Malarkey. It does matter and it is all covered in treaty.
Mikhail Gorbachev dissolved the Soviet Union partly contingent on the US’s pledge not to expand Nato east at all. The only thing you are right about is that nothing on paper even matters if one party wants to play dirty enough which by default escalates war. We see this with the US’s expansion of Nato which flies in the face of their goodwill pledge. The argument never was “nothing is on paper so we can march Nato right up to Russia’s border.” The argument was that both sides want peace so why not put things in place that would prevent the very war creep that we have today ?
But hey. Go ahead. Put 25 Raptors and a half dozen loaded and ready B1 bombers in Poland. Nothing is really stopping you. Is that the world you really want to live in ?
On May 27 in Paris, Russian President Boris Yeltsin joined President Bill Clinton and the leaders of the 15 other NATO member states in signing the “Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and Security between NATO and the Russian Federation.
The Act contains NATO’s qualified pledge not to deploy nuclear weapons or station troops in the new member states and refines the basic “scope and parameters” for an adapted Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty.
Of more specific interest among the areas listed for potential consultation, cooperation and increased transparency are theater missile defence, exchanges of “information in relation to air defence and related aspects of airspace management/control,” and “reciprocal exchanges… on nuclear weapons issues, including doctrines and strategy of NATO and Russia.
In the final section of the Act, which deals with political-military matters, NATO restates that it has “no intention, no plan and no reason,” to deploy or store nuclear weapons on the territory of new members.
Yeltsin described the Act as containing “an obligation not to deploy NATO combat forces on a permanent basis near Russia,” and as “a firm and absolute commitment for all signatory states.”
But again. Line the Polish border with nuclear missile silos if that is the world you want to live in.
Wow, so I guess we can conclude that you think bolding random words is the same thing as an argument?
You do realize the full text of the NATO-Russia Found Act is online. Here are the relevant sections without the nuance stripped away:
The member States of NATO reiterate that they have no intention, no plan and no reason to deploy nuclear weapons on the territory of new members, nor any need to change any aspect of NATO’s nuclear posture or nuclear policy – and do not foresee any future need to do so. This subsumes the fact that NATO has decided that it has no intention, no plan, and no reason to establish nuclear weapon storage sites on the territory of those members, whether through the construction of new nuclear storage facilities or the adaptation of old nuclear storage facilities. Nuclear storage sites are understood to be facilities specifically designed for the stationing of nuclear weapons, and include all types of hardened above or below ground facilities (storage bunkers or vaults) designed for storing nuclear weapons.
and
NATO reiterates that in the current and foreseeable security environment, the Alliance will carry out its collective defence and other missions by ensuring the necessary interoperability, integration, and capability for reinforcement rather than by additional permanent stationing of substantial combat forces. Accordingly, it will have to rely on adequate infrastructure commensurate with the above tasks. In this context, reinforcement may take place, when necessary, in the event of defence against a threat of aggression and missions in support of peace consistent with the United Nations Charter and the OSCE governing principles, as well as for exercises consistent with the adapted CFE Treaty, the provisions of the Vienna Document 1994 and mutually agreed transparency measures. Russia will exercise similar restraint in its conventional force deployments in Europe.
As you can plainly see, there is not now nor was there ever a ban on NATO expanding east, nor stationing forces on the territory of new members. All it says was that there were no plans to do so at that time.
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