| | | "Here is a list of Westerners that had warned about NATO expansion to the east.
– Jack F. Matlock Jr., U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union from 1987 to 1991, said in 1997 that NATO expansion was “a profound strategic blunder, encouraging a chain of events that could produce the most serious for security since the collapse of the Soviet Union”.
– Famous Cold War strategist George Kennan declared in 1998 that NATO expansion was a “tragic mistake” that would provoke a “bad reaction from Russia”.
– Bill Burns, ex-director of the CIA, declared in 2008 that “Ukraine’s entry into NATO is the brightest of all the red lines” and that he had not yet “found anyone who considers that ‘Ukraine in NATO’ as something other than a direct challenge to Russian interests”.
– Henry Kissinger, ex-Secretary of State for Richard Nixon, declared in 2014 that “Ukraine should not join NATO”.
– Stephen Cohen, an American researcher in Russian studies, stated in 2014 that “if we move NATO forces to Russia’s borders, it will obviously militarize the situation [and] Russia will not back down, because it is existential”.
– Malcolm Fraser, Australia’s former prime minister, said in 2014 that “NATO’s eastward move is provocative, reckless and sends a very clear signal to Russia”.
– Renowned scholar John Mearsheimer wrote in 2015 that “the West is leading Ukraine down the path to war and the end result is that Ukraine will sink. What we’re doing is actually encouraging that outcome”. "
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then there's Dementia Joe:
“The only thing that can provoke Russia into a hostile and vigorous response is the expansion of NATO to the Baltic states.”
c-span.org |
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