6 Facts About NATO & Why Putin Felt So Threatened By It
One of the reasons why Putin invaded Ukraine is because of the NATO membership promised to Ukraine back in 2008. Putin keeps saying that the expansion of NATO is a threat to Russia. But is NATO really that dangerous?
Here are 6 facts about the military alliance and how that might affect Russia:
- What Is NATO’s Original Aim?
- Encouraging European Political Integration
- NATO’s Expansion Toward Russia Throughout The Years (Despite No Threat Present)
- Means That Russia Has Less Satellite States Now
- Ukraine As A Possible ‘Springboard’ Into Russia
- NATO’s Refusal To Rollback and Give Guarantee that Ukraine Won’t Be Allowed in NATO
So, What Is NATO Going To Do Now:
- It is obvious that NATO did have a part to play in starting this whole mess. So what are they going to do?
- Simple. They’re going to do nothing.
- You see, even though NATO refuses to give the guarantee that Ukraine won’t be allowed to join, they also don’t want to help Ukraine.
- And since Ukraine isn’t actually in NATO, Article 5, which makes members obligated to defend each other in the event of war, doesn’t apply.
- NATO also doesn’t want to risk a European war, so they’re simply going to implement another kind of NATO: No Action, Talk Only.
What is NATO and why was it created?
Amid tensions over NATO's eastern expansion and Russia's aggression toward Ukraine, DW takes a look at the origins and purposes of the trans-Atlantic security alliance & it's cornerstone is to provide mutual defense to its allies through political and military means against external threats
NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, was formed in 1949 with the aim, first and foremost, of acting as a deterrent to the threat of Soviet expansion in Europe after World War II. Beyond that, the United States saw it as a tool to prevent the resurgence of nationalist tendencies in Europe and to foster political integration on the continent. Its origins, however, actually go back to 1947, when the United Kingdom and France signed the Treaty of Dunkirk as an alliance to counter the eventuality of a German attack in the aftermath of the war. The original 12 founding members of the political and military alliance are: the United States, the United Kingdom, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway and Portugal.
At its core, the organization acts as a collective security alliance with the aim of providing mutual defense through military and political means if a member state is threatened by an external country. This cornerstone is laid out in Article 5 of the charter, (which has been invoked once, by the United States, in the wake of the 9/11 attacks in 2001) the collective defense clause:
"The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defense recognized by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area."
The Soviet Union responded to NATO by creating its own military alliance with seven other Eastern European communist states in 1955, dubbed the Warsaw Pact. But the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the ensuing collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, paved the way for a new post-Cold War security order in Europe. Freed from their Soviet shackles, a number of former Warsaw Pact countries became NATO members. Visegrad Group members Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic joined in 1999. Five years later, in 2004, NATO admitted the so-called Vilnius Group, made up of Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. Albania and Croatia joined in 2009. The most recent additions were Montenegro in 2017 and North Macedonia in 2020, bringing the total number of member states to 30. Three countries are currently categorized as "aspiring members": Bosnia-Herzegovina, Georgia and Ukraine.
Why Putin sees the US, NATO and Ukraine as a threat
Why has Russia’s President Vladimir Putin become so aggressive in his attitude to the US, NATO and Ukraine? In this article, I begin by examining the disintegration of the former Soviet Union and how it is still seen in the Kremlin as a great humiliation. Then I turn to the enlargement of NATO, and how Putin claims to see Ukraine and Russia as ‘one people’ and why he is risking war. I conclude by sketching out how Putin sees opportunities in a friendship with China that ‘has no limits’ and in which China opposes ‘further enlargement of NATO’ and supports Russia’s proposals to create long-term, legally binding security guarantees in Europe.
I need to stress at the outset that by trying to understand Moscow’s hostile stance and the way it is currently threatening to use military force against Ukraine, I do not endorse Moscow’s belligerent attitude or the dictatorial role that Putin is playing in what is now a potentially very dangerous situation for peace in Europe and, indeed, globally.
If we are to attempt to understand why Russia is behaving in this potentially very dangerous manner, we need to begin by recalling what happened to the Soviet superpower as it collapsed in 1991 and how that calamity continues to affect current strategic thinking in Moscow. Putin recalls the Soviet collapse as a time when gross injustice was done to the Russian people: ‘It was only when Crimea ended up as part of a different country that Russia realised that it had not been simply robbed, but plundered.’ The UK ambassador to Moscow from 1988 to 1992, Rodric Braithwaite, observes that the disintegration of the USSR at the end of 1991 was a moment of triumph for the West, but for the Russians it brought national humiliation, domestic chaos, great poverty, and even famine.
Russia feels threatened by NATO. There’s history behind that
Russian President Vladimir Putin and President Biden at a meeting in June.(Saul Loeb / Associated Press)
Thirty years ago this month, the Soviet Union collapsed, and Ukraine broke away from Moscow’s control. Russian President Vladimir Putin has never gotten over it. That, more than anything, underlies the current crisis in which Putin has moved nearly 100,000 troops to Ukraine’s frontier, raising fears of an invasion. “To us, the end of the Soviet Union is a done deal,” but not to Putin, said historian Mary Sarotte. “What he really wants to do is renegotiate the 1990s.”
Last week, Russia sent the United States a list of its demands for defusing the crisis: a binding promise that Ukraine will never become a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, plus the removal of all NATO troops and weapons from 14 Eastern European countries that have joined the alliance since 1997. It was not an encouraging sign. The demands were so extreme that they appeared intended for rejection — or, worse, as a pretext for invasion. None of this should come as a surprise.
Putin has raged against NATO’s steady expansion toward Russia’s borders for more than a decade. He appears to have decided that the alliance’s deepening relationship with Ukraine, which is not a NATO member, is the last straw. He’s not wrong about how the alliance’s growth has affected Russia’s perception of its security. Thirty years ago, Russia had a buffer zone of satellite states to its west. Now it has only the unimpressive presence of Belarus. Russia’s western border is NATO’s eastern flank. American and British military advisors serve in Ukraine; U.S. missile defense systems sit in Poland and Romania; and NATO troops conduct exercises in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, once part of the Soviet Union. Western officials, including the leaders of those “new NATO” countries, view all those measures as purely defensive. Putin, they note, is not the kind of leader who makes neighbors comfortable.
This Is Putin’s War. But America and NATO Aren’t Innocent Bystanders
How so? Putin views Ukraine’s ambition to leave his sphere of influence as both a strategic loss and a personal and national humiliation. In his speech on Monday, Putin literally said Ukraine has no claim to independence, but is instead an integral part of Russia — its people are “connected with us by blood, family ties.” Which is why Putin’s onslaught against Ukraine’s freely elected government feels like the geopolitical equivalent of an honor killing.
Putin is basically saying to Ukrainians (more of whom want to join the European Union than NATO): “You fell in love with the wrong guy. You will not run off with either NATO or the E.U. And if I have to club your government to death and drag you back home, I will.”
Why Other Countries Aren’t Helping to Fight Russia’s Invasion in Ukraine
By now, we already know how other countries are responding to the invasion. Sanctions, calls for diplomatic talks, supplying weapons … But the one thing that nobody is willing to do is send troops to help Ukraine fight Russia’s invasion.
Ever wondered why? Here are some key reasons, summarised for you:
- Ukraine Isn’t In NATO, Which Means No Treaty Responsibilities
- With Ukraine being an Eastern European country, it is understandable why most expectations for action falls onto the European countries, and by proxy, the largest military alliance there.
- According to Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), an attack against any NATO country is considered an attack against all. This makes members obligated to defend each other in the event of war.
- However, despite Ukraine’s desire to join NATO and NATO’s refusal to tell Russia that Ukraine won’t be allowed to join the alliance… Ukraine isn’t actually part of NATO.
- This means that the countries in this military alliance isn’t obligated to help Ukraine. Since they don’t have to, they’re not going to risk their citizens’ lives for Ukraine.
NATO promises Ukraine, Georgia entry one day
NATO leaders promised Ukraine and Georgia on Thursday they would one day join the Western defense alliance after rebuffing U.S. demands to put the former Soviet republics on an immediate path to membership. Germany, France and smaller NATO states withstood pressure from U.S. President George W. Bush to offer the two countries a Membership Action Plan (MAP), a first step towards entry, saying neither was ready and Russia could be antagonized.
But NATO leaders softened the blow by making a vaguer pledge to invite the two to join the alliance at some point in the future and saying former Cold War foe Moscow should have no influence on membership decisions. “We agreed today that these countries will become members of NATO,” NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer told a news conference, reading from a communique agreed at a summit of the pact’s 26 leaders in Bucharest. “That is quite something,” he added.
Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko called the NATO move historic. “This is our victory,” he told reporters. Georgian Foreign Minister David Bakradze also hailed “historic breakthrough” for his country. But thousands of protesters massed in Ukrainian cities to denounce the prospect of NATO membership, highlighting deep divisions over whether Kiev should look east or west.
A SHORT HISTORY OF NATO
The aftermath of World War II saw much of Europe devastated in a way that is now difficult to envision. Approximately 36.5 million Europeans had died in the conflict, 19 million of them civilians. Refugee camps and rationing dominated daily life. In some areas, infant mortality rates were one in four. Millions of orphans wandered the burnt-out shells of former metropolises. In the German city of Hamburg alone, half a million people were homeless.
In addition, Communists aided by the Soviet Union were threatening elected governments across Europe. In February 1948, the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, with covert backing from the Soviet Union, overthrew the democratically elected government in that country. Then, in reaction to the democratic consolidation of West Germany, the Soviets blockaded Allied-controlled West Berlin in a bid to consolidate their hold on the German capital. The heroism of the Berlin Airlift provided future Allies with some solace, but privation remained a grave threat to freedom and stability.
NATO
On 4 March 1947, the Treaty of Dunkirk was signed by France and the United Kingdom as a Treaty of Alliance and Mutual Assistance in the event of a possible attack by Germany or the Soviet Union in the aftermath of World War II
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, /ˈneɪtoʊ/; French: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, OTAN), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 28 European countries and 2 North American countries. Established in the aftermath of World War II, the organization implements the North Atlantic Treaty that was signed on 4 April 1949.
NATO constitutes a system of collective security, whereby its independent member states agree to mutual defense in response to an attack by any external party. The NATO headquarters are located in Brussels, Belgium, while the headquarters of Allied Command Operations is near Mons, Belgium.
Since its founding, the admission of new member states has increased the alliance from the original 12 countries to 30. The most recent member state to be added to NATO was North Macedonia on 27 March 2020. NATO currently recognizes Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, and Ukraine as aspiring members. Vladimir Putin, President of non-member Russia, had demanded that NATO promise never to accept Ukraine as a member prior to invading Ukraine in 2022. An additional 20 countries participate in NATO's Partnership for Peace programme, with 15 other countries involved in institutionalized dialogue programmes. The combined military spending of all NATO members in 2020 constituted over 57% of the global nominal total. Members agreed that their aim is to reach or maintain the target defence spending of at least 2% of their GDP by 2024
The former USSR "Union of the Soviet Socialist Replublics"
The establishment of the USSR
In post-revolutionary Russia, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) is established, comprising a confederation of Russia, Belorussia, Ukraine and the Transcaucasian Federation (divided in 1936 into the Georgian, Azerbaijan and Armenian republics). Also known as the Soviet Union, the new communist state was the successor to the Russian Empire and the first country in the world to be based on Marxist socialism.
During the Russian Revolution of 1917 and subsequent three-year Russian Civil War, the Bolshevik Party under Vladimir Lenin dominated the soviet forces, a coalition of workers’ and soldiers’ committees that called for the establishment of a socialist state in the former Russian Empire. In the USSR, all levels of government were controlled by the Communist Party, and the party’s politburo, with its increasingly powerful general secretary, effectively ruled the country. Soviet industry was owned and managed by the state, and agricultural land was divided into state-run collective farms.
In the decades after it was established, the Russian-dominated Soviet Union grew into one of the world’s most powerful and influential states and eventually encompassed 15 republics—Russia, Ukraine, Georgia, Belorussia, Uzbekistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. In 1991, the Soviet Union was dissolved following the collapse of its communist government.
The Collapse of the USSR
Boris Yeltsin makes a speech from atop a tank in front of the Russian parliament building in Moscow, U.S.S.R., Monday, Aug. 19, 1991. (AP Photo)
After his inauguration in January 1989, George H.W. Bush did not automatically follow the policy of his predecessor, Ronald Reagan, in dealing with Mikhail Gorbachev and the Soviet Union. Instead, he ordered a strategic policy re-evaluation in order to establish his own plan and methods for dealing with the Soviet Union and arms control.
Conditions in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, however, changed rapidly. Gorbachev’s decision to loosen the Soviet yoke on the countries of Eastern Europe created an independent, democratic momentum that led to the collapse of the Berlin Wall in November 1989, and then the overthrow of Communist rule throughout Eastern Europe. While Bush supported these independence movements, U.S. policy was reactive. Bush chose to let events unfold organically, careful not to do anything to worsen Gorbachev’s position.
With the policy review complete, and taking into account unfolding events in Europe, Bush met with Gorbachev at Malta in early December 1989. They laid the groundwork for finalizing START negotiations, completing the Conventional Forces in Europe treaty, and they discussed the rapid changes in Eastern Europe. Bush encouraged Gorbachev’s reform efforts, hoping that the Soviet leader would succeed in shifting the USSR toward a democratic system and a market oriented economy.
