Global News Insider

The following material is mainly based on the views and opinions of the current CIA director William Joseph Burns, as reflected in his book titled “The Back Channel: A Memoir of American Diplomacy and the Case for Its Renewal” as well as on the statements of the Russian senior official Sergei Ivanov who served as the Chief of Staff of the Presidential Executive Office, Russia.

George F. Kennan, “A Fateful Error,” New York Times, Feb 5, 1997.

[B]luntly stated…expanding NATO would be the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-Cold War era. Such a decision may be expected to inflame the nationalistic, anti-Western and militaristic tendencies in Russian opinion; to have an adverse effect on the development of Russian democracy; to restore the atmosphere of the cold war to East-West relations, and to impel Russian foreign policy in directions decidedly not to our liking.”

The timing of our analytical publication is critical, as experts anticipate a decisive battle on the Ukrainian front in the coming days. The outcome of this battle will determine whether Ukraine can reclaim the territories occupied by Russia, or whether the conflict will become a prolonged war with unclear consequences.

William Joseph Burns, a former counselor for political affairs at the US embassy in Moscow and US ambassador to Russia during Vladimir Putin’s second presidential term, is an expert on diplomacy and US-Russian relations. He has met Putin on several occasions, advised President Obama on addressing Putin during their Sochi meeting, and is currently the director of the CIA in the Biden Administration. In November 2022, Burns met with Russia’s spy chief Naryshkin in Turkey.

In his book titled “The Back Channel: A Memoir of American Diplomacy and the Case for Its Renewal,” Burns provides details on the complexity of US-Russian relations. He warns that there has never been complete unanimity among senior US officials when it came to supporting NATO expansion at the expense of former Soviet republics. Burns repeatedly cautioned that Russia under any president would consider Ukraine within its natural sphere of influence, and would never allow even a mention of the possibility of Ukraine joining NATO.

These memoirs, published in 2020, by a high-ranking diplomat who served under many US Secretaries of State are especially relevant today. Here are some excerpts from the book that may cause the reader or analyst to reconsider some of the main narratives that US diplomacy works with.

On the NATO’s expansion to the EAST and the issue of security architecture in Europe

In 1995, while serving as a counselor at the US Embassy in Moscow, Burns wrote a cable to Washington stating that “hostility towards early NATO expansion is almost universally felt across the domestic political spectrum here.”

In a classified 2008 embassy cable William J. Burns admitted that NATO expansion to Ukraine crosses Moscow’s security “redlines” and “could potentially split the country in two, leading to violence or even, some claim, civil war, which would force Russia to decide whether to intervene.”

The roots of the issue of NATO expansion and related security concerns for Moscow can be traced back to the negotiations on the unification of Germany between Gorbachev and Kohl in 1991.

“Although Gorbachev did not get any written assurances either from the USA or Kohl, Burns confirms in his book that promise not to expand NATO eastwards was really made during meeting between Baker and the USSR foreign minister Shevarnadze.” Baker argued that a united Germany within NATO would pose less of a threat to the interests of the USSR than if it did not belong to the North Atlantic Alliance, especially if it eventually acquired a nuclear weapons. In addition, he promised that NATO jurisdiction and forces would not expand “an inch east” of the borders of a united Germany.

Burns further writes in his book that: “The Russians took Baker at his word. In subsequent years they will see NATO’s eastward expansion as a betrayal, despite the fact that Baker’s promise was not written down and was made before the collapse of the Soviet Union. This episode will be the subject of disagreement between our countries for many years to come.”

Many people tend to focus mainly on the written agreement between Gorbachev and the leader of Germany, while overlooking the meeting between Shevardnadze and Baker and their “gentlemen agrrements”. It is often mentioned that Moscow’s “price” for agreeing to German reunification was that German leaders agreed not to expand the Alliance eastwards. However, the reality is more complicated. Firstly, Gorbachev himself denied the existence of such an agreement. Secondly, the German leaders, whether it was then Chancellor Kohl or anyone else, despite their considerable influence, could not promise on behalf of the entire Alliance that it would not expand in the future. Kohl had no authority to speak on behalf of other countries of Central Europe or the Baltic States which were still effectively the member states of Warsaw pact. The agreement between Gorbachev and Kohl referred to the non-expansion of significant military infrastructure of NATO in the territory of the former East Germany. It might be somehow hidden behind the lines that not-expansion of the NATO infrastructure to the eastern Germany naturally implies that NATO will not expand even further in the East.

What the Germans, Americans, British and French did agree to in 1990 was that there would be no deployment of non-German NATO forces on the territory of the former GDR. In 1990, few gave the possibility of a broader NATO enlargement to the east any serious thought.

Despite the massive geopolitical changes created by the collapse of the USSR, the subsequent expansion of NATO into former members of the Warsaw Pact has been viewed by subsequent Russian presidents (Yeltsin, Medvedev and Putin) as a betrayal and a violation of NATO’s (Baker’s) oral promise made during negotiations on German unification. Over 30 years of analysis from US foreign policy leaders such as Burns or George Kennan, and even Kissinger indicate that NATO’s expansion is a core security concern for Russia. In this context, it is reasonable to ask whether the US administration has taken into account the high possibility of a Russian invasion when supporting the policy of keeping NATO’s door “open” to Ukraine.

Sergei Ivanov admits in 2008 that there is practically nobody in Russia who is against NATO.

Nevertheless, in the context of the abovementioned it is necessary to recall the interview with Sergei Ivanov, who served as the Russian minister of Defence, and who was a potential candidate for a president after Putin’s two presidential terms in 2008. In his interview with the US media, Ivanov acknowledges that there are virtually no members of the Russian ruling class who oppose or are against NATO. Ivanov also mentioned in one of his interviews that nobody can prevent Ukraine to join NATO, but according to his knowledge (interview was taken in 2006) only 20% of Ukrainians would like to join this organization.

Nevertheless, as we have seen in the upcoming development, the relations betweeen Russia and USA have seriously deteriorated, especially after the hopes for ‘detente’ arised during Medvedev’s presidential term (2008-2012).

Upon reviewing previous reports of Burns and other respected diplomats and political analysts, it appears that there are differing perspectives among high-ranking officials in the US regarding the US-Moscow relationship. This is especially true in the context of NATO expansion and the development of the security framework in Europe.

However, the upcoming counter-offensive by the Ukrainian army against Russian forces in occupied Ukraine (whatever the result) is unlikely to change the Kremlin’s perception of the threat posed by NATO’s eastward expansion to Russia’s security in the long run.