Jack Matlock talking:
When the Berlin Wall came down, when eastern Europe began to try to free itself from the Communist rule, the first President Bush, George Herbert Walker Bush, met with Gorbachev in Malta, and they made a very important statement. One was we were no longer enemies. The second was the Soviet Union would not intervene in eastern Europe to keep Communist rule there. And in response, the United States would not take advantage of that.
Now, this was a—you might say, a gentlemen’s agreement between Gorbachev and President Bush. It was one which was echoed by the other Western leaders—the British prime minister, the German chancellor, the French president. As we negotiated German unity, there the question was: Could a united Germany stay in NATO? At first, Gorbachev said, “No, if they unite, they have to leave NATO.” And we said, “Look, let them unite. Let them stay in NATO. But we will not extend NATO to the territory of East Germany.” Well, it turned out that legally you couldn’t do it that way, so in the final agreement it was that all of Germany would stay in NATO, but that the territory of East Germany would be special, in that there would be no foreign troops—that is, no non-German troops—and no nuclear weapons. Now, later—at that time, the Warsaw Pact was still in place. We weren’t talking about eastern Europe. But the statements made were very general. At one point, Secretary Baker told Gorbachev NATO jurisdiction would not move one inch to the east. Well, he had the GDR in mind, but that’s not what he said specifically.
So, yes, if I had been asked when I was ambassador of the United States in Moscow in 1991, “Is there an understanding that NATO won’t move to the east?” I would have said, “Yes, there is.” However, it was not a legal commitment, and one could say that once the Soviet Union collapsed, any agreement then maybe didn’t hold, except that when you think about it, if there was no reason to expand NATO when the Soviet Union existed, there was even less reason when the Soviet Union collapsed and you were talking about Russia. And the reason many of us—myself, George Kennan, many of us—argued against NATO expansion in the ’90s was precisely to avoid the sort of situation we have today. It was totally predictable. If we start expanding NATO, as we get closer to the Russian border, they are going to consider this a hostile act. And at some point, they will draw a line, and they will do anything within their power to keep it from going any further. That’s what we’re seeing today.
Russia want a Ukraine that is not a threat to them, a friendly Ukraine. That’s what they want. And the people who seized power in Kiev in February are openly and vehemently anti-Russian. Now, they may have a good reason for that, but that view is not shared by the people in the east, who don’t necessarily want to be part of Russia, but they also don’t want a country which deprives them of free contact with Russia. And this is, in essence, a family fight. That’s something we have to understand, we outsiders. Ukraine is a very complex country, which has been put together rather artificially, to be frank, and without any real consultation of the Ukrainians as to where the borders were and so on. And to treat it as if it’s some primordial unified state is simply incorrect. So, you know, Ukraine is basically a house which since independence has been divided against itself. That is the basic problem. And outsiders taking one side or the other doesn’t help. It is inevitable that Russia is going to take a side, because it is part of their backyard. Many Russians would say part of their own heritage. So, we’re dealing with highly emotional issues, when we outsiders get involved. And when we start talking about military action and military alliances, we cause very irrational and very damaging reactions.
— source democracynow.org
Jack Matlock, served as U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union from 1987 to 1991. He is the author of several books, including Superpower Illusions: How Myths and False Ideologies Led America Astray—And How to Return to Reality and Reagan and Gorbachev: How the Cold War Ended.