April 10, 2022
Bill Clinton's supreme NATO screw-up comes back to haunt us
By Francis P. Sempa
Writing in the foreign policy mouthpiece of the Biden administration and the Democratic Party, The Atlantic, former president Bill Clinton attempts to defend his decision to begin the post–Cold War expansion of NATO by naming the members of his foreign policy team, especially the late Madeleine Albright, who supported this move against the advice of George F. Kennan — who knew more about Russia and its history and culture than all of Clinton's advisers combined.
Clinton claims that his approach to Russia and Europe was to "work for the best while preparing for the worst." The "best" was helping Russia become a "functioning democracy," and the "worst" was to expand NATO in case Russia returned to "ultranationalism." Clinton writes that he was convinced that Boris Yeltsin would continue Russia along the path toward democracy and cooperation with the West, but he didn't know who would succeed Yeltsin, so he decided that NATO expansion into lands that had for centuries been considered in Russia's sphere of influence would serve as insurance against the possibility of Russian nationalist revanchism. Apparently, Clinton and his "brilliant" foreign policy team — Albright, Strobe Talbot, Warren Christopher, Sandy Berger, Anthony Lake — failed to consider whether NATO expansion might produce or at least intensify the very Russian revanchism they sought to prevent.
But the very notion that Russia was headed in the political direction of Western-style "democracy" shows how out of touch Clinton and his foreign policy team were. This American hubris was reminiscent of FDR's "hunch" that he could persuade Joseph Stalin to promote postwar stability, or of Woodrow Wilson's belief that Lenin's Bolsheviks, who had thrown off Russia's imperial yoke, were bringing more freedom to Russia; or of Barack Obama's puzzled reaction to Russia's invasion of Crimea in 2014 as a misplaced legacy of the 19th century. George Kennan knew better.
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https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/04/bill_clintons_supreme_nato_screwup_comes_back_to_haunt_us.html
