Does NATO’s Eastward Expansion Threaten Russia?

By Kumar David –JANUARY 26, 2022

Prof. Kumar David

My question in the title is not framed in relation to Putin, his KGB-inherited thinking or his authoritarian mould; it is framed in relation to the ordinary Russian citizen. The answer is a resounding YES; Russians feel threatened and there are good and justified historical reasons. I have no access to special news sources in the country but the sense I get from what all the world’s news-networks including Western sources is that Russian’s pro or anti-Putin fear eastward expansion of NATO; they perceive it as a threat. There are three reasons.

Three, four if you include WW1, European invasions inflicted cataclysmic suffering on the Russian people; a Swedish invasion in 1708-09, occupation of European Russia by Napoleon’s Grand Army and occupation of Moscow in 1812 and Hitler’s invasion and destruction of Russia from its Western border all the way to the gates of Leningrad and Stalingrad. The invasion by Charles XII of Sweden during the Great Northern War, a monarchical contest between the sovereigns of Russia, Poland, and Denmark in 1707-09 was against Peter the Great’s Russia. It began in January 1708 and ended with the Charles’ defeat at the Battle of Poltava in July 1709. Russia carried out its famed “scorched earth policy” used again against the Grand Army and the Wehrmacht, one and two centuries later, respectively at enormous cost. In WW2 the USSR lost 20 million men and women, more than all other combatants in the European theatre combined and suffered catastrophic devastation.

Shrinking USSR brings Russia’s borders into the home

Nothing brings all Russians together more than the Great Patriotic War. Are the Russian people (forget Peter, Alexander I, Stalin and Putin) willing to mobilise against NATO’s eastward creep? I think yes. I think under no condition will the Russian people allow NATO to reach its Ukrainian border. If Ukraine is draw into NATO the Russian response will be strong and rightly so. Remember how Kennedy and the US, kicking and screaming, brought the world to the brink of war in 1962? Positioning nuclear missiles in Cuba it seemed was too close to the American mainland? Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.

The end of the USSR shrank Russia’s European border with the loss of the Ukraine, Belarus and tiny Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania. The really frightening thing for any Russian is the vast grassland plain, through Belarus and northern Ukraine right into the heart of Russian influence, to Moscow and Petersburg. It’s the road that Charles XII, Napoleon and Hitler’s armies trod. No Russian leader can compromise on this and survive public outrage. If Putin allows NATO to approach Russia’s borders on such a scale it will be curtains for him at home.

There are two other more complex reasons. A stable but democratic Ukraine whether capitalist, social democratic or a member of the EU (later on) will be uncomfortable for a Russian autocrat. This for Putin is good reason to oppose the Ukraine getting too friendly with the West. A democratic Ukraine will inspire internal protest against Russia’s Putin-autocracy. Note that Russia is bordered in Central Asia, Europe, Mongolia and China overwhelmingly by de facto authoritarian polities. And an even worse scenario; what if Ukraine were to sprout a dangerous, reactionary right-extremist state like Hungary today? It will create border tension and instability since such a Ukraine can be adventurous as it will enjoy the “an attack on one is an attack on all” NATO guarantee.

The third problem is the ethnic Russian and pro-Russian minorities who live in the border region between Russia and the Ukraine – the Donetsk and Luhansk provinces, portions of which are already held by separatists demanding autonomy or independence. Do they have a right to self-determination? A Ukraine with a NATO guarantee behind it will never allow it. If Russia permits the Ukraine to join NATO it will be seen as a betrayal by the separatists who currently enjoy substantial Russian support.

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