In this series from the American Statecraft Program, James Goldgeier and Joshua Shifrinson discuss and debate the issues surrounding NATO enlargement in a twenty-first-century exchange of letters. Read the previous entry here.

Dear Josh,

In your most recent letter, you argue that in the 1990s Russia merely wanted a security buffer and influence in European security equal to the other major powers. You suggest that had the West respected Moscow’s twin goals, the dream of a Europe whole, free, and at peace would have been likelier to materialize. But if a security buffer meant denying Central and Eastern Europeans their future in NATO, then how would they have been free? Given the pattern of Russian behavior in places like Moldova and Georgia, not to mention Ukraine, would countries that were part of some “security buffer” really have been at peace?

Fortunately, most Central and Eastern Europeans were free to choose their own futures, and they chose to be in NATO, which also meant they have been at peace. I go back to my original contention: Russian imperialism is the key problem for European security. It’s not just a security buffer Moscow wants; it’s control over these sovereign states. In his recent book, historian Vladislav Zubok shows that in the fall of 1991, even advisers to Russian president Boris Yeltsin who were considered reformers by the West were appalled by the idea of Donbas and Crimea becoming part of an independent Ukraine. Since then, Russian attitudes and behavior suggest the Kremlin would have initiated aggression against a free and independent Ukraine at some point even if NATO had not expanded.

You ask about the evidence necessary to convince me that NATO enlargement was a major cause of Russian aggression. We do have some evidence that enlargement wasn’t the main problem for the relationship in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Yeltsin’s reaction to the 1999 Kosovo war was far more heated than his reaction to enlargement. Yeltsin never liked NATO enlargement, but he chiefly argued it created domestic political problems for him. True, he also complained it created “nothing but humiliation for Russia.” Still, NATO’s bombing of Serbia seemed to produce a much greater threat of insecurity for the Russians than the first round of post–Cold War NATO enlargement that was occurring at the same time. Similarly, Russian anger at the U.S. unilateral withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2002, the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 without United Nations Security Council authorization, and the Orange Revolution in Ukraine in 2004 (which Russian President Vladimir Putin blamed on the West) all seem to overshadow the second round of NATO enlargement in 2004, although we’ll have to wait for the archival records of the conversations between Putin and U.S. president George W. Bush to disentangle these variables more clearly.

Where we do agree is that NATO made a mistake in 2008 by declaring that Ukraine (and Georgia) “will become members of NATO.” In his memoir, current CIA director and former ambassador to Russia William J. Burns argued persuasively that Moscow accommodated itself to the first two rounds of enlargement (despite disliking them), but the NATO statement in 2008 crossed a red line. Because neither Ukraine nor Georgia had any conceivable path to join the alliance at that time, the declaration was unnecessarily provocative to the Kremlin.

You argue that former U.S. president Bill Clinton should have closed NATO’s open door to new entrants, but we should not minimize the importance of Article 10 of the 1949 treaty that established NATO: “The Parties may, by unanimous agreement, invite any other European State in a position to further the principles of this Treaty and to contribute to the security of the North Atlantic area to accede to this Treaty.” This doesn’t mean that NATO must invite all European countries to join NATO, but it is politically very difficult for the alliance to decide certain European countries can’t join out of fear of antagonizing Moscow. Basically, we would have been saying to the countries of Central and Eastern Europe: “Yes, Article 10 of the Washington Treaty provides for an open door to European countries, but you got stuck on the wrong side of a line Josef Stalin drew across Europe after World War II, and you won’t be able to choose your own futures.”

Such an approach would have run counter not only to the NATO treaty, but also to the 1975 Helsinki Final Act’s principle that the signatories have the right “to be or not to be a party to treaties of alliance,” something that Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev reaffirmed during the negotiations over German unification in 1990. The approach the West took in the 1990s was correct: make clear that those countries that wanted to join NATO and could meet the criteria would have the opportunity to do so while taking steps to reassure Russia that enlargement wasn’t directed against it. In the 1990s, the United States dramatically reduced its troop numbers in Europe, gained Russian participation in the Partnership for Peace, brought Russia into the Implementation Force in Bosnia after the signing of the Dayton Accords, and created the 1997 NATO-Russia Founding Act, among other steps.

Nevertheless, neither the West nor Russia figured out in the 1990s how to create a place for Russia in European security that could satisfy Moscow but also enable countries in Central and Eastern Europe freely to pursue their futures in Western institutions. This problem cannot be resolved until Russia accepts that territories outside of its 1991 internationally recognized borders do not belong to it. As long as Russian imperialism lies at the heart of Kremlin policy, the West’s response has to be some version of containment.

Hopefully in a post-Putin era, the West will have an opportunity to develop a different relationship with Russia. For that to happen, Russia would need to recommit to the Helsinki Final Act principles, including that borders cannot be changed by force, in exchange for which the West would agree to a set of confidence-building measures to reassure Russia that its own borders would be secure. The West was actively signaling it was prepared for such diplomacy in the months before February 24, 2022, and it should be prepared to return to this discussion if and when conditions become ripe in a Russia that no longer covets its neighbors’ territory.

Read more from Debating NATO Enlargement:

• Letter 1: Why NATO Should Accept Ukraine
• Letter 2: NATO Must Be Cautious
• Letter 3: Enlargement Didn’t Cause Russia’s Aggression
• Letter 4: The Crucial Question
• Letter 5: What Deters Russian Aggression
• Letter 6: What Washington Got Wrong in the 1990s