Gorbachev once asked Why Germany needed NATO, saying that the United States wanted to build a new empire to expand NATO

According to the Russian Satellite News Agency reported on the 10th, in February 1990, then US Secretary of State James Baker promised the Soviet Union that NATO would not "move an inch east" after German reunification. Thirty years later, the Western military bloc incorporated more than a dozen countries in Eastern Europe and rejected Russia's demands to halt its expansion.

Satellite News Agency reported with image

Horst Teltschik, an adviser to former West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, recently revealed that in 1990, former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev asked the West German leadership about the future status of a reunified Germany in NATO, and the West German authorities gave a clever answer.

Terchik told the satellite news agency in an interview. "It seems to me that the Russian leadership is concerned that NATO's eastward expansion will be directed at the Russian Federation. In this context, I am reminded of a secret dialogue I had with President Gorbachev in early May 1990 on behalf of Prime Minister Kohl. (President is the title of head of state of the Soviet Union before the official dissolution of the Soviet Union from March 15, 1990 to December 25, 1991))

"Gorbachev asked me why Germany still needs NATO, because now we will be partners and friends," Terchik recalled that conversation. I told him that if we became friends and partners, that might be right. But he must take into account that a unified Germany will be the most populous and economically large country in central Europe, surrounded by nine neighboring countries, including Poland, Czechoslovakia, the Netherlands, and France. Considering their history and experience with Germany, these countries would be better able to coexist with us if we were in the same alliance. So, for our own good, we need NATO. ”

Judging from the events that followed, Gorbachev did not question the logic of West Germany, but agreed in October 1990 to merge East Germany, which was allied with the Soviet Union, into West Germany, while keeping Germany's membership in NATO unchanged.

In negotiations over German reunification, Former U.S. President George H.W. Bush's secretary of state, James Baker, was known for persuading Moscow to abandon a neutral Germany. "If Germany had remained neutral, it would probably have decided to create its own nuclear potential rather than relying on the U.S. nuclear deterrent," Baker said at the time. All of our Western European allies and some Of the Countries of Eastern Europe have shown us that they want the United States to continue its military presence in Europe. ”

Describing NATO as a "mechanism to ensure the presence of the United States in Europe," Beck promised that after German reunification, "if the United States maintains its presence in Germany within the framework of NATO, NATO's existing military power will not expand eastward."

However, in the more than 30 years since that discussion, NATO has included six former Soviet-led Warsaw Pact members, as well as three former Soviet republics, Albania and four former Yugoslav republics. In Gorbachev's homeland, he was widely criticized for his laissez-faire attitude toward German reunification, especially as the West did not give a written pledge not to continue NATO expansion.

Last year, Gorbachev said in an interview with the Satellite News Agency that he believed the United States had been hit by arrogance and self-confidence after the collapse of the Soviet Union. "They were blown away by arrogance and self-confidence," he said. They declared victory over the Cold War, even though together we lifted the world out of confrontation — from the nuclear race. However, the 'winner' decided to build a new empire. Thus came the idea of expanding NATO. ”

(Original title, "Gorbachev once asked why Germany needed NATO, saying that the United States wanted to build a new empire to expand NATO")