Why Russia Is Getting Nervous
Since the disintegration of the Soviet Union, and the reunification of Germany, NATO has almost doubled in size – from 16 member states in 1990 to 28 currently.
Most senior Russian officials feel tricked by NATO and accuse the West of not following through with its commitments made during German reunification negotiations, when NATO agreed not to expand to the East.
Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet president at the time, confirmed that there was a promise not to enlarge NATO, not even “as much as a thumb’s width further to the East.” But this commitment was never formally documented, and since then the alliance has grown drastically.
In 1999, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland joined the alliance.
This was followed by the biggest expansion in NATO’s history; in 2004, seven new Eastern Europe member states joined the alliance – Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia. The enlargement was topped off with a final advance in 2009, as Albania and Croatia joined the ranks. Now, with the probability of Ukraine joining NATO that will leave only Belarus … and then NATO will have a full border on Russia.
NATO and Russia are not declared enemies. However, NATO is acting as if they are, and this makes Russia nervous. Plus, the US (using NATO as cover) has been building a reputation of aggression and overthrowing and remove other lawfully-elected governments to replace them with governments made up of US-picked hirelings. This reputation makes the US-controlled NATO nations seem like bad neighbors … and who can blame Russia for not trusting them?
Gorbachev repeatedly expressed outrage with US politicians and the broken promise to not expand eastward. As the alliance continued to expand to include Baltic States and Eastern European countries, so did distrust and tension.
“A powerful military bloc appearing near our borders will be perceived in Russia as a direct threat to the security of our country,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said during a 2008 press conference after talks with NATO had broken down.
During this inflammatory expansion of NATO, and several unjustified wars declared by the US upon smaller, defenseless countries, Russia has been nothing but a good neighbor to other countries and hasn’t forcibly expanded or declared war against anyone. Despite this fact, the US Government and its western news hirelings are busily painting Russia as an aggressor … when just the opposite is true. The real aggressors these days are the governments of the US, Europe, and Israel.
Those governments are aggressively expanding and consuming anything in their paths. The scope of destruction, deception, and perfidy demonstrated by these leading governments of “The West,” along with their prostituted news media, is beyond the grasp of a normal healthy mind that still has ethical moorings.
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