Mikhail Gorbachev on NATO Expansion

Mikhail Gorbachev has strongly criticized the expansion of NATO eastward following the end of the Cold War, viewing it as a violation of the spirit of understandings reached during the process of German unification in 1990 and 1991. Declassified documents reveal that Western leaders provided multiple assurances to Gorbachev and other Soviet officials, including the famous remark about not moving NATO jurisdiction "one inch eastward," primarily to secure Soviet agreement on a unified Germany joining the alliance. He argues that while no formal treaty covered broader expansion, the later decisions to admit Central and Eastern European states undermined the trust built through arduous efforts to end the Cold War and transition to a new European security structure. His former advisor noted that while Gorbachev defended his 1990 decisions as legally impossible to formalize at the time, he believed the subsequent enlargement betrayed the overarching political commitment.

His position is nuanced because, at the time of German unification, he accepted a legal limitation only regarding the territory of the former East Germany, not the broader principle of non-expansion. He has maintained that raising the issue of wider non-expansion while the Warsaw Pact existed would have appeared ridiculous or even suggested the idea to the West. However, he clearly asserted that the later push for enlargement, starting years after he left office, went against the spirit of the agreements and has severely tested mutual trust between Russia and the West.