I think the arguments against NATO’s eastward expansion are fairly persuasive except for the fact they never wrestle with the fact that the countries at issue - Poland, the Baltics, etc *desperately wanted* to join NATO, and strenuously lobbied to do so.
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Replying to @chrislhayes
I think Robert Gates does in his memoir. He says Poland and co were fine - from Western perspective - but he drew the line at Ukraine and Georgia and the Bush offer in 2008, as did many in US intel and foreign policy communities are the time, including Fiona Hill.
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Replying to @mehdirhasan
Yeah that seems more measured/defensible but a LOT of the arguments for back to Kennan, not on inch east, etc…
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Replying to @chrislhayes @mehdirhasan
There are other varieties of the argument which is that NATO expansion could have worked but not when it wasn’t paired with a sane and more robust Russia policy, more than the “Partnership for Peace” and all the resets.
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I think that's a plausible argument and worth fleshing out.
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There’s also the whole Clinton/Yeltsin discussion about *Russia* joining NATO which Putin himself raised recently. Ah the world of counterfactuals and ‘imagine if’
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There were also a bunch of schemes in the late 1940s & 1950s for a neutral Europe along the lines of Austria. Very conservative people -- Churchill & Kennan among others -- took them seriously & even advocated for them.
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Churchill wanted USSR to join NATO in 1954!!!
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