Warning. Most Russian propaganda regarding Ukraine or NATO can be disproven by reading this pages. I urge you to read these pages and engage Russian trolls in conversations, armed with these facts.
Last updated: 28 Nov. 2014 16:26
Since Russia began its illegal military intervention in Ukraine, Russian officials have accused NATO of a series of provocations, threats and hostile actions stretching back over 25 years. This webpage sets out the facts.
Contents
- NATO and its attitude to Russia
- NATO as a “threat”
- Promises and pledges
- NATO enlargement
- NATO bases and infrastructure
- NATO’s operations
- NATO’s operation in Afghanistan was a failure
- The NATO-led mission in Afghanistan failed to stop the Afghan drugs trade
- NATO’s operation over Libya was illegitimate
- NATO’s operation over Kosovo was illegitimate
- The cases of Kosovo and Crimea are identical
- Russia’s annexation of Crimea was justified by the opinion of the International Court of Justice on the independence of Kosovo
- The Ukrainian authorities are illegitimate
NATO and its attitude to Russia
Claim: NATO has a Cold War mentality
Fact: The Cold War ended over 20 years ago. It was characterized by the opposition of two ideological blocs, the presence of massive standing armies in Europe, and the military, political and economic domination by the Soviet Union of almost all its European neighbours.
The modern world does not feature competing ideological blocs: Russia has neither a credible ideology to export, nor significant international allies who support its aggressive actions in and around Ukraine. In fact, in a vote in the United Nations General Assembly on 23 March 2014, 100 countries voted that Russia’s attempted annexation of Crimea was illegal, and just 10, other than Russia, supported it (resolution and voting record online here).
The end of the Cold War was a victory for the people of Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, and opened the way to overcoming the division of Europe. At pathbreaking Summit meetings in the years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Russia played its part in building a new, inclusive European security architecture, including the Charter of Paris, the establishment of the OSCE, and the NATO-Russia Founding Act.
Over the past decades, NATO reached out to Russia with a series of partnership initiatives, culminating in the foundation of the NATO-Russia Council in 2002. No other country has such a privileged relationship with NATO.
As stated by NATO heads of state and government at the Wales Summit in September, “the Alliance does not seek confrontation and poses no threat to Russia. But we cannot and will not compromise on the principles on which our Alliance and security in Europe and North America rest.” (The Wales Summit Declaration can be read here).
This is NATO’s official policy, defined and expressed transparently by its highest level of leadership.
Claim: NATO is a U.S. geopolitical project
Fact: NATO was founded in 1949 by twelve sovereign nations: Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the United Kingdom and the United States. It has since grown to 28 Allies.
All decisions in NATO are taken by consensus, which means that a decision can only be taken if every single Ally accepts it.
Equally, the decision for any country to take part in NATO-led operations falls to that country alone, according to its own legal procedures. No member of the Alliance can decide on the deployment of any other Ally’s forces.
Claim: NATO’s purpose is to contain or weaken Russia
Fact: NATO’s purpose is set out in the preamble to the Washington Treaty, the Alliance’s Founding document (online here ).
This states that Allies are determined “to safeguard the freedom, common heritage and civilisation of their peoples, founded on the principles of democracy, individual liberty and the rule of law. They seek to promote stability and well-being in the North Atlantic area. They are resolved to unite their efforts for collective defence and for the preservation of peace and security.“
In line with those goals, in the past two decades NATO has led missions in the Balkans, Afghanistan, over Libya and off the Horn of Africa. The Alliance has conducted exercises from the Mediterranean to the North Atlantic and across Europe, and on issues ranging from counter-terrorism to submarine rescue – including with Russia itself.
Claim: NATO has tried to isolate or marginalise Russia
Fact: Since the early 1990s, the Alliance has worked to build a cooperative relationship with Russia on areas of mutual interest.
NATO began reaching out, offering dialogue in place of confrontation, at the London NATO Summit of July 1990 (declaration here). In the following years, the Alliance promoted dialogue and cooperation by creating new fora, the Partnership for Peace (PfP) and the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council (EAPC), open to the whole of Europe, including Russia (PfP founding documents here and here).
In 1997 NATO and Russia signed the Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and Security, creating the NATO-Russia Permanent Joint Council. In 2002 they upgraded that relationship, creating the NATO-Russia Council (NRC). They reaffirmed their commitment to the Founding Act at NATO-Russia summits in Rome in 2002 and in Lisbon in 2010 (The Founding Act can be read here, the Rome Declaration which established the NRC here, the Lisbon NRC Summit Declaration here.)
Since the foundation of the NRC, NATO and Russia have worked together on issues ranging from counter-narcotics and counter-terrorism to submarine rescue and civil emergency planning. No other partner has been offered a comparable relationship, nor a similar comprehensive institutional framework.
Claim: NATO should have been disbanded at the end of the Cold War
Fact: At the London Summit in 1990, Allied heads of state and government agreed that “”We need to keep standing together, to extend the long peace we have enjoyed these past four decades“. This was their sovereign choice and was fully in line with their right to collective defence under the United Nations Charter.
Finally, any comparison between NATO and the Warsaw Pact or the Soviet bloc is an utter distortion of history. The fact is that when the countries of Central and Eastern Europe applied for NATO membership, it was of their own free choice, through their own national democratic processes, and after conducting the required reforms – unlike their incorporation into the Soviet bloc and the Warsaw Pact, which was carried out under conditions of military occupation, one-party dictatorship and the brutal suppression of dissent.
NATO as a “threat”
Claim: NATO is a threat to Russia
Fact: NATO has reached out to Russia consistently, transparently and publicly over the past 25 years.
The Alliance has created unique cooperation bodies – the Permanent Joint Council and the NATO-Russia Council – to embody its relationship with Russia. It has invited Russia to cooperate on missile defence, an invitation extended to no other partner.
In the Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and Security, agreed with Russia in 1997 and reaffirmed at NATO-Russia summits in Rome in 2002 and in Lisbon in 2010, NATO stated 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“. The Alliance has fulfilled all such commitments.
NATO’s official policy towards Russia was most recently articulated by the heads of state and government of the Alliance at the Wales Summit in September 2014 .
They stated that “the Alliance does not seek confrontation and poses no threat to Russia. But we cannot and will not compromise on the principles on which our Alliance and security in Europe and North America rest.” (The Wales Summit Declaration can be read here).
Thus, neither the Alliance’s policies nor its actions are a threat to Russia.
Claim: NATO missile defence is targeted at Russia
Fact: NATO’s official policy on missile defence was set out by heads of state and government at the Lisbon Summit in November 2010, where they “decided to develop a missile defence capability to protect all NATO European populations, territory and forces, and invited Russia to cooperate with us” (declaration here).
This was reiterated at the Chicago Summit in May 2012 (here) and the Wales Summit in September 2014, where leaders underlined that “NATO missile defence is not directed against Russia and will not undermine Russia’s strategic deterrence capabilities. NATO missile defence is intended to defend against potential threats emanating from outside the Euro-Atlantic area“.
NATO also proposed a transparency regime including the creation of two NATO-Russia joint missile-defence centres. Russia has declined these offers.
These Summit declarations are more than political promises: they define NATO’s policies. Rather than taking NATO up on cooperation, Russia has advanced arguments that ignore laws of physics as well as NATO’s expressed policies.
The NATO system is designed to be large enough to defend against limited attacks by states and non-state actors potentially threatening the Alliance. However, it still remains small enough not to fuel regional arms races. In terms of the types of interceptors, their numbers and locations, it is configured to defend against the principal threats to NATO’s European territory, and is not directed against Russia’s much larger and more sophisticated strategic deterrent forces. The interceptors to be deployed in Europe, including at the planned sites in Romania and Poland, are not designed to defend against intercontinental ballistic missiles. Their capabilities are too limited and their planned numbers too few.
Independent Russian experts have publicly agreed that the US European Phased Adaptive Approach and NATO’s missile defence system, even when fully developed, will have no appreciable impact on Russia’s numerous and highly sophisticated strategic nuclear forces. This has been documented in numerous scholarly articles by Russian generals and rocket scientists in Russian journals.
The Russian government has used missile defence as an excuse for accusations rather than an opportunity for partnership.
Claim: The accession of new Allies to NATO threatens Russia
Fact: Every country which joins NATO undertakes to uphold the principles and policies of the Alliance, and the commitments which NATO has already made.
This includes the commitment that NATO poses no threat to Russia, as most recently stated at the Wales Summit.
Therefore, as the number of countries which join NATO grows, so does the number of countries which agree that “the Alliance does not seek confrontation and poses no threat to Russia.”
Continued at http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_111767.htm
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