Why the Hell Was NATO Expanding as the Size of the Russian Military Shrank?
Gaslighting the American public about the military threat posed by Russia, especially during the 20 years following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, proved to be an effective piece of propaganda. Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama should be required to answer one simple question: Why did each of you expand NATO while the Russian military decreased in size? Between 1991 and 2011, the size of the Russian military underwent a dramatic reduction, reflecting the collapse of the Soviet Union, economic turmoil, and subsequent reforms aimed at creating a more modern and sustainable force.
Bill Clinton initiated the expansion of NATO in 1999, adding Hungary, the Czech Republic and Poland. According to an article published in the LA Times in October 1996, the push was underway early on in his administration, to manufacture a narrative justifying adding more members to NATO:
Clinton built his case for expanding the nation’s oldest, most successful military alliance by evoking the memory of generations of Americans who fought in two world wars in Europe, helped build the peace there with the Marshall Plan and the Atlantic alliance and helped win the freedom of millions in Central and Eastern Europe with the end of the Cold War.
“But now that that freedom has been won, it is this generation’s responsibility to ensure that it will not be lost again, not ever,” he said.
Russia, however, was cutting its military:
1991–Early 1990s: Post-Soviet Inheritance and Rapid Downsizing:
At the time of the Soviet Union’s dissolution in December 1991, the Soviet armed forces comprised nearly 4 million personnel. When Russia formally established its own armed forces in May 1992, it inherited a force of approximately 2.73 million servicemen.
Throughout the early 1990s, Russia faced severe economic constraints, leading to drastic cuts in defense spending and personnel. By 1997, defense spending had fallen by a factor of eight in real terms compared to 1991.
The number of active-duty personnel fell sharply as Russia withdrew troops from former Soviet republics and Eastern Europe, and as the government attempted to adapt to new economic and strategic realities.
Enter George W. Bush. He put NATO on steroids in terms of growth. In the 1990s, the Russian military suffered from undermanning, poor training, low morale, corruption, and widespread draft evasion, further reducing its effective size and readiness. The number of active-duty personnel continued to decline, reaching about 1.9 million in 1992, and then dropping steadily throughout the decade. By January 2004, the authorized strength of the Russian military had dropped to about 1.13 million personnel.
And what did George W. Bush do in response to the dramatic decline in Russian military manpower? He launched the largest single expansion in NATO’s history in 2004, when seven countries from Eastern Europe formally joined the alliance on March 29, 2004. This expansion was significant both in size and in geopolitical implications, as it extended NATO’s reach deep into the former Soviet sphere of influence. Bush welcomed Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia.
Naturally, the Russians were outraged. Understandably so. They were not building up their military forces… the Russian military was shrinking. Vladimir Putin gave a landmark speech on February 10, 2007, at the Munich Security Conference, in which he strongly criticized NATO expansion and U.S. foreign policy. This speech is widely seen as a turning point in Russia’s post–Cold War relations with the West and a clear signal of Putin’s growing assertiveness. Putin argued that NATO’s eastward expansion violated earlier assurances made to Russia after the Cold War. He described the expansion as a “provocation” and said:
NATO expansion does not have any relation with the modernization of the Alliance itself or with ensuring security in Europe. On the contrary, it represents a serious provocation that reduces the level of mutual trust.
Ignoring this warning, the Bush administration pushed ahead with its plan to add Georgia and Ukraine as new NATO members. Putin attend the 2008 NATO summit in Bucharest in April and issued direct warnings to the West about their planned expansion. Putin firmly opposed the potential accession of Ukraine and Georgia to NATO. He warned that bringing these countries into NATO would be viewed by Russia as a direct threat to its security:
If Ukraine joins NATO, Russia may feel compelled to recognize the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
Just a reminder… it was around this same time that former CIA Director, Bill Burns, who was then US Ambassador to Russia, wrote his now famous cable — Nyet, means Nyet.
Following the NATO summit in Bucharest, Putin ordered major reforms in the Russian military, which culminated in a modernization program, launched in 2011, aimed at creating a smaller, more professional, and more capable force, moving away from the mass-mobilization model of the Soviet era. These reforms included reductions in officer numbers, restructuring of units, and efforts to improve training and equipment, but, and here is a critical fact, the total number of personnel had remained relatively stable — i.e., around 1.3 to 1.4 million through the late 2000s into 2011.
Why am I pounding on this fact? Western leaders persist in pushing the fallacious narrative that Russia posed a military threat to the West and that NATO had no choice but to expand to stave off Russia reestablishing the Soviet Empire. What a load of crap!!
I recorded a podcast with someone new last week… Sabrina aka Sabby Sabs. A delightful lady. She grew up in Germany as a US military brat and has been hosting her own podcast for several years:
I was around and serving in the Navy in the 1990s-2000s, and perhaps I can offer some measure of explanation for why NATO expanded:
First, in the early 90s ex-Warsaw Pact nations replaced their Communist govts w more democratic versions of governance... And latent anti-Communism bloomed across the landscape, and transformed into powerful anti-Russian sentiment based on 45 yrs of being garrisoned by the Red Army. Wow, you should have heard Eastern European officers talk about "those Russians." No love lost. They wanted to join up w NATO, both military and civilian political players.
On the Western side -- definitely US and also UK, Germany, Fance -- the idea was that if ex-Warsaw Pact nations joined NATO, they would have to buy NATO-standard equipment, which then created a new market for foreign military sales. And this FMS opening was crucial to help support a declining, post-Cold War military-industrial complex that was shrinking in any event. It involved selling or licensing production of everything from 5.56 NATO standard ammunition to F-16s and F/A-18s, plus associated ordnance. And I mean everything... All the old, Cold War era Soviet kit was replaced by NATO-standard kit. Overall, and over 20 yrs it led to massive amounts of sales & weapon transfers.
At "strategic" levels in the West (where top dogs don't do strategy very well), the idea was that Russia was weak -- in 1990s, that was relatively true -- and that the time was ripe to build up NATO as a counter to some future Russian threat. This last element (ie, worrying about Russia) was -- still is -- a heavily European line of thinking; although many Neocons in USA also wanted to box-in Russia. Much of this was based on abysmal ignorance of Russian history and culture, obliviousness to the military lessons of WWII, and all manner of projection and mirror-imaging in terms of analyzing possible Russian responses.
Through it all, very few people in Western circles concerned themselves w Russian objections to NATO expansion. US & Western European policymakers just didn't care... There was a widespread, snotty arrogance toward Russia in high-up Western circles (flag officers, staffs, foreign ministries, political levels; plus academe and media), much of it flowing from the lightning victory of Desert Storm; the idea that US/NATO weapons wiped the sandbox and Iraq's Soviet-era weapons. Power-brokers in the West -- definitely the "deciders" in USA -- were reading their own press releases and drinking their super-duper Koolaid.
Meanwhile, post-9/11 the US became fixated on cleaningout the mess in the Sandbox -- Afghanistan and then Iraq 2.0. But as is crystal clear in hindsight, the Middle East expeditions were a series of plans without an overarching mission. Just throw money and ordnance downrange, and that became a multi-year program on which careers were built by careerists. funded by generous Congresses and Parliaments. Through it all, NATO enlargement and use of NATO equipment and doctrine became ebedded policy. Nobody in any important level of power challenged the "grow NATO" orthodoxy, and even Putin and his warnings were dismissed as "yeah, whatever" by people in love with their own self-images.
For the next hundred years, people will write long books on this. I wish I could have written a shorter note here, but I didn't have the time.
Strobe Talbott, who was Clinton's pointman on all things Russia, would and indeed should have much to explain. In an article published in Foreign Affairs at the end of 2002, he includes a revealing Venn diagram of all the various elements of US-led and/or dominated global security architecture then in place:
https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/2002novdec_fa.pdf
Among the many dimensions of NATO's globalising engagement featured in this diagram are two reserved specifically for engagement with a non-member state: the NATO Russia Council and the NATO Ukraine Commission.