Background

In 2014, John J. Mearsheimer, former US Air Force officer and the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago, wrote a now much-discussed essay for Foreign Affairs, “Why the Ukraine Crisis Is the West’s Fault: The Liberal Delusions That Provoked Putin.”

Mearsheimer (2014) argued that

The taproot of the trouble is NATO enlargement, the central element of a larger strategy to move Ukraine out of Russia’s orbit and integrate it into the West. At the same time, the EU’s expansion eastward and the West’s backing of the pro-democracy movement in Ukraine—beginning with the Orange Revolution in 2004—were critical elements, too.

What was Mearsheimer referring to by “NATO enlargement”? The maps below seek to clarify this claim, which the evidence supports as objectively true – as historical reality.

What one makes of Mearsheimer’s related analyses is their own responsiblity. But I am documenting below “NATO enlargement.” My text below does draw upon my substack post “Some context for Putin’s paranoia” @ American Exile.

The Cold War Ends

NATO began in 1949. Six years later, the USSR countered with the Warsaw Pact in 1955. The Berlin Wall fell in 1989. The Warsaw Pact — the USSR counter to NATO — dissolved in 1991. The Cold War was over.

The map belows shows the state of NATO in Europe circa 1991.

NATO Expands

The Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact, the central reasons for NATO’s existence, no longer existed. This true as of 1991. The nation of Russia itself was considerable weaker. A cratering life expectancy and a trashed economy. But Russia was still understood as a threat to many of the newly independent nations formerly coerced or colonized by the Soviet Union.

So the West at the USA’s urging decided to expand NATO, in no small part to offer some protection to the eastern European nations of Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Romania; the Baltic nations of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania; and newly formed republics of Slovenia and Slovakia. This accounts for the wave of expansion that took place in 1999, and 2004, under the USA presidencies of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush respectively.

The map below shows this second wave, and the third distinct wave from 2009 to 2020.

The third distinct third wave of NATO expansion took place from 2009 to 2020, largely under the Barrack Obama presidency. I have no explanation for why the USA entered into NATO article 5 agreements with the Balkans nations of Albania (2009), Croatia (2009), Montenegro (2017), and North Macedonia (2020).

None of these nations seem essential to our long-term strategic interests. Nor could they contribute much to our defense.

NATO as of 2022

So NATO now has 30 member nations, and a total population somewhere in the neighborhood of 1 billion people. Our maps exclude the USA and Canada, because again our focus is on Europe. Russia claims that conventional military power concerns them more than our “over-the-horizon” capability. The best path for any such military force from the West is through Ukraine firstly, and Belarus secondly.

The Russians — not just Putin, although he has directly stated so — are concerned with defending Russia’s Western border. In other words, an invasion from Europe — with which they have considerable historical experience.

So this brings us back to Mearsheimer’s concern: how do things look for Russia if Ukraine joins NATO?

Ukraine in NATO?

If Ukraine were to join NATO, Russia’s western borders would be indefensible. Please notice that as Mearsheimer has stated, the Cold War ended, the Warsaw Pact ended, but NATO led by the USA has continued to encircle Russia.

Tim Marshall, in Prisoners of Geography (2015), noted: “You might think that no one is intent on invading Russia, but that is not how the Russians see it, and with good reason” (p. 17). Why? Because as Marshall explains in more detail that I will summarize here, over the ” past five hundred years” the Russian homeland has been “invaded several times from the west” (p. 17).

We sometimes forget that the 20th century was NOT an exception: the history of Europe remains very much a history of wars.

Mearsheimer, Prophet

In 2014, John J. Mearsheimer argued:
The United States and its European allies now face a choice on Ukraine. They can continue their current policy, which will exacerbate hostilities with Russia and devastate Ukraine in the process — a scenario in which everyone would come out a loser. Or they can switch gears and work to create a prosperous but neutral Ukraine, one that does not threaten Russia and allows the West to repair its relations with Moscow. With that approach, all sides would win.

Eight years later, his words have proven prophetic.

Sources

Mearsheimer makes available at his website an off-print of (2014) “Why the Ukraine Crisis Is the West’s Fault: The Liberal Delusions That Provoked Putin.”

His (2015) lecture “The Causes and Consequences of the Ukraine Crisis” is available on YouTube.

His recent (2019) book The Great Delusion: Liberal Dreams and International Realities is available in e-book format from all the standard vendors.

And finally, Tim Marshall’s (2015) Prisoners of Geography also available in e-book format from all the standard vendors.

Thank you for reading.

Data Humanist
2022-03-03
Source code at Github repo: Mearsheimer_NATO.
Substack: American Exile.

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