsou zde i jiné zdroje, které na celý problém vrhají poněkud jiné světlo. Jako například německý Der Spiegel a jeho článek Is Vladimir Putin Right? ze kterého cituji:
But the recollections of those involved aren’t always consistent. Roland Dumas, who served as the French foreign minister in 1990, would later say that a pledge was made that NATO troops would not advance closer to the territory of the former Soviet Union. But the U.S. secretary of state at the time, James Baker, has denied that any such promise was ever made – a claim that some of his own diplomats, however, have contradicted. Jack Matlock, who was the U.S. ambassador to Moscow at the time, has said that „categorical assurances“ were given to the Soviet Union that NATO would not expand eastward.
Luckily, there are plenty of documents available from the various countries that took part in the talks, including memos from conversations, negotiation transcripts and reports. According to those documents, the U.S., the UK and Germany signaled to the Kremlin that a NATO membership of countries like Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic was out of the question. In March 1991, British Prime Minister John Major promised during a visit to Moscow that „nothing of the sort will happen.“
In a Jan. 31, 1990, speech, he [Hans-Dietrich Genscher] proposed that NATO issue a statement saying: „Whatever happens to the Warsaw Pact, there will be no expansion of NATO territory to the east and closer to the borders of the Soviet Union.“ Genscher’s speech was well received by the allied governments in Britain, the U.S., France and Italy.
In early February, Genscher and Baker presented the idea in Moscow independently of one another. The German foreign minister assured the Kremlin that: „For us, it is a certainty that NATO will not expand to the east. And that applies generally,“ clearly meaning beyond just East Germany.
Given the documents available, some even speculate that the West intentionally misled the Soviets from the very beginning. A few weeks after his trip to the Kremlin, in any case, Baker expressly told Genscher that some Eastern European countries were eager to join NATO
Ale jistě, můžete se točit na tom, že: „There is, of course, no legally binding agreement between the two sides from the period following the fall of the Berlin Wall.“ nebo na tom, že se šlo o sliby jednotlivých států a jejich představitelů, nikoliv NATO jako takového, nebo na tom, že situace se změnila, nic to ale nezmění na tom, že: „Years later, Genscher said that the expansion was just fine from a formally legal point of view. But it was impossible to deny, he said, that it was counter to the spirit of the understandings reached in 1990.„