I think in the postmortem we will figure out that this was about #2 moreso than anything else. He wanted NATO off his doorstep but NATO kept encroaching since he did nothing every time they encroached. This is somewhat the act of a madman, but it's a response to NATO continually breaking promises.

The land bridge to Crimea is nice, too, don't get me wrong.

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aguaviva 7 months ago | parent | next [-]

This is somewhat the act of a madman, but it's a response to NATO continually breaking promises.

It's not, actually. The history around this is widely misunderstood.

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pclmulqdq 7 months ago | parent [-]

Putin was not in power in 1994 or 1997, and that appears to be the last time they agreed to a NATO expansion. Those were the Yeltsin years, and treating the Yeltsin and Putin administrations as though they are the same is like treating the Obama and Trump administrations as though they are the same. Enlargement of NATO kicked into high gear in the early 2000's, and Putin himself has cited NATO expansionism as a reason for this war (as well as the Georgia war and the 2014 Crimea war).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enlargement_of_NATO

There is no serious analyst on this situation who thinks NATO expansion isn't at least a factor, if not the primary cause.

	▲	aguaviva 7 months ago \| parent [-]
		Treating the Yeltsin and Putin administrations as though they are the same I'm not, and you're completely misreading me if you think that's what I'm saying.

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n4r9 7 months ago | parent | prev [-]

> it's a response to NATO continually breaking promises

I hear this a lot, but when I look into it all I can find is Putin claiming that the US Secretary of State assured Gorbachev in 1990 that “NATO will not move one inch further east.” Gorbachev himself has stated that this quotation is taken out of context, and refers specifically to the movement of military structures within East Germany.

Did NATO put any pledges in writing, not to expand into Eastern Europe? It would be odd if they did, because an open door policy is a founding principle of NATO.

	▲	aguaviva 7 months ago \| parent [-]
		Did NATO put any pledges in writing, not to expand into Eastern Europe? Indeed these verbal "pledges", whatever they were supposed to mean at the time, were never put into writing (that is, in treaty form). Which is where the whole "NATO broke its promises" thread starts to unravel. Meanwhile, in 1997 there was an actual treaty between the US and Russia which is widely seen as in effect ratifying the partial NATO expansion at the time (to PL, CZ, HU). Which makes the "not one inch" line even further moot.