These missteps helped fuel Vladimir Putin\u2019s resentment towards the west and ushered in a new period of hostility, says Professor Sarotte.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot one inch\u201d: America\u2019s hypothetical proposal<\/h2>\n
To understand what went wrong, we must first look back at the unexpected tearing down of the Berlin Wall<\/a> in 1989, which marked the beginning of the end of the Cold War order. Having been divided during the Cold War<\/a>, it was clear that the country of Germany now wanted to unite. But, crucially, as a result of the Soviet victory over the Nazis during the Second World War<\/a>, decades later Germany still had occupying forces on its territory \u2013 including 400,000 Soviet troops, which had the legal right to remain there. In short, Germany was still technically an occupied country and so could not unify until those occupying countries agreed to let it do so. Mikhail Gorbachev, the then-leader of the Soviet Union, would need to be persuaded to give up his troops before hopes of German reunification could be realised.<\/p>\n So how might Gorbachev be convinced?<\/p>\n The west wanted to support Germany in its efforts to reunite. So, as part of a host of negotiations, in February 1990 the US Secretary of State James Baker held a meeting with Mikhail Gorbachev. There, as part of a hypothetical bargain, Baker suggested that if Gorbachev would, in effect, be willing to let his part of Germany go, Nato would agree to shift \u201cnot one inch\u201d eastward from its present position, Professor Sarotte explains. \u201cIn other words, Nato would stay permanently frozen on the Cold War line\u201d. Gorbachev reiterated that any extension of the zone of Nato would be unacceptable \u2013 but, crucially, none of this was formalised or written down.<\/p>\n \u201cA controversy erupted over this exchange almost immediately, at first behind closed doors and then publicly,\u201d says Prof Sarotte in her book, Not One Inch<\/em>.<\/p>\n When Baker returned to Washington and told President George HW Bush what he and Gorbachev had agreed, he discovered he had been mistaken in his assertion that Nato could stay frozen on the Cold War line \u2013 because if it did, united Germany would be half in and half out of Nato, \u201cwhich of course would make no sense,\u201d says Professor Sarotte.<\/p>\n So, President Bush floated a different strategy \u2013 instead of agreeing not to shift one inch eastwards, he said Nato would retain its ability to expand (as it had done before the Cold War) and instead offer concessions (some of them financial) as it moved in the direction of Moscow. In particular, Nato would limit what it could do on eastern German territory \u2013 the end result being that the former territory of East Germany would be the only part of Europe that is guaranteed by treaty to be nuclear-free. \u201cTo this day, there can be no nuclear weapons on what used to be the former territory of East Germany, which today includes Berlin, the capital of Germany, in the middle of it,\u201d says Professor Sarotte.<\/p>\n \u201cGorbachev was a proud son of the Soviet Union and wanted to save it, not destroy it. He certainly did not intend to let divided Germany go,\u201d says Professor Sarotte.<\/p>\n Ultimately, though, Gorbachev did<\/em> let his part of Germany go. He had been up against Bush and Baker, who were expert negotiators but who had also teamed up with the German chancellor, Helmut Kohl, to \u201cbribe the Soviets out\u201d (as the later US Secretary of Defence Robert Gates would describe it).<\/p>\n The trio was successful: Gorbachev accepted Nato\u2019s aforementioned concessions without a promise of Nato non-enlargement. Further still, despite having originally said that any extension of the zone of Nato would be unacceptable, in September 1990 Gorbachev authorised the signature of a legally binding treaty that confirmed the complete opposite \u2013 that Nato could<\/em> extend beyond the Cold War line.<\/p>\n On 12 September 1990, The Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany<\/a>, which reunited the two German states and saw the Soviet Union agree to withdraw its troops by the year 1994, was signed. It was signed by the four non-German powers (France, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the Soviet Union), as well as the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) and German Democratic Republic (East Germany). Crucially, the treaty formally recognised that United Germany would be free to join the alliance of its choice \u2013 which was Nato \u2013 meaning that Nato structures would be extended to the territory of the former GDR (German Democratic Republic) after the departure of Soviet troops. This legally binding treaty, signed by the Soviet Union, effectively said that Nato \u2013 by virtue of West German membership \u2013 could extend beyond the Cold War line, to East Germany.<\/p>\n Baker\u2019s initial suggestion that Nato would move \u201cnot one inch\u201d eastward had been crucially important in helping to persuade Gorbachev to recall the hundreds of thousands of Soviet troops that were stationed in East Germany \u2013 a move he knew was unpopular with the Soviet public and Soviet military especially. [In fact, military officers became so embittered with Gorbachev\u2019s plans that they eventually launched a coup against him in 1991.]<\/p>\n A huge controversy followed over whether, by uttering the words \u201cnot one inch\u201d and then changing its mind, Washington had betrayed Russia, says Professor Sarotte. The debate raged on for years \u2013 in 1998 the then-Russian prime minister Yevgeny Primakov complained that there had been no agreement in writing. \u201cThis is not dusty history \u2013 Vladimir Putin complains about it to this day; he justified what he did in Crimea in 2014<\/a> because of this huge betrayal, as he sees it,\u201d says Sarotte.<\/p>\n Putin repeatedly cites the hypothetical discussion between James Baker and Mikhail Gorbachev in February 1990 as if it were a promise, says Sarotte.<\/p>\n In December 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed. \u201cSuddenly, Washington realised it could not only win big, it could win bigger,\u201d says Sarotte. \u201cWith the Soviet Union out of the picture, whole new horizons opened up. And gradually, those words \u2018not one inch\u2019 came to take on the exact opposite meaning \u2013 they came to mean, in Washington\u2019s eyes, that not once inch of territory needed to be off-limits to Nato.\u201d<\/p>\n Listen: Professor Mary Sarotte discusses how diplomatic missteps after the fall of the Berlin Wall<\/a> soured US-Russian relations and fuelled the rise of Vladimir Putin<\/strong><\/p>\n\n![\""Mikhail\"](\""https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/7\/2022\/03\/Mikhail-Gorbachev-and-James-Baker-afffb4b.jpg?quality=90&resize=620%2C413"\" "\\"\"The\\"")
<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>![\""The\"](\""https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/7\/2022\/03\/German-reunification-treaty-signed-12-September-1990-4ce6442.jpg?quality=90&resize=620%2C406"\" "\\"\"The\\"\/")
<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>Did Washington betray Russia?<\/h2>\n