they say there are two sides to every story consider both before you form an opinion easier said than done look at the conflict in ukraine one side is dominating the global narrative the other side has been proclaimed the villain i'm talking about nato and russia and while there's a solid case against russia here this story too has another side and as the tellers of the story we must dwell on and reflect it vladimir putin's aggression is being called out and rightly so invading a sovereign country cannot be justified but what led the world to the
point of this invasion leaders in moscow say they are the aggrieved party they are the victims of nato's eastward march and they're only acting in self-defense here's why over the past 25 years nato has been creeping closer to the russian border former soviet states have become nato members this military alliance has technically absorbed the entire security belt of moscow russia sees this expansion as a provocation it hurts their security interests and won't end well for both sides they said the warnings were clear nato ignored them call it their myopia or arrogance they downplayed moscow's concerns
kept proceeding with new rounds of expansion until things blew up in ukraine did nato push ukraine into this war hello and welcome to gravitas plus i'm palki sharma padhya and today i want to discuss why nato cannot escape the blame for what's unfolding in ukraine first things first what is nato the north atlantic treaty organization a security alliance between north america and europe it was formed after the second world war the goal they say was to protect democratic freedom on the 4th of april 1949 the north atlantic treaty was signed this treaty was simply an
anti-soviet accord aimed at countering any future aggression by the ussr it established a new balance of power in europe it promised all members collective security that's a core principle laid out in article 5 of the nato treaty it obliges member states to protect each other in case of a war it says an armed attack against one ally will be an attack on all allies meaning if one nato nation is attacked all nato nations will retaliate this allowed nato members to pool and share their military resources they built efficient defense capabilities but there was more to
nato than just defense it was an alliance of liberal countries an engine of democratization that was supposed to promote common values and interests also pushed back against the rise of communism naturally moscow saw this alliance as a threat to its interests in response it created the warsaw pact in the year 1955. it was a counterweight to nato the warsaw pact these were the members their goal was the same if one warso pact member is attacked all others will defend it in russian historical memory there were five reasons why such a pact was justified five major
invasions when the west threatened russian interests this includes the polish occupation of the kremlin in early 17th century the swedish invasion of russia in early 18th century the napoleon invasion of the 19th century and the two wars with germany in the 20th century in each case the very essence of the russian state was threatened so suspicion and fear of the west took deep roots in russia moscow began perceiving nato as a tool of american imperialism and the assessment was not really off the mark in 1989 the berlin wall collapsed in 1991 the soviet union disintegrated
and the iron curtain was completely demolished europe's regional order hinged on one question should germany align itself with the us and nato or should it join the russians through the warsaw pact the us government under george h.w bush made an offer to russian president mikhail gorbachev it suggested if germany became a nato member nato would stop expanding not one inch eastwards no new members today the u.s says it made no such promise that no such deal was ever struck but hundreds of memos meeting minutes and transcripts from us archives indicate otherwise nevertheless moscow bought the
offer it demolished the warsaw pact in the hope that the west would follow suit that nato too would be dissolved but that never happened nato refused to seize operations and to add insult to injury they kept the door for membership open russia saw it as a stab in the back and nato kept pushing the dagger deeper look at this map nato started out with 12 founding members but since the soviet union fell it has radically expanded eastwards in 1999 poland hungary the czech republic joined nato in 2004 there was another wave of expansion seven central
and eastern european nations were made nato members some of them were former soviet republics in 2009 albania and croatia joined nato and the most recent entries were montenegro and north macedonia both situated in russia's backyard it does not end there as of 2021 nato officially recognized three more aspiring members bosnian herzegovina georgia and ukraine last week checked nato was also in talks with sweden finland and serbia for membership so to put it simply much of eastern europe which once used to be part of the soviet union has now joined nato and this happened despite russia's
protests and warnings the last reasonably friendly warning from moscow came in the year 2007 vladimir putin addressed the annual munich conference where he said and i'm quoting nato has put its front-line forces on our borders this expansion represents a serious provocation that reduces the level of mutual trust and we have the right to ask against whom is this expansion intended and what happened to the assurances our western partners made after the dissolution of the warsaw pact these sentiments have been echoed by a host of american strategists i'll give you a few examples june 1997 50
prominent foreign policy experts signed an open letter to president bill clinton calling america's efforts to expand nato a policy error of historic proportions then we have george kennan the father of america's containment policy during the cold war he too called nato expansion a tragic mistake with no reason whatsoever the warnings went on for decades in 2008 william j burns the u.s ambassador to moscow wrote a letter to the state department where he said that ukrainian entry into nato is the brightest of all red lines for the russian elite he said that even putin's sharpest critics
at home consider ukraine's entry a direct challenge to russian interests it does not end there this is robert m gates he was the defense secretary in the bush and obama administrations he wrote in his memoir that trying to bring georgia and ukraine into nato was truly overreaching then we have strobe talbot a former deputy secretary of state he described the russian perception in a similar way how they consider nato as a vestige of the cold war and point out that if the warsaw pact was disbanded why did the west not dismantle nato so several voices
in the western world had warned that russia's protests have merit and that nato expansion could spell serious trouble yet successive american administrations paid no heed to these warnings they kept widening nato's security umbrella now here's the thing trying to safeguard the sovereignty of a country is laudable indeed but inviting a state right on russia's border into an anti-russian alliance is provocation ukraine is a sovereign country and has every right to want to join the nato but what's in it for the nato why did they push for it their moves completely disregard the historical baggage between
nato and russia many russians were traumatized by the disintegration of the soviet union in an instant they lost one third of their territory half of their population and most of their military might they found themselves much weaker before western unity they felt that an unjust settlement had been imposed on them and it was done in their moment of maximum weakness and vulnerability so they looked at any state leaving russia's fear of influence as both a strategic loss and a matter of national humiliation when we analyze why ukraine was attacked all of this needs to be
taken into account does this justify the war absolutely not russia's actions are criminal no two ways about it but the west is not innocent either they did not do what they could have to avert this war [Music]
