Talk:Enlargement of NATO

We need a "Russian opposition" section

At the moment there's something like a very slow edit-war where "Russia opposes this" gets added in bits across the entire article, and then other editors edit in "but it's popular". Let's put all the "Russian opposition" stuff into a single section and deal with it there. FOARP (talk) 07:45, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

I would support this move. Garuda28 (talk) 20:37, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

Northern Macedonia to NATO.

On February 6, 2019, NATO representatives signed a protocol on the accession of Northern Macedonia to NATO. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.32.221.161 (talk) 17:27, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

I've added discussions at Talk:NATO and Talk:Accession of North Macedonia to NATO, but the timing to when to add North Macedonia to the various tables/maps is very close. I expect some editors will want to jump the gun just a bit, which is understandable. In the past, the final depositing a new member's signed agreements was accompanied by a delegation and flag-raising in Brussels within two to three weeks of the final country depositing their agreement. That said, with NATO HQ on lockdown due to COVID-19, its possible it will be a more muted event over the weekend or Monday. Either way, there will likely be ample reliable sources reporting on it then, so there's no worry that it'll be missed or not added to this article. Lastly, a heads-up to editors here that news about new members in the past has led to spikes in vandalism and disruptive editing, particularly if it makes it to the front page in the News section.-- Patrick, _oѺ^∞ 14:14, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

More on 1991 Commitment

The "German reunification and relations with Russia" section has grown very large once again, I have a lot of opinions on why that's an issue, but I'll try to summarize my feelings on it briefly. It's a section full on non-notable opinion, hearsay and rumor, and doesn't really belong on an article presenting facts and history. I think the premise misleads readers, perpetuating a Cold-War narrative of the West "expanding" that rejects the democratic will of millions people within NATO's post 1991-members and their ability to chose their own leaders and their own future. NATO was not a party to the 2+4 treaty, and there is no tangible impact of the issue on the topic of this article, NATO expansion. I'm tagging the section as WP:UNDUE because, among the issues of excessive weight, we have unnecessary opinions of sixteen "experts" highlighted:

• Manfred Wörner
• Mark Kramer
• Christopher Clark
• Kristina Spohr
• Joshua R. Itzkowitz Shifrinson
• Marc Trachtenberg
• Svetlana Savranskaya
• Tom Blanton
• Hannes Adomeit
• Boris Yeltsin
• Jack Matlock
• Hans-Dietrich Genscher
• James Baker
• Mikhail Gorbachev
• Eduard Shevardnadze
• Robert Zoellick

I have heard of about six of these people. Why are they here? I feel strongly that this all deserves one sentence, maybe two. "Some political historians and politicians felt representatives from NATO countries expressed commitments regarding further expansion at this time." Period, that's all the article needs to say, no rebuttal. WP:NPOV doesn't mean we give one argument and then the opposite, it means we just stick to clear, citable facts.-- Patrick, _oѺ^∞ 00:27, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

I agree with your overall point, although I think that issue still needs some coverage considering how much attention it has received. I would say the basic points that should be covered in succinct manner are:

1. Current Russian government claims that promises were made and later broken.

2. No formal commitment was ever given.

3. Various politicians and historians disagree whether statements by some western diplomats could be considered informal promises.--Staberinde (talk) 09:13, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

Sorry, I'm probably coming off a bit stubborn there. Yes, I'm not opposed to some limited, on-topic coverage, as you suggest. It's all just a bit off topic, since, so far, there hasn't been a nation that held off or delayed their NATO membership because in 1991 there may or may not have been a commitment. The article on the 2+4 agreement, for example, is a more relevant location, and does already include a section on this issue, and giving more background to the Russia–NATO relations article makes total sense. Either way, I'd really like to pare down the number of experts here. Like if a car drives by, the Wikipedia article about it shouldn't say "A car drove by and Jack, a respected car enthusiast, said it was probably black, but Mike, whose friends claim they saw the car, said it was red." The Wikipedia article should just say "a car of uncertain color drove by." Thanks-- Patrick, _oѺ^∞ 12:29, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

Keep the coverage re supposed promises to Yeltsin & Russia. this is a serious matter of major importance to NATO, Ukraine and Russia. The people mentioned are mostly leading scholars or politicians whose statements carry real weight on this issue. Wikipedia is very widely read on current issues because of its good coverage of high profile issues like this. Rjensen (talk) 13:40, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

Sorry, I guess I disagree that it is of "major importance", it really seems like more of a historical footnote, there just isn't any long term impact one way or the other. One of the citations we use, from the Guardian, goes into why there does seem to be lingering bitterness and using the term "false memory syndrome", lays out why the revival of the grievance in the 2010s plays into Russian propaganda. But again, we don't need to mention that, nor any of this back and forth from "leading scholars" (again, going to disagree on that term) in this article. Going back to Staberinde's items to include, it looks to me like the first two paragraphs of the section accomplish that, do you agree?-- Patrick, _oѺ^∞ 16:25, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

I am personally leaning towards idea that we should move most of the details from here to the relevant section of Two Plus Four Agreement, which seems to have some POV issues about it at the moment anyway, while keeping here a much shorter summary outlining main aspects of dispute, without getting into specific details like which individual scholars support which viewpoint or whatnot.--Staberinde (talk) 19:19, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

Moving text to another article feels a bit like just kicking the can down the road. But yes, that is an option! Another spot it might make sense in is here: Russia–NATO relations#Future enlargement plans of NATO to Ukraine and Georgia, I imagine a paragraph like "Additionally, Vladimir Putin has raised the issue of expansion being a broken promise...". Similarly, I can see a sentence here that mentions 1991 in the Georgia section (like the 4th paragraph?) or Ukraine section, as long as it's presented as part of Russian reaction to Georgia or Ukraine.-- Patrick, _oѺ^∞ 00:57, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

Well, the topic is notable and has received quite a bit attention, so it makes sense to cover it in detail somewhere. As whole dispute is about whether there was some promise given during negotiations of 2+4 agreement, it makes sense for that article to be primary location for that information. In articles about Nato expansion or Nato-Russia relations it is more peripheral information, and should be summarized in a few sentences.--Staberinde (talk) 08:48, 1 July 2021 (UTC)

Just to update, I haven't seen any other comments in the last two weeks, so I went ahead with moving some text to Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany, and condensed the rest. Hopefully any further issues and future changes can be discussed here. Thanks!-- Patrick, _oѺ^∞ 18:02, 14 July 2021 (UTC)

NPOV of German reunification section

I just tagged this section with NPOV for the following reasons:

• Insufficient facts of what happened between NATO and USSR
• POV on pro-NATO, misrepresents facts that were declassified in the US National Security Archives found here (eg. U.S. Secretary of State James Baker’s famous “not one inch eastward” assurance to Gorbachev on February 9, 1990; and January 31, 1990, when West German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher mentioned in open bidding that NATO should rule out an ‘expansion of its territory towards the east, i.e. moving it closer to the Soviet borders.)
• Missing position that the scope of Baker and Genscher assurances the agreement at the time referring solely east of Germany, and broader Eastern Europe issues never came up
• Conference transcripts indicating Genscher the non-extension assurance to apply not just to eastern Germany but to Eastern Europe as a whole
• paper looking at the issue from UCLA

Hi, Cs california, just moving this comment to the bottom of the page for chronology, and heads up that you might want to sign your posts. I have tried hard to maintain a neutral page, and understand that other editors have very strongly held views on this NATO promise issue. We've discussed this a number of times here on the talk page (above and in archives), but the crux is that it isn't that important of an issue for this topic, and has only merited discussion in the last ten or fifteen years, as it became more of a talking point in Russian propaganda, which is fine, and we note in the article. There are other articles that discuss the 2+4 agreement in more detail, but NATO wasn't a party to that agreement (nor was Russia, depending on definitions), nor is this promise written in any document that any country's representatives signed.

I do agree with what Marc Trachtenberg is saying in that article you link to, that it is understandable why Russians today see this as a broken promise, but that's just not what happened historically in 1990, 1999, 2004, or the other years that countries freely chose to join NATO. Hans-Dietrich Genscher is not NATO. What he said could be interpreted by scholars as an "informal commitment", which is why the article says, in the most neutral way possible, "Whether or not the West informally committed to not enlarge NATO to the East is a matter of dispute among historians and international relations scholars." If you have suggestions for how to make that more neutral, they're always welcome. I for one dislike the term "the West", as being vague and imprecise, so perhaps it could say "Whether or not Hans-Dietrich Genscher and James Baker, as representatives of NATO countries, informally committed to not expand NATO...". I'm happy to leave the banner up while we discuss. Thanks-- Patrick Neil, _oѺ^∞/Talk 15:10, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

I didn't see a response, but I went ahead and implemented that suggestion today. Let me know what you think, and if you still feel we need to banner the section as disputed NPOV. I did try to address your second and third bullets by specifically naming "east of East Germany" and both Baker and Genscher, and the Trachtenberg paper is one of the sources we use (the shorter published version from International Relations). To the first bullet point, I'd say that's not really a matter of NPOV, and that this page/section really isn't the place for more info on NATO-USSR relations (the article Russia–NATO relations is one that is, and is always in need of more work). Thoughts?-- Patrick Neil, _oѺ^∞/Talk 19:09, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

German reunification and promises to not expand NATO

Renamed the section ===German reunification and promises to not expand NATO === seems like the point of the current crisis in Ukraine is being buried.

CNN

Will Vladimir Putin turn the Second Cold War into a hot one?

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/02/01/europe/putin-russia-ukraine-cold-war-hot-war-analysis-intl/index.html 2007 Munich Security Forum speech mentioned

Munich speech of Vladimir Putin — Preceding unsigned comment added by Quiet2 (talk • contribs) 10:10, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

Расширение НАТО on Russian Wikipedia

This article needs to be added to the languages section. https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A0%D0%B0%D1%81%D1%88%D0%B8%D1%80%D0%B5%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%B5_%D0%9D%D0%90%D0%A2%D0%9E

NATO Expansion is the article, a better title than the English version to.

Quiet2 (talk) 10:36, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

Plenty of alternative sources found there using google translate chrome extension. Quiet2 (talk) 10:44, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

Renamed to NATO Enlargement from Enlargement of NATO

More apt title without the extraneous preposition

Rewrote first sentence

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization Enlargement (NATO) is the process of including new member states into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

Adding the full title of NATO as is best writing practices. Quiet2 (talk) 10:43, 1 February 2022 (UTC)