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The Henry L. Stimson Lectures Series
Not One Inch: America, Russia, and the Making of Post-Cold War Stalemate
A leading expert on Cold War foreign policy reveals how tensions between America, NATO, and Russia transformed geopolitics in the decade after the fall of the Berlin Wall in a Foreign Affairs Best Book of 2021
Based on over a hundred interviews and on secret records of White House–Kremlin contacts, Not One Inch shows how the United States successfully overcame Russian resistance in the 1990s to expand NATO to more than 900 million people. But it also reveals how Washington’s hardball tactics transformed the era between the Cold War and the present day, undermining what could have become a lasting partnership.
Vladimir Putin swears that Washington betrayed a promise that NATO would move “not one inch” eastward and justifies renewed confrontation as a necessary response to the alliance’s illegitimate “deployment of military infrastructure to our borders.” But the United States insists that neither President George H.W. Bush nor any other leader made such a promise.
Pulling back the curtain on U.S.–Russian relations in the critical years between the fall of the Berlin Wall and Putin’s rise to power, prize-winning Cold War historian M. E. Sarotte reveals the bitter clashes over NATO behind the facade of friendship and comes to a sobering conclusion: the damage did not have to happen. In this deeply researched and compellingly written book, Sarotte shows what went wrong.
Based on over a hundred interviews and on secret records of White House–Kremlin contacts, Not One Inch shows how the United States successfully overcame Russian resistance in the 1990s to expand NATO to more than 900 million people. But it also reveals how Washington’s hardball tactics transformed the era between the Cold War and the present day, undermining what could have become a lasting partnership.
Vladimir Putin swears that Washington betrayed a promise that NATO would move “not one inch” eastward and justifies renewed confrontation as a necessary response to the alliance’s illegitimate “deployment of military infrastructure to our borders.” But the United States insists that neither President George H.W. Bush nor any other leader made such a promise.
Pulling back the curtain on U.S.–Russian relations in the critical years between the fall of the Berlin Wall and Putin’s rise to power, prize-winning Cold War historian M. E. Sarotte reveals the bitter clashes over NATO behind the facade of friendship and comes to a sobering conclusion: the damage did not have to happen. In this deeply researched and compellingly written book, Sarotte shows what went wrong.
568 pages, Hardcover
First published November 30, 2021
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May 19, 2022
M.E. Sarotte is a professor at Johns Hopkins University and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. This, her latest book, could be considered the third in a loose historical trilogy on the Cold War. It is a masterful piece of work, five hundred and fifty pages of which the final seventy-five are devoted to extensive notes and a lengthy bibliography. Research has been done. And it shows.
She begins with the fall of the Berlin Wall and says, in all earnestness, that many other decisions might have been made at that time, or alternate roads taken - all would have brought their own assortment of difficulties. Determining right and wrong will not be the focus here; instead, she charts events as they happened and allows the expansion of NATO to unfold in all its conflicted and potentially treacherous glory.
The diplomatic environment of that era was fraught indeed. A wall can fall, you've still got to deal with all the Soviet troops stationed behind it. (One of whom, our author gamely points out, was a pretty ticked off Vladimir Putin.) East Germany had become home to Soviets of all type, Soviets now faced with the prospect of this country's reunification and a frazzled few months dancing to the tune of "Do I Stay or Do I Go Now?" Add to this the startling fractures that began to appear in the Eastern Bloc; nations scuttling from their berths in Lenin's basement to send out tentative (and not so tentative) feelers to the West. Will you protect us? We want to join. Everyone craves that Article 5 umbrella: An attack against one is an attack against all. Ambitious politicians and would-be history-makers thought their gravy train had arrived. (This was not Richard Holbrooke's finest hour.) Wiser minds lasered in, of course, on the critical issue of nuclear disarmament. The USSR, in its tectonic tumult, could easily and quite feasibly fall to marketing military materials and methodologies to the highest bidder - regardless of whatever pertinent treaty might currently apply.
Sarotte handles all of this beautifully, step-by-step in pages of account so customed to the curvature of shifting sands that you can sense the peril in every choice, in each communique, writhing beneath the surface of even the most complacent diplomatic exchange. I was especially impressed by the manner in which she located Ukraine - which has apparently been a tangle for NATO all along.
...Ukraine's history as an East Slavic and predominantly Orthodox state had long been deeply intertwined with Russia's. There were millions of ethnic Russians living among, and married to, Ukrainians. If Ukraine decided in its referendum of December 1, 1991 to become fully independent, it would at once commence a painful economic and political divorce from its fellow Slavs and also become a greater nuclear power than either Britain or France. Ukraine's choices would clearly have such far-reaching effects. From Moscow, Ambassador Strauss advised Washington that "the most revolutionary event of 1991 for Russia may not be the collapse of Communism, but the loss of something Russians of all political stripe think of as part of their own body politic, and near to the heart at that: Ukraine."
This history covers only the timeframe of the presidential administrations of George H.W. Bush (Sr.) and Bill Clinton - the accounts of their emissaries, advisors, and the relationships they crafted with the leaders of this political age. Yet it is enough. More than enough to explore the legacy of the infamous question Secretary of State James Baker put to Mikhail Gorbachev:
What if you let your part of Germany go, and we agree that NATO will not shift one inch eastward from its present position?
Which he claimed ever after was a hypothetical.
She begins with the fall of the Berlin Wall and says, in all earnestness, that many other decisions might have been made at that time, or alternate roads taken - all would have brought their own assortment of difficulties. Determining right and wrong will not be the focus here; instead, she charts events as they happened and allows the expansion of NATO to unfold in all its conflicted and potentially treacherous glory.
The diplomatic environment of that era was fraught indeed. A wall can fall, you've still got to deal with all the Soviet troops stationed behind it. (One of whom, our author gamely points out, was a pretty ticked off Vladimir Putin.) East Germany had become home to Soviets of all type, Soviets now faced with the prospect of this country's reunification and a frazzled few months dancing to the tune of "Do I Stay or Do I Go Now?" Add to this the startling fractures that began to appear in the Eastern Bloc; nations scuttling from their berths in Lenin's basement to send out tentative (and not so tentative) feelers to the West. Will you protect us? We want to join. Everyone craves that Article 5 umbrella: An attack against one is an attack against all. Ambitious politicians and would-be history-makers thought their gravy train had arrived. (This was not Richard Holbrooke's finest hour.) Wiser minds lasered in, of course, on the critical issue of nuclear disarmament. The USSR, in its tectonic tumult, could easily and quite feasibly fall to marketing military materials and methodologies to the highest bidder - regardless of whatever pertinent treaty might currently apply.
Sarotte handles all of this beautifully, step-by-step in pages of account so customed to the curvature of shifting sands that you can sense the peril in every choice, in each communique, writhing beneath the surface of even the most complacent diplomatic exchange. I was especially impressed by the manner in which she located Ukraine - which has apparently been a tangle for NATO all along.
...Ukraine's history as an East Slavic and predominantly Orthodox state had long been deeply intertwined with Russia's. There were millions of ethnic Russians living among, and married to, Ukrainians. If Ukraine decided in its referendum of December 1, 1991 to become fully independent, it would at once commence a painful economic and political divorce from its fellow Slavs and also become a greater nuclear power than either Britain or France. Ukraine's choices would clearly have such far-reaching effects. From Moscow, Ambassador Strauss advised Washington that "the most revolutionary event of 1991 for Russia may not be the collapse of Communism, but the loss of something Russians of all political stripe think of as part of their own body politic, and near to the heart at that: Ukraine."
This history covers only the timeframe of the presidential administrations of George H.W. Bush (Sr.) and Bill Clinton - the accounts of their emissaries, advisors, and the relationships they crafted with the leaders of this political age. Yet it is enough. More than enough to explore the legacy of the infamous question Secretary of State James Baker put to Mikhail Gorbachev:
What if you let your part of Germany go, and we agree that NATO will not shift one inch eastward from its present position?
Which he claimed ever after was a hypothetical.
February 1, 2022
Reading this book in January 2022, is somewhat surreal, but timely. Also, having been a “news and military history” junkie as a child throughout the 90s when many of the events written about in this text were occurring makes it extra surreal as I even recall reading and thinking about these events as they occurred, so there’s an added element of (strange) nostalgia. On its own merits however, M.E Sarotte’s book is a well-written sequence-history of the geopolitical events that led to the current security environment in eastern Europe (or Russia’s ‘near-abroad’) starting from the last few years of the Cold War to the last year of the 1990s.
As a reference, it may be better than good, but excellent, with well over a hundred pages of citations, and bibliography. I anticipate many hours of primary source reading yielded from this book. However, as a piece of synthesis, the book is more wanting, with the synthesis not occurring till literally the last 40 mins of audio (out of a 15 hour and 54 mins book), and it was definitely rushed or massaged to fit current messaging (likely by editors to ensure it would maximize sales given current events). After 15+ hours (500+ pages) of text with the author basically outlining how the multiple ways the H.W Bush administration, then the Clinton administration, “dunned” the Yeltsin administration of Russia’s nascent democracy, for political capital, to hurriedly acquiesce to various NATO enlargement schemes, the author’s only conclusion was effectively “we could have done better, though had we have to do it again, we’d more or less do the same thing, but w/ more panache. Further, now that we are in conflict with Russia, we can't be critical of NATO (which I was sort of doing for 90% of this book)”. There’s no real latitude of vision on whether it even made sense for the post-Cold War framework to be primarily driven by NATO, and not by something altogether different, like a novel European security framework, which was actively being discussed by policy makers at the time, including the famed Cold-War architect George Kennan (who’s apprehension to NATO enlargement was quoted several times by Sarotte).
Sarotte’s basic conclusion assumes NATO is fixed, and given the desire of nations like Poland to join, concludes that nothing much (substantive) could have been done to change the eventuality of expansion, and more importantly of "Article 5" expansion, or the "full rights". The few “changes” mentioned include changing the name of NATO into something else though not changing the organization at all (a strange request from Yeltsin’s foreign minister), and having more discussion on the nature of “Article 5” expansion beyond Germany. Banal. Though to be fair to the author, the normative question of what could have replaced NATO, or how might the European Economic Community (EEC/EC, the precursor to the EU) might have evolved to expand into a common continental/regional security scope is both counterfactual and possible beyond the domain of a historian, and firmly within the domain of international relations/political science/social science.
Again, this element of the text is literally less than 10% of the content, so it’s weakness doesn’t weigh the whole text down too much, which is otherwise a good detailed-filled history on this topic. The book nicely spans not only the internal dialogue/rationale of the three US administrations / two presidents (Bush-88/Clinton-92/Clinton-96) very well, but also provides good context on the internal logic of some of the European leaders, most prominently Helmut Kohl, but also including some input from the various French administrations, including Mitterand/Chirac as well as the relevant British administrations to name a few.
What becomes clear quickly as one reads this is that Yeltsin was not prepared to deal w/ the Western nations soundly. This was either because of the momentous change that Russia had recently undergone, both in internal economy and governance, or the personal failing of Yeltsin, most notably his ill-controlled alcoholism (or both), which features prominently in the narrative here. Yeltsin’s strategy seems to have been to provide as much cooperation as possible to both the Bush and Clinton administrations, first in the realm of strategic arms-controls, then WMD-cleanup/consolidation, and finally in conventional-arms reduction in Europe, in hopes this will incentivize Western capital to flow into the country. The Western nations likewise were incentivized to make Yeltsin’s transition and leadership as smooth as possible, mostly because they feared what would happen once/if he was removed/left/retired from power, and to buy time to expand NATO as far east as possible.
The author paints this later objective mostly as benign, though vaguely so. There’s a key quote from Clinton, who’s opinion was basically that NATO should expand maximally east eventually, and that it would provide Russia w/ a sort of fait-accompli, and incentivize it to cooperate, and revert to a more docile form (it should noted that this was the time of maximum Russian cooperation via Yeltsin). It is also the case that many of these former Warsaw Pact nations had understandable concerns and more importantly, understandable economic incentives to join the alliance, especially as “consumers” of security (if not “producers” of it), thus allowing them to reallocate capital generated within their nations to more productive use outside of security.
I thought that reading this book would make me feel more informed, and thus better equipped to understand the current situation, and more confident in it’s ultimate resolution, but it does not. In fact, it all seems even bleaker now. Although we were able to achieve substantive cooperation during the Yeltsin era, it was not lasting, and most importantly, the national security apparatus of Russia learned to trust the US and some European nations less. This occurred under a mostly passive and benign Russian leader. But it’s also unclear what control US policy makers do have over the multifarious interests that represent US “interests” (much less broader “Western” ones). Several times both, Bush and Clinton administrations had principals who saw that they needed to change course, or to “come to terms” with the Russians, that would be acceptable to all parties with respect to a security compact for Europe. Yet, in each case, those principals were confounded by the chaotic realities of internal domestic politics as well as the chaos of internal fighting within the respective administrations. Even when such an arraignment was made, the so-called “Partnership for Peace” (PfP), the author reveals that the architects of this architecture always planned it for being a “holding pen” to retard the progress of certain nations, which was exclusively Russia at the time, from ever ascending to NATO membership, yet provide some minimal operational alignment and the outer-veneer of partnership. In effect, it was at least partially a subterfuge, and not genuine.
Either way, this is a good read, and will likely be authoritative on this topic going forward. Recommended.
As a reference, it may be better than good, but excellent, with well over a hundred pages of citations, and bibliography. I anticipate many hours of primary source reading yielded from this book. However, as a piece of synthesis, the book is more wanting, with the synthesis not occurring till literally the last 40 mins of audio (out of a 15 hour and 54 mins book), and it was definitely rushed or massaged to fit current messaging (likely by editors to ensure it would maximize sales given current events). After 15+ hours (500+ pages) of text with the author basically outlining how the multiple ways the H.W Bush administration, then the Clinton administration, “dunned” the Yeltsin administration of Russia’s nascent democracy, for political capital, to hurriedly acquiesce to various NATO enlargement schemes, the author’s only conclusion was effectively “we could have done better, though had we have to do it again, we’d more or less do the same thing, but w/ more panache. Further, now that we are in conflict with Russia, we can't be critical of NATO (which I was sort of doing for 90% of this book)”. There’s no real latitude of vision on whether it even made sense for the post-Cold War framework to be primarily driven by NATO, and not by something altogether different, like a novel European security framework, which was actively being discussed by policy makers at the time, including the famed Cold-War architect George Kennan (who’s apprehension to NATO enlargement was quoted several times by Sarotte).
Sarotte’s basic conclusion assumes NATO is fixed, and given the desire of nations like Poland to join, concludes that nothing much (substantive) could have been done to change the eventuality of expansion, and more importantly of "Article 5" expansion, or the "full rights". The few “changes” mentioned include changing the name of NATO into something else though not changing the organization at all (a strange request from Yeltsin’s foreign minister), and having more discussion on the nature of “Article 5” expansion beyond Germany. Banal. Though to be fair to the author, the normative question of what could have replaced NATO, or how might the European Economic Community (EEC/EC, the precursor to the EU) might have evolved to expand into a common continental/regional security scope is both counterfactual and possible beyond the domain of a historian, and firmly within the domain of international relations/political science/social science.
Again, this element of the text is literally less than 10% of the content, so it’s weakness doesn’t weigh the whole text down too much, which is otherwise a good detailed-filled history on this topic. The book nicely spans not only the internal dialogue/rationale of the three US administrations / two presidents (Bush-88/Clinton-92/Clinton-96) very well, but also provides good context on the internal logic of some of the European leaders, most prominently Helmut Kohl, but also including some input from the various French administrations, including Mitterand/Chirac as well as the relevant British administrations to name a few.
What becomes clear quickly as one reads this is that Yeltsin was not prepared to deal w/ the Western nations soundly. This was either because of the momentous change that Russia had recently undergone, both in internal economy and governance, or the personal failing of Yeltsin, most notably his ill-controlled alcoholism (or both), which features prominently in the narrative here. Yeltsin’s strategy seems to have been to provide as much cooperation as possible to both the Bush and Clinton administrations, first in the realm of strategic arms-controls, then WMD-cleanup/consolidation, and finally in conventional-arms reduction in Europe, in hopes this will incentivize Western capital to flow into the country. The Western nations likewise were incentivized to make Yeltsin’s transition and leadership as smooth as possible, mostly because they feared what would happen once/if he was removed/left/retired from power, and to buy time to expand NATO as far east as possible.
The author paints this later objective mostly as benign, though vaguely so. There’s a key quote from Clinton, who’s opinion was basically that NATO should expand maximally east eventually, and that it would provide Russia w/ a sort of fait-accompli, and incentivize it to cooperate, and revert to a more docile form (it should noted that this was the time of maximum Russian cooperation via Yeltsin). It is also the case that many of these former Warsaw Pact nations had understandable concerns and more importantly, understandable economic incentives to join the alliance, especially as “consumers” of security (if not “producers” of it), thus allowing them to reallocate capital generated within their nations to more productive use outside of security.
I thought that reading this book would make me feel more informed, and thus better equipped to understand the current situation, and more confident in it’s ultimate resolution, but it does not. In fact, it all seems even bleaker now. Although we were able to achieve substantive cooperation during the Yeltsin era, it was not lasting, and most importantly, the national security apparatus of Russia learned to trust the US and some European nations less. This occurred under a mostly passive and benign Russian leader. But it’s also unclear what control US policy makers do have over the multifarious interests that represent US “interests” (much less broader “Western” ones). Several times both, Bush and Clinton administrations had principals who saw that they needed to change course, or to “come to terms” with the Russians, that would be acceptable to all parties with respect to a security compact for Europe. Yet, in each case, those principals were confounded by the chaotic realities of internal domestic politics as well as the chaos of internal fighting within the respective administrations. Even when such an arraignment was made, the so-called “Partnership for Peace” (PfP), the author reveals that the architects of this architecture always planned it for being a “holding pen” to retard the progress of certain nations, which was exclusively Russia at the time, from ever ascending to NATO membership, yet provide some minimal operational alignment and the outer-veneer of partnership. In effect, it was at least partially a subterfuge, and not genuine.
Either way, this is a good read, and will likely be authoritative on this topic going forward. Recommended.
January 1, 2023
I'm experiencing a feeling of surreality after simultaneously reading Estonian news and watching the government-sponsored Russian TV channel. From the beginning of the war in Ukraine, the gap between English- and Russian-language media has been widening. Lately, the news stopped corresponding entirely: while one side reports about the heavy bombardment of Kiyv on New Year's night, the other side talks exclusively about the heavy shelling of the Donetsk region on the same night. Soldiers of both armies celebrate New Year's Eve, wishing for a safe sky above their heads.
Mary Elise Sarotte attributes the aggressive nature of Vladimir Putin's foreign politics to his time as a KGB operative in Germany. No order came from Moscow to stop the people from climbing or destroying the Berlin wall. As per the author's words, Vladimir Putin decided never to repeat this fiasco, 'Moscow is silent,' and attack instead of waiting to be attacked. (and now go my reflections on the current events) The collisions between America and Russia around the world, both driven by principles of their respective national security, had their nadir in the years-long political battle over Ukraine: Viktor Yanukovich, Maidan, Donetsk/Lugansk regions, Azov battalion, attempts of Russians to bribe Donald Trump's approval of annexation, Zelenskyy, etc. When neither side could prevail politically, Putin launched 'the special operation.' America fears the new domino effect: if Putin wins over Ukraine, Europe will be vulnerable to his totalitarianism. Putin sees Ukraine as Russia's inseparable territory and doesn't want 'Cuba' (aka NATO) at its threshold.
Was it possible to prevent the Cold War II from happening? In Not One Inch: America, Russia, and the Making of Post-Cold War Stalemate, Mary Elise Sarotte gives an overview of political perturbations from 1989 (talks about Germany unification) to 1999 (Putin's election as successor to Yeltsin). With great detail of who-said-what, yet with little general analysis in the text itself, she goes through every lost opportunity of a partnership between Russia, Europe, and the US. The chance for meaningful cooperation was short-lived and encompassed 1992-93. Russian presidents, Michael Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin, reacted to the unfolding events rather than built a cohesive domestic and foreign policy. The state, which controlled every aspect of its citizens' lives before, now had no control at all (not without reason, these years are called the wild 90s in Russia). America's main concern was peace in Europe, achieved by fast NATO expansion and military cooperation.
I highly recommend the book as the basis for reflection on the current political situation. Ukraine is mentioned repeatedly in the text, especially its attempts to reach a superpower rank when it was left with part of the Soviet nuclear arsenal and became the third largest nuclear country (after America and Russia). What bothers me is the author's findings that even in 2016, NATO exercises revealed the unpreparedness of the Baltics for Russian attacks: all three countries can be taken in hours, not days, thus leaving little opportunities for negotiations between Russia and NATO. Anyway, as during WW1 and WW2, Estonia will be reduced to blood and rubble.
Mary Elise Sarotte attributes the aggressive nature of Vladimir Putin's foreign politics to his time as a KGB operative in Germany. No order came from Moscow to stop the people from climbing or destroying the Berlin wall. As per the author's words, Vladimir Putin decided never to repeat this fiasco, 'Moscow is silent,' and attack instead of waiting to be attacked. (and now go my reflections on the current events) The collisions between America and Russia around the world, both driven by principles of their respective national security, had their nadir in the years-long political battle over Ukraine: Viktor Yanukovich, Maidan, Donetsk/Lugansk regions, Azov battalion, attempts of Russians to bribe Donald Trump's approval of annexation, Zelenskyy, etc. When neither side could prevail politically, Putin launched 'the special operation.' America fears the new domino effect: if Putin wins over Ukraine, Europe will be vulnerable to his totalitarianism. Putin sees Ukraine as Russia's inseparable territory and doesn't want 'Cuba' (aka NATO) at its threshold.
Was it possible to prevent the Cold War II from happening? In Not One Inch: America, Russia, and the Making of Post-Cold War Stalemate, Mary Elise Sarotte gives an overview of political perturbations from 1989 (talks about Germany unification) to 1999 (Putin's election as successor to Yeltsin). With great detail of who-said-what, yet with little general analysis in the text itself, she goes through every lost opportunity of a partnership between Russia, Europe, and the US. The chance for meaningful cooperation was short-lived and encompassed 1992-93. Russian presidents, Michael Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin, reacted to the unfolding events rather than built a cohesive domestic and foreign policy. The state, which controlled every aspect of its citizens' lives before, now had no control at all (not without reason, these years are called the wild 90s in Russia). America's main concern was peace in Europe, achieved by fast NATO expansion and military cooperation.
I highly recommend the book as the basis for reflection on the current political situation. Ukraine is mentioned repeatedly in the text, especially its attempts to reach a superpower rank when it was left with part of the Soviet nuclear arsenal and became the third largest nuclear country (after America and Russia). What bothers me is the author's findings that even in 2016, NATO exercises revealed the unpreparedness of the Baltics for Russian attacks: all three countries can be taken in hours, not days, thus leaving little opportunities for negotiations between Russia and NATO. Anyway, as during WW1 and WW2, Estonia will be reduced to blood and rubble.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 7, 2025
Foreign Affairs
A distinguished historian of transatlantic relations revisits Western relations with Russia during the 1990s. This critical decade set the tone for geopolitics in the post–Cold War period, above all though the expansion of NATO.
Sarotte weaves together the most engaging and carefully documented account of this period in East-West diplomacy currently available. She deepens the conventional wisdom among most historians, namely that in the late 1980s and early 1990s, many Western leaders gave informal assurances that NATO would not expand—not just to the territory of the former East Germany but also across central and eastern Europe. Since Moscow failed to secure any formal guarantee, however, Western leaders later went ahead anyway, downplaying or denying any contradiction.
She argues more speculatively that this perceived betrayal was a major factor in the subsequent collapse of democracy in Russia and the further deterioration of relations between the West and Russia under President Vladimir Putin.
But most of the book’s evidence actually leans in the opposite direction and suggests that U.S. Presidents George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton and their top diplomats slowed NATO expansion to try to stabilize the government of Russian President Boris Yeltsin in the short term and held off as long as he still looked viable. It was only when Yeltsin’s fall became imminent, and a hardening of East-West relations started to seem inevitable, that the United States moved to expand the alliance.
A distinguished historian of transatlantic relations revisits Western relations with Russia during the 1990s. This critical decade set the tone for geopolitics in the post–Cold War period, above all though the expansion of NATO.
Sarotte weaves together the most engaging and carefully documented account of this period in East-West diplomacy currently available. She deepens the conventional wisdom among most historians, namely that in the late 1980s and early 1990s, many Western leaders gave informal assurances that NATO would not expand—not just to the territory of the former East Germany but also across central and eastern Europe. Since Moscow failed to secure any formal guarantee, however, Western leaders later went ahead anyway, downplaying or denying any contradiction.
She argues more speculatively that this perceived betrayal was a major factor in the subsequent collapse of democracy in Russia and the further deterioration of relations between the West and Russia under President Vladimir Putin.
But most of the book’s evidence actually leans in the opposite direction and suggests that U.S. Presidents George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton and their top diplomats slowed NATO expansion to try to stabilize the government of Russian President Boris Yeltsin in the short term and held off as long as he still looked viable. It was only when Yeltsin’s fall became imminent, and a hardening of East-West relations started to seem inevitable, that the United States moved to expand the alliance.
March 21, 2022
As I am writing I am listening to the horrific news emanating from Ukraine. The Russian invasion that began on February 24, 2022, continues to produce atrocity after atrocity with no end in sight. By launching his “special military operation,” Vladimir Putin has ended the post-Cold War settlement in Eastern Europe in pursuit of his fantasy of an ethno-nationalistic Pan Slavic empire for Russia as he tries to recreate the old Soviet Union. His stated goal was to block the NATO threat embodied by Ukraine, a country that seeks to join the Atlantic Alliance for protection against Moscow. Putin’s actions were based on his perceived weakness of NATO countries and their lack of unity. The result, instead of pushing NATO away from his border, Putin has reinvigorated NATO and brought the west closer than it has been since World War II. Sanctions against Russia, arming Ukraine, financial aid, intelligence sharing, and humanitarian aid are all designed to help Kyiv overcome Putin’s rage as the war has not gone as he had planned. Based on the Russian President’s comments, who knows how far he will push his war of choice and how it will end. The question is how did we get to this point? What can be done to mitigate the situation? Lastly, what weapons will Putin employ as he hints about tactical nuclear weapons and chemical and biological warfare if Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy does not capitulate.
M.E.S. Sarotte, a history professor at Johns Hopkins University and a member of the Council of Foreign Relations has authored the perfect book to try and understand the background of the current crisis. Her monograph, NOT ONE INCH: AMERICA, RUSSIA, AND THE MAKING OF THE POST COLD WAR STALEMATE is an excellent analysis of events, personalities, and decisions made by western European, American, and Russian leaders from the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 through the resignation of Boris Yeltsin as Russian president replaced by Vladimir Putin.
Sarotte develops a thoroughly researched book that revolves around options faced by the west once the Soviet Union collapsed. The choice was clear; either they could enable the newly independent states of Central and Eastern Europe including the Baltic states to join NATO regardless of its impact on Russia or promote cooperation with Russia’s fragile new democracy. The move that made the most sense would have slowed the decision making process and proceeding carefully considering Russian sensitivities. The west created an incremental security partnership open to European and post-Soviet states alike. Potential NATO members could gain experience in working with the west and eventually gain Article 5 protection. However, Boris Yeltsin’s decision to shed the blood of opponents in Moscow and Chechnya, the rampant inflation in Russia as it tried to transition to a market economy, bloodshed in the Balkans, and domestic political changes in the United States as Republicans took over Congress pressured the Clinton administration to push for NATO expansion all impacted the course of NATO enlargement. As all of this evolved Vladimir Putting was rising through the Russian bureaucracy.
In breaking down her analysis into three parts, Sarotte tackles the 1989-1992 period dominated by President George H. Bush, Secretary of State James Baker and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev. Her focus is on the “promise” offered by Baker that “not one inch” of former Soviet territory would be subject to NATO expansion. This formed the basis of the Russian position, and as events evolved the United States and its western allies saw loopholes in any agreement that would allow them to offer NATO membership to Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary in the first wave of NATO membership and keep open the possibilities for further members including the Baltic states, Romania, and others. Gorbachev who faced internal opposition, economic issues and other roadblocks to reform would face a coup and eventual replacement by Boris Yeltsin.
The second part of the narrative, 1993-1994 was dominated by the “Boris and Bill” show as Bill Clinton and Boris Yeltsin developed a strong working relationship which would eventually flounder due to events and decisions that ruined their camaraderie as the US pushed for rapid NATO enlargement. By the third part of the book, 1995-1999 the situation in Kosovo, the failed Russian economy raped by oligarchs, and Yeltsin’s uneven and unpredictable personality heightened by his drunkenness would result in Moscow and Washington failing to create lasting cooperation in the thaw after the Cold war resulting in the rise of Putin and what the world would eventually face in Ukraine.
Sarotte covers all bases as she highlights negotiations between the west and Russia and delves into the motivations and policies of the main personalities. As she draws the reader in she offers a number of insightful comments and vignettes. Among the most interesting and almost laughable was the role played by the Lewinsky Affair and Clinton’s impeachment trial in finally expanding NATO in 1998. Sarotte’s meticulous presentation of how German unification was achieved and the withdrawal of Soviet forces from East Germany are among her strongest sections of the book, particularly the role played by German Chancellor Helmut Kohl. The nuclear problem was always present in the background. Issues of Ukrainian nuclear weapons, the cost to destroy and relocate them, and Russia’s role were paramount. In addition, the evolution of the situation in Ukraine is discussed further and Sarotte offers a number of historical keys that will play out and impact Kyiv which in the end will end up being invaded by Russia in 2014 in its seizure of Crimea and the recognition by Russia of two separate self-proclaimed republics in the Donbas region.
Sarotte’s work is impeccable, and I would recommend it strongly to anyone interested in a detailed presentation of the 1989-1999 period that resulted in the arrival of Vladimir Putin as the dominating figure in the Kremlin’s approach to the west and Russian expansion. Sarotte delineates the lost opportunity for a more peaceful world with increased Russian, American and European cooperation and integration between 1989 and 1991. Unfortunately, that opportunity has been lost and it will take many years for it to reappear, if ever.
M.E.S. Sarotte, a history professor at Johns Hopkins University and a member of the Council of Foreign Relations has authored the perfect book to try and understand the background of the current crisis. Her monograph, NOT ONE INCH: AMERICA, RUSSIA, AND THE MAKING OF THE POST COLD WAR STALEMATE is an excellent analysis of events, personalities, and decisions made by western European, American, and Russian leaders from the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 through the resignation of Boris Yeltsin as Russian president replaced by Vladimir Putin.
Sarotte develops a thoroughly researched book that revolves around options faced by the west once the Soviet Union collapsed. The choice was clear; either they could enable the newly independent states of Central and Eastern Europe including the Baltic states to join NATO regardless of its impact on Russia or promote cooperation with Russia’s fragile new democracy. The move that made the most sense would have slowed the decision making process and proceeding carefully considering Russian sensitivities. The west created an incremental security partnership open to European and post-Soviet states alike. Potential NATO members could gain experience in working with the west and eventually gain Article 5 protection. However, Boris Yeltsin’s decision to shed the blood of opponents in Moscow and Chechnya, the rampant inflation in Russia as it tried to transition to a market economy, bloodshed in the Balkans, and domestic political changes in the United States as Republicans took over Congress pressured the Clinton administration to push for NATO expansion all impacted the course of NATO enlargement. As all of this evolved Vladimir Putting was rising through the Russian bureaucracy.
In breaking down her analysis into three parts, Sarotte tackles the 1989-1992 period dominated by President George H. Bush, Secretary of State James Baker and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev. Her focus is on the “promise” offered by Baker that “not one inch” of former Soviet territory would be subject to NATO expansion. This formed the basis of the Russian position, and as events evolved the United States and its western allies saw loopholes in any agreement that would allow them to offer NATO membership to Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary in the first wave of NATO membership and keep open the possibilities for further members including the Baltic states, Romania, and others. Gorbachev who faced internal opposition, economic issues and other roadblocks to reform would face a coup and eventual replacement by Boris Yeltsin.
The second part of the narrative, 1993-1994 was dominated by the “Boris and Bill” show as Bill Clinton and Boris Yeltsin developed a strong working relationship which would eventually flounder due to events and decisions that ruined their camaraderie as the US pushed for rapid NATO enlargement. By the third part of the book, 1995-1999 the situation in Kosovo, the failed Russian economy raped by oligarchs, and Yeltsin’s uneven and unpredictable personality heightened by his drunkenness would result in Moscow and Washington failing to create lasting cooperation in the thaw after the Cold war resulting in the rise of Putin and what the world would eventually face in Ukraine.
Sarotte covers all bases as she highlights negotiations between the west and Russia and delves into the motivations and policies of the main personalities. As she draws the reader in she offers a number of insightful comments and vignettes. Among the most interesting and almost laughable was the role played by the Lewinsky Affair and Clinton’s impeachment trial in finally expanding NATO in 1998. Sarotte’s meticulous presentation of how German unification was achieved and the withdrawal of Soviet forces from East Germany are among her strongest sections of the book, particularly the role played by German Chancellor Helmut Kohl. The nuclear problem was always present in the background. Issues of Ukrainian nuclear weapons, the cost to destroy and relocate them, and Russia’s role were paramount. In addition, the evolution of the situation in Ukraine is discussed further and Sarotte offers a number of historical keys that will play out and impact Kyiv which in the end will end up being invaded by Russia in 2014 in its seizure of Crimea and the recognition by Russia of two separate self-proclaimed republics in the Donbas region.
Sarotte’s work is impeccable, and I would recommend it strongly to anyone interested in a detailed presentation of the 1989-1999 period that resulted in the arrival of Vladimir Putin as the dominating figure in the Kremlin’s approach to the west and Russian expansion. Sarotte delineates the lost opportunity for a more peaceful world with increased Russian, American and European cooperation and integration between 1989 and 1991. Unfortunately, that opportunity has been lost and it will take many years for it to reappear, if ever.
June 24, 2022
Diplomatic history of the 1990s, covering the collapse of the Soviet Union and the subsequent instability of the Russian Federation, as well as the expansion of NATO. Sarotte's approach, which draws from a treasure house of archives and personal interviews, follows the negotiations both in broad principles and in the minute detail of conversations. Her point, to sum up, is that the "animosity" over the future of the post-Cold War world led to a result "much like its cold war predecessor".
What first stood out to me was how different the world of 1990 was. NATO expansion had been put on the table almost before the Berlin Wall had fallen, although negotiations between the United States and Soviet Union concerned if Germany was to be unified at all, if it was to be a neutral partner of NATO or not, and what role a reunified Germany would play in Europe - revanchist or otherwise. (There were some incidents where NATO expansion was thought of as a protection against German expansion! Secretary of State James Baker asked Gorbachev in 1990:
This was apparently intended as a hypothetical, and was never committed to writing, with Gorbachev's own position growing more feeble by the day. Sarotte's own investigation of the archives, as well as crosschecking personal notes as well a memoirs - finds an uncertainty over the question and what it was meant, and neither Gorbachev nor Baker were forthcoming about all the details. The discussion may have been more about if NATO were to expand its role into East Germany after unification, and Gorbachev does not discuss the "not one inch" remark at a Party meeting days later. But later readers and pundits would hear what they heard - a gross betrayal. And in any case, the economic turmoil and political corruption of post-Cold War Russia did little to endear the Russian population to the new arrangement.
Sarotte's own analysis weaves the background of domestic politics with foreign policy negotiations - the Clinton administration being hamstrung after the Republican surge of 1994, and Yeltsin growing more feeble amidst the further decay of the Russian economy. But even in his limited position, Clinton had prioritized two separate goals - nuclear disarmament (hence the Budapest memorandum of 1994), and additionally prioritizing the further expansion of NATO, often at the behest of the former Warsaw Pact states who had called loudly to join - Russia would not be weak forever. (The large emigre populations in key states also played a role in Clinton's thinking). Both these policy goals were contingent on Russian cooperation or at least begrudging tolerance. The possibility of Ukrainian membership in NATO was mentioned in public documents as early as the 1990s, even though it was unlikely to pass then, and that was an even greater shock.
What would have happened if NATO had not gone that far east, if a different arrangement had held, or if a different Partnership for Peace arrangement had prevailed, where there was at least some path, shaky as it was, to integrate Russia in the new system, or if the downward spiral of the post-Soviet economy was held, somehow? Might as well ask what the Earth would be like if life never left the oceans. But Putin has had his "special military operation", and now Sweden and Finland have bolted from their neutrality and Ukraine has become a candidate member of the EU. But Sarotte has written a compelling history of how we got to where we are now.
What first stood out to me was how different the world of 1990 was. NATO expansion had been put on the table almost before the Berlin Wall had fallen, although negotiations between the United States and Soviet Union concerned if Germany was to be unified at all, if it was to be a neutral partner of NATO or not, and what role a reunified Germany would play in Europe - revanchist or otherwise. (There were some incidents where NATO expansion was thought of as a protection against German expansion! Secretary of State James Baker asked Gorbachev in 1990:
Would you prefer to see a unified Germany outside of NATO, independent and with no NATO forces, or would you prefer a unified Germany to be tied to NATO, with assurances that NATO’s jurisdiction would not shift one inch eastward from its present position?
This was apparently intended as a hypothetical, and was never committed to writing, with Gorbachev's own position growing more feeble by the day. Sarotte's own investigation of the archives, as well as crosschecking personal notes as well a memoirs - finds an uncertainty over the question and what it was meant, and neither Gorbachev nor Baker were forthcoming about all the details. The discussion may have been more about if NATO were to expand its role into East Germany after unification, and Gorbachev does not discuss the "not one inch" remark at a Party meeting days later. But later readers and pundits would hear what they heard - a gross betrayal. And in any case, the economic turmoil and political corruption of post-Cold War Russia did little to endear the Russian population to the new arrangement.
Sarotte's own analysis weaves the background of domestic politics with foreign policy negotiations - the Clinton administration being hamstrung after the Republican surge of 1994, and Yeltsin growing more feeble amidst the further decay of the Russian economy. But even in his limited position, Clinton had prioritized two separate goals - nuclear disarmament (hence the Budapest memorandum of 1994), and additionally prioritizing the further expansion of NATO, often at the behest of the former Warsaw Pact states who had called loudly to join - Russia would not be weak forever. (The large emigre populations in key states also played a role in Clinton's thinking). Both these policy goals were contingent on Russian cooperation or at least begrudging tolerance. The possibility of Ukrainian membership in NATO was mentioned in public documents as early as the 1990s, even though it was unlikely to pass then, and that was an even greater shock.
What would have happened if NATO had not gone that far east, if a different arrangement had held, or if a different Partnership for Peace arrangement had prevailed, where there was at least some path, shaky as it was, to integrate Russia in the new system, or if the downward spiral of the post-Soviet economy was held, somehow? Might as well ask what the Earth would be like if life never left the oceans. But Putin has had his "special military operation", and now Sweden and Finland have bolted from their neutrality and Ukraine has become a candidate member of the EU. But Sarotte has written a compelling history of how we got to where we are now.
February 12, 2022
Deși nu sunt în acord cu unele dintre concluzii (pentru că sunt dureroase pentru cineva din Europa Centrală și de Est), e o carte senzațională. Foarte bine documentată, scrisă atât de bine încât abia aștepți să vezi ce se mai întâmplă (sau ce era în spatele unor timpuri trăite). O recomand din toată inima (și mai ales din tot creierul) celor care vor să înțeleagă istoria NATO, dinamica post-Război Rece și poate și sursa tensiunilor de acum din Ucraina.
December 30, 2023
Not One Inch is a good overview of the origins of the current US-Russia rivalry. It starts with the fall of the Eastern Bloc in the 1980s, the reunification of Germany, the fall of the Soviet Union, the creation of the Partnership for Peace, the Chechen wars, the Yugoslav wars and finally the NATO enlargement. It covers the US presidencies of George Bush Sr and Bill Clinton and of Gorbachev and Yeltsin on the Russian/Soviet side.
Probably the most important point of the book relates to the Russian claim that they agreed with the reunification of Germany because the US promised that NATO won't expand eastwards. As all the historical records show this was never something that was ever agreed on or signed on, it was one of the many options that were floated at the time of the reunification discussions. Some US and German diplomats did discuss this possibility with the Soviet representatives, but the US President never agreed to it and nothing was ever signed. In addition to this, the discussions were only ever about Eastern Germany. At the time there wasn't even a discussion about other countries so the US never saw itself as being bound by any agreements.
By contrast, the Russians interpreted the discussions differently. They believe that the Americans broke the spirit of the agreement. However, in exchange for agreeing to the German unification Russia received billions of dollars from Germany, money which was eventually stolen due to Russian corruption.
There is also another key point, which is the fact that Russia's position completely ignores the positions of all of the ex-Soviet and East European countries. As the Polish president said, usually when a treaty between great powers was signed in the past it was against the interests and the wishes of the local countries. This was for the first time when these countries actually were part of signing a treaty where they actually benefitted. All of the ex-Communist countries were eager to join NATO, the Visegrad countries of Hungary, Poland and Czechoslovakia (eventually just Czechia) were most favoured by the US and got membership in 1999. The Baltic countries, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovakia and Slovenia followed a few years after.
At the time of the NATO expansion Russia was facing an economic collapse and as such polls showed that the expansion was not high on the Russian public agenda. However, Russia was heavily incensed by the bombing of Serbia. The election of George Bush and the American invasion in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as Bush's invitation of Ukraine and Georgia (against the French and German wishes) towards NATO membership completely collapsed any possibility of understanding.
The ending of the book discusses whether the US could have acted better to maintain the relationship with Russia and whether the NATO expansion was overall positive. The opinion is that perhaps the US could have expanded slower which may have kept Russia friendly. Several personalities such as George Kennan warned that the expansion would trigger Russia's aggressiveness as it would feel humiliated. Without a doubt adding some of the ex-Communist countries, especially the Baltics to NATO aggravated Russia. However, it is not at all certain that even without NATO expansion Russia would still not have acted aggressively as seen in places like Chechenia. Especially since Putin was bent on restoring Russia to its former greatness. The countries that joined NATO did not experience Russian invasion (although they faced cyber and covert attacks), whereas the countries that were left out of NATO like Ukraine and Georgia were eventually invaded.
As a personal opinion, after reading this book I can see Russia as a big bully. A fallen empire that still tried to hold on to its former imperial holdings even though the people in those countries did not want to be part of their empire. In the words of Boris Yeltsin, the US forgot that Russia still has nuclear weapons. Indeed, that is the only thing that kept Russia in great power politics while everything else was collapsing internally.
Probably the most important point of the book relates to the Russian claim that they agreed with the reunification of Germany because the US promised that NATO won't expand eastwards. As all the historical records show this was never something that was ever agreed on or signed on, it was one of the many options that were floated at the time of the reunification discussions. Some US and German diplomats did discuss this possibility with the Soviet representatives, but the US President never agreed to it and nothing was ever signed. In addition to this, the discussions were only ever about Eastern Germany. At the time there wasn't even a discussion about other countries so the US never saw itself as being bound by any agreements.
By contrast, the Russians interpreted the discussions differently. They believe that the Americans broke the spirit of the agreement. However, in exchange for agreeing to the German unification Russia received billions of dollars from Germany, money which was eventually stolen due to Russian corruption.
There is also another key point, which is the fact that Russia's position completely ignores the positions of all of the ex-Soviet and East European countries. As the Polish president said, usually when a treaty between great powers was signed in the past it was against the interests and the wishes of the local countries. This was for the first time when these countries actually were part of signing a treaty where they actually benefitted. All of the ex-Communist countries were eager to join NATO, the Visegrad countries of Hungary, Poland and Czechoslovakia (eventually just Czechia) were most favoured by the US and got membership in 1999. The Baltic countries, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovakia and Slovenia followed a few years after.
At the time of the NATO expansion Russia was facing an economic collapse and as such polls showed that the expansion was not high on the Russian public agenda. However, Russia was heavily incensed by the bombing of Serbia. The election of George Bush and the American invasion in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as Bush's invitation of Ukraine and Georgia (against the French and German wishes) towards NATO membership completely collapsed any possibility of understanding.
The ending of the book discusses whether the US could have acted better to maintain the relationship with Russia and whether the NATO expansion was overall positive. The opinion is that perhaps the US could have expanded slower which may have kept Russia friendly. Several personalities such as George Kennan warned that the expansion would trigger Russia's aggressiveness as it would feel humiliated. Without a doubt adding some of the ex-Communist countries, especially the Baltics to NATO aggravated Russia. However, it is not at all certain that even without NATO expansion Russia would still not have acted aggressively as seen in places like Chechenia. Especially since Putin was bent on restoring Russia to its former greatness. The countries that joined NATO did not experience Russian invasion (although they faced cyber and covert attacks), whereas the countries that were left out of NATO like Ukraine and Georgia were eventually invaded.
As a personal opinion, after reading this book I can see Russia as a big bully. A fallen empire that still tried to hold on to its former imperial holdings even though the people in those countries did not want to be part of their empire. In the words of Boris Yeltsin, the US forgot that Russia still has nuclear weapons. Indeed, that is the only thing that kept Russia in great power politics while everything else was collapsing internally.
May 12, 2024
Задълбочен и бих казал безпристрастен поглед върху може би най-значимото геополитическо събитие в Европа след ВСВ - обединението на Германия, както и върху разширяването на НАТО отвъд пределите на "желязната завеса". Близо 50% от книгата са бележки и препратки към извори, което говори за сериозността на изследването. Авторката се е борила със зъби и нокти да получи достъп до традиционно затворени архиви в САЩ, Русия (до Путин) и Европа. Анализът на Сароти е максимално изчистен от идеология. Макар и либерална по дух, книгата не е опит да бъде оправдано разширяването на Алианса на Изток. Това е цел, която се формулира и преформулира във Вашингтон в началото на 90те, но до постигането ѝ се стига по много сложен път, а резултатите от нея, съгласява се авторката, остават спорни. В Москва целият този процес бива възприет като "Версай еп.2" (победени, без да бъдем бити), в ЦИЕ членсвото в НАТО и ЕС е спасителна сламка (всички новоприети държави, с няколко спорни изключниея, не се готови за това...и до ден днешен), а две администрации в САЩ си затварят очите за потенциалните рискове от европейското "обкръжаване" на Русия. "Нито инч" е историческо изследване и в него няма препоръки за бъдещето и критика на едни или други външнополитически ходове. Сароти е искала (и според мен успява) да намери отговор на въпроса защо и как се стига до разширяването на Изток. Много ценни са портретите на основните участници в тези процеси в периода 1989 до 1999 г. - Буш (старши), Горбачов, Хелмут Кол, Клинтън, Елцин и множество съветници и дипломати, които изиграват ключова роля далеч от телевизионните камери. Накратко, дано някой ден този отличен исторически труд бъде преведен на български.
March 24, 2022
The auathor, Mary Sarotte, is an historian and policy analyst whom I encountered hearing her comment on some aspect of the current invasion of Ukraine by Russia. I looked up her books and saw this one of recent vintage. It is a superb book about the war in Ukraine and the longer term developments that gave rise to it. In considering the war/invasion, one is tempted to sit back and just question what is going on. It seems to make such little sense at all. After reading "Not One Inch", it makes much more sense - although it is still completely ghastly and horrible.
Sarotte intends her book to be a history of the time since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the disintegration of the Soviet Union. Coming to grips with what happened during this time has been muddied by all of the accounts claiming what a big break with the past it was that had occurred. The most visible of such accounts was "The end of history" arguments of Francis Fukuyama. If history had ended along with the Cold War, what would be the point of an idea driven historical account of the aftermath of 1989-1991? Without some historical context, it is hard to make much sense of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Sarotte structures her detailed account around one broad policy initiative that engaged nearly all of the major geopolitical players of the era, whether positively or negatively, This was the campaign to expand NATO - to add new members to the defense alliance that had confronted the USSR and its Warsaw Pact allies. With the fall of Communish and the disintegration of the USSR, the Warsaw Pact ceased to exist and the former Soviet Bloc became a loose collection of former Warsaw Pact nations, the Baltic States, and former members of the Soviet Union that had gained their independence and were now distinct from Russia. These successor states know of their own 20th century of domination by the USSR or Germany, valued their new independence, and started looking for alliance partners to stay independent. Western Europe, on the other hand, did not want to greatly expand the EU and saw NATO as a vehicle for accommodating these new states. On top of all of this was the newly unified Germany, which brought allied armies closer to the Russian border. The US jumped on all of this. It had won the Cold War, so why not pursue its policy aims once vistory was clear? Russia, on the other hand, had never felt comfortable with strong states close to its border, but was militarily and economically to weak to do much about it.
What could happen? Seriously, why worry?
Professor Sarotte's book follows out the political and diplomatic threads of the post-1989 period using Nato expansion issues as the focal point. The implicit punchline of the book is that the end of the Cold War provided a chance for the US to foster a more cooperative relationship with Russia, recognizing that Russia had a long memory and would not stay weak and poor forever. This follows the analyses of Keynes (in "The Economic Consequences of the Peace) after the Versailles conference that there is a serious long term cost to taking advantage of defeated adversaries at their time of maximum weakness. A nasty self-interested and punitive peace could well prove to be self-defeating. The same point was implied by George Kennan, the author of the original "Containment" policy at the start of the Cold War.
Sarotte convincingly shows that this opportunity for a new relationship was not taken advantage of by the US and its allies. The more confrontational position of a strong NATO expansion, including Article 5 protection, won out and brought NATO right up to Russia's borders. While Boris Yeltsin had his own political problems, the behavior of the West ended up hurting his position and encouraging forces that would be more reactionary, non-cooperative, and militaristic. It is not clear that a cooperative relationship was really possible, but more could have been done by the US and its allies. Of course, the US had its own political problems, with Clinton and Monica Lewinsky, but perhaps a different result was possible.
Sarotte's account goes up to the turn of the millenium and the ascendency of Vladimir Putin as the successor to Yeltsin. And the rest, so they say, is history! With that one change n leadership, the direction of international politics changed from the possible cooperative trajectory of relations under Yeltsin.
The astonishing nature of this book can be seen in the clear linkage between the issues related to NATO and Ukraine as early as 1994 and the configuration of forces in the first Ukranian War of 2014 and the current invasion of Ukraine by Russia this year. Given the historicall picture drawn by Professor Sarotte, the tragedy of the invasion as well as its historical roots are clear. None of this is meant to support any idea that the Russian invasion of Ukraine was principally the fault of US policy - or even principally the fault. It is more that apparently reasonable short term directions could have contributed to unintended longer term consequences as the results of particular policy decisions came to build upon each other and limit the potential influence of the West, despite the best of intentions.
Professor Sarotte's book does a great service to those wishing to understand the current war and is well worth reading -- indeed it is indispensible for understanding the runup to the invasion.
Sarotte intends her book to be a history of the time since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the disintegration of the Soviet Union. Coming to grips with what happened during this time has been muddied by all of the accounts claiming what a big break with the past it was that had occurred. The most visible of such accounts was "The end of history" arguments of Francis Fukuyama. If history had ended along with the Cold War, what would be the point of an idea driven historical account of the aftermath of 1989-1991? Without some historical context, it is hard to make much sense of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Sarotte structures her detailed account around one broad policy initiative that engaged nearly all of the major geopolitical players of the era, whether positively or negatively, This was the campaign to expand NATO - to add new members to the defense alliance that had confronted the USSR and its Warsaw Pact allies. With the fall of Communish and the disintegration of the USSR, the Warsaw Pact ceased to exist and the former Soviet Bloc became a loose collection of former Warsaw Pact nations, the Baltic States, and former members of the Soviet Union that had gained their independence and were now distinct from Russia. These successor states know of their own 20th century of domination by the USSR or Germany, valued their new independence, and started looking for alliance partners to stay independent. Western Europe, on the other hand, did not want to greatly expand the EU and saw NATO as a vehicle for accommodating these new states. On top of all of this was the newly unified Germany, which brought allied armies closer to the Russian border. The US jumped on all of this. It had won the Cold War, so why not pursue its policy aims once vistory was clear? Russia, on the other hand, had never felt comfortable with strong states close to its border, but was militarily and economically to weak to do much about it.
What could happen? Seriously, why worry?
Professor Sarotte's book follows out the political and diplomatic threads of the post-1989 period using Nato expansion issues as the focal point. The implicit punchline of the book is that the end of the Cold War provided a chance for the US to foster a more cooperative relationship with Russia, recognizing that Russia had a long memory and would not stay weak and poor forever. This follows the analyses of Keynes (in "The Economic Consequences of the Peace) after the Versailles conference that there is a serious long term cost to taking advantage of defeated adversaries at their time of maximum weakness. A nasty self-interested and punitive peace could well prove to be self-defeating. The same point was implied by George Kennan, the author of the original "Containment" policy at the start of the Cold War.
Sarotte convincingly shows that this opportunity for a new relationship was not taken advantage of by the US and its allies. The more confrontational position of a strong NATO expansion, including Article 5 protection, won out and brought NATO right up to Russia's borders. While Boris Yeltsin had his own political problems, the behavior of the West ended up hurting his position and encouraging forces that would be more reactionary, non-cooperative, and militaristic. It is not clear that a cooperative relationship was really possible, but more could have been done by the US and its allies. Of course, the US had its own political problems, with Clinton and Monica Lewinsky, but perhaps a different result was possible.
Sarotte's account goes up to the turn of the millenium and the ascendency of Vladimir Putin as the successor to Yeltsin. And the rest, so they say, is history! With that one change n leadership, the direction of international politics changed from the possible cooperative trajectory of relations under Yeltsin.
The astonishing nature of this book can be seen in the clear linkage between the issues related to NATO and Ukraine as early as 1994 and the configuration of forces in the first Ukranian War of 2014 and the current invasion of Ukraine by Russia this year. Given the historicall picture drawn by Professor Sarotte, the tragedy of the invasion as well as its historical roots are clear. None of this is meant to support any idea that the Russian invasion of Ukraine was principally the fault of US policy - or even principally the fault. It is more that apparently reasonable short term directions could have contributed to unintended longer term consequences as the results of particular policy decisions came to build upon each other and limit the potential influence of the West, despite the best of intentions.
Professor Sarotte's book does a great service to those wishing to understand the current war and is well worth reading -- indeed it is indispensible for understanding the runup to the invasion.
April 6, 2023
In short, a 5/5 for research and writing and a solid 3/5 for analysis.
That this was a mammoth undertaking is readily apparent from the 150 pages of notes at the end of the book. As well as their sheer quantity, the quality of the sources used is also remarkable: Sarotte uses documents from the US, German, British and various Soviet and Russian governments to support her argument, many of which her research team had to lobby to get declassified. This will definitely be a uniquely useful resource for future IR scholars.
The analysis is not at the same standard. The crux of Sarotte's argument is that in the 90s, the USA had to manage two new sets of relationships: with a new Russia which it relied on for nuclear deproliferation, and newly independent East-Central European states which looked West for a security guarantor. While the Bush and (especially) Clinton administrations tried to find ways of developing both sets of relationships, zero-sum dynamics took hold and in the end they picked East-Central Europe over Russia. The tragic results of their having been boxed into this either/or choice rattle through to today.
Fine, but why did this happen? Sarotte looks inward mostly and suggests that at crucial points changes in US bureaucratic and electoral politics forced a change to a harder line. I think this underestimates how politically volatile and violent Russia had become in the 1990s. To give an example, Boris Yeltsin is given the benefit of the doubt too many times: the shelling of the Russian Parliament, his imposition of a quasi-dictatorial constitution, and the invasion of Chechnya are written off as missteps rather than expressions of the kind of political thuggery we have come to see as a purely Putinist phenomenon. Likewise, his sharing of nuclear secrets with the US early in his premiership is taken at face value as a sincere gesture of friendship, rather than a bid for international recognition in the context of domestic political turmoil. While he and Clinton had a warm personal relationship most of the time, his capacity to carry the Russian government and people with him towards the goal of being a "normal country" in the context of imperial and economic meltdown, was limited.
Why does this matter? Because if Yeltsin was not a stable counterparty to agreements with the US in the 90s, with a likely nationalist backlash waiting in the wings, then the US's Europe policy looks like quite a good deal rather than a lost opportunity. To say nothing of the situation in Ukraine, compared to 40 years ago "the Europe NATO won" in the 90s is now full of relatively prosperous and consolidated democracies (including a peacefully reunited Germany!). At the same time, Russia's capacity to project conventional forces across the continent is at its weakest in at least a century, perhaps longer. Although Sarotte ends on a pessimistic note, the US strategy of waiting to see how things would shake out in Russia, only to push full steam ahead with NATO and EU expansion once the full nature of its mess became clear, was probably the closest to a winning one that could have been managed in the circumstances.
That this was a mammoth undertaking is readily apparent from the 150 pages of notes at the end of the book. As well as their sheer quantity, the quality of the sources used is also remarkable: Sarotte uses documents from the US, German, British and various Soviet and Russian governments to support her argument, many of which her research team had to lobby to get declassified. This will definitely be a uniquely useful resource for future IR scholars.
The analysis is not at the same standard. The crux of Sarotte's argument is that in the 90s, the USA had to manage two new sets of relationships: with a new Russia which it relied on for nuclear deproliferation, and newly independent East-Central European states which looked West for a security guarantor. While the Bush and (especially) Clinton administrations tried to find ways of developing both sets of relationships, zero-sum dynamics took hold and in the end they picked East-Central Europe over Russia. The tragic results of their having been boxed into this either/or choice rattle through to today.
Fine, but why did this happen? Sarotte looks inward mostly and suggests that at crucial points changes in US bureaucratic and electoral politics forced a change to a harder line. I think this underestimates how politically volatile and violent Russia had become in the 1990s. To give an example, Boris Yeltsin is given the benefit of the doubt too many times: the shelling of the Russian Parliament, his imposition of a quasi-dictatorial constitution, and the invasion of Chechnya are written off as missteps rather than expressions of the kind of political thuggery we have come to see as a purely Putinist phenomenon. Likewise, his sharing of nuclear secrets with the US early in his premiership is taken at face value as a sincere gesture of friendship, rather than a bid for international recognition in the context of domestic political turmoil. While he and Clinton had a warm personal relationship most of the time, his capacity to carry the Russian government and people with him towards the goal of being a "normal country" in the context of imperial and economic meltdown, was limited.
Why does this matter? Because if Yeltsin was not a stable counterparty to agreements with the US in the 90s, with a likely nationalist backlash waiting in the wings, then the US's Europe policy looks like quite a good deal rather than a lost opportunity. To say nothing of the situation in Ukraine, compared to 40 years ago "the Europe NATO won" in the 90s is now full of relatively prosperous and consolidated democracies (including a peacefully reunited Germany!). At the same time, Russia's capacity to project conventional forces across the continent is at its weakest in at least a century, perhaps longer. Although Sarotte ends on a pessimistic note, the US strategy of waiting to see how things would shake out in Russia, only to push full steam ahead with NATO and EU expansion once the full nature of its mess became clear, was probably the closest to a winning one that could have been managed in the circumstances.
January 24, 2022
As someone who is apolitical, I thought the book was fairly good throughout, even despite the author’s political biases being clear (i.e, her unrelated tangents disparaging the George H. W. Bush Administration and defending the Clintons). I was able to look past that. However, her conclusion unabashedly blames the two Republican presidents in the 21st century for the downward spiral in American-Russian relations and not the Democratic presidents. Republicans AND Democrats contributed to deteriorating relations with Russia since 2001 (after all, I lived through it and remember it!). On top of that, she peddles Washington Post and New York Times articles as solid fact-filled sources that, in reality, were political hit-pieces filled with conspiracy theories which have since been debunked. Reading her conclusion chapter with such highly partisan rhetoric made me dismiss almost everything she wrote throughout the book. It’s a shame the author could not tell history as history, nor refrain from inserting her highly political biases into what could have been a great historical account of the ten years following the fall of the Berlin Wall.
April 4, 2022
A very thorough and well-written history of a variety of topics in international relations from 1989-1999 (with the at the very end a small bit on 21st century events). The book is primarily on the history of the expansion of NATO following the end of the Cold War, though a variety of topics relating to this are covered, including the fall of the Berlin Wall, the unification of Germany, the collapse of the Soviet Union, the history of George H.W. Bush’s and Bill Clinton’s policy and interactions with Germany, Eastern Europe, and several of the countries of the former Soviet Union most notably Russia, along with being a good overview of the final days of Mikhail Gorbachev and of the presidency of Boris Yeltsin.
The book excels in that it shows the beginning of trends in international relations and national politics that would become dominant in the 21st century, notably the coarsening of political dialogue (starting with the Monica Lewinsky-Bill Clinton scandal, a saga that got a surprisingly large amount of coverage though it makes sense as the after effects were relevant to Clinton’s stature and success at home and abroad in matters of foreign policy), the rise of U.S. military intervention abroad (with the book touching on the Gulf War, Somalia, Bosnia, and Kosovo), the importance of Osama bin Laden’s terrorist activities, and the growing importance of conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
Looking at the top international story as I write this review – Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – the author provided some great coverage of how and why Ukraine fell into a gray area as far as alliances and security guarantees went and thus was vulnerable to attack by Russia. At times a complicated history and one not quickly answered, but in addition to the understandable reluctance to enfold into a Western alliance a country with such close cultural ties with Russia, Ukraine being left out of any Western security guarantees also had to do with the overall history of NATO expansion, it required an understanding of the rise and fall of the Partnership for Peace and its more graduated and granular approach to security guarantees and military alliances (and how the program’s very success sowed the seeds of its own failure), as well as such seemingly disparate things as Polish, Hungarian, Czech pushes to expand NATO, the power of American voters with ancestry from those countries, Republicans capitalizing on Clinton’s political troubles at home, and even the Russian war in Chechnya. Though the book by no means is primarily about why Ukraine is not in NATO (or the EU) it does provide some answers.
Though the book is not an overall history of 1989 and the 1990s, along the way the author does cover a number of events, some in surprising detail. As I noted, there is quite a bit about the Monica Lewinsky scandal as well as good deal of coverage of Western intervention in Bosnia and Kosovo (very relevant to the central focus book as both touched upon the role of NATO and both domestic and international perceptions of military intervention).
The book had a surprisingly tragic arc, as the decade opened with such tremendous hope as the Berlin Wall came down, the unthinkable unification of East Germany and West Germany happened, freedom swept through Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union peacefully dissolved, for a time remarkably Russia was in serious talks to join NATO, there seemed to be a genuine friendship between Clinton and Yeltsin, and a number of historic arms reduction treaties were achieved. There really was a golden window of opportunity to bring freedom and democracy to all of Eastern Europe and the lands of the former Soviet Union and of the elimination of most if not all of the nuclear weapons of the two super powers as well as a reduction in conventional forces. As the decade closed however, what was left of the friendship of Yeltsin and Clinton had pretty much ended and even if it hadn’t, Yeltsin was leaving office to be replaced by Putin and Clinton was leaving office as well, with Putin’s take over marking the end of Russia’s brief dalliance with democracy to be replaced by the time-honored Russian tradition of personal politics and dictatorships, any chance of Russia entering NATO or of further arms reductions vanished, and overall a return to an East-West divide. Between these two extremes, Sarotte showed the many elements that lead to a golden age of opportunity ending, ranging from the war in Chechnya (and European and American reactions to that war) to American domestic politics to the rise of Putin to Russian reactions to the expansion of NATO…. there was a lot going on, but not once did I ever feel lost or overwhelmed.
Well worth reading, giving a good and balanced account of European, American, and Russian views on NATO expansion. It wasn’t dry at all and had a few wry touches of humor every now and then.
The book excels in that it shows the beginning of trends in international relations and national politics that would become dominant in the 21st century, notably the coarsening of political dialogue (starting with the Monica Lewinsky-Bill Clinton scandal, a saga that got a surprisingly large amount of coverage though it makes sense as the after effects were relevant to Clinton’s stature and success at home and abroad in matters of foreign policy), the rise of U.S. military intervention abroad (with the book touching on the Gulf War, Somalia, Bosnia, and Kosovo), the importance of Osama bin Laden’s terrorist activities, and the growing importance of conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
Looking at the top international story as I write this review – Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – the author provided some great coverage of how and why Ukraine fell into a gray area as far as alliances and security guarantees went and thus was vulnerable to attack by Russia. At times a complicated history and one not quickly answered, but in addition to the understandable reluctance to enfold into a Western alliance a country with such close cultural ties with Russia, Ukraine being left out of any Western security guarantees also had to do with the overall history of NATO expansion, it required an understanding of the rise and fall of the Partnership for Peace and its more graduated and granular approach to security guarantees and military alliances (and how the program’s very success sowed the seeds of its own failure), as well as such seemingly disparate things as Polish, Hungarian, Czech pushes to expand NATO, the power of American voters with ancestry from those countries, Republicans capitalizing on Clinton’s political troubles at home, and even the Russian war in Chechnya. Though the book by no means is primarily about why Ukraine is not in NATO (or the EU) it does provide some answers.
Though the book is not an overall history of 1989 and the 1990s, along the way the author does cover a number of events, some in surprising detail. As I noted, there is quite a bit about the Monica Lewinsky scandal as well as good deal of coverage of Western intervention in Bosnia and Kosovo (very relevant to the central focus book as both touched upon the role of NATO and both domestic and international perceptions of military intervention).
The book had a surprisingly tragic arc, as the decade opened with such tremendous hope as the Berlin Wall came down, the unthinkable unification of East Germany and West Germany happened, freedom swept through Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union peacefully dissolved, for a time remarkably Russia was in serious talks to join NATO, there seemed to be a genuine friendship between Clinton and Yeltsin, and a number of historic arms reduction treaties were achieved. There really was a golden window of opportunity to bring freedom and democracy to all of Eastern Europe and the lands of the former Soviet Union and of the elimination of most if not all of the nuclear weapons of the two super powers as well as a reduction in conventional forces. As the decade closed however, what was left of the friendship of Yeltsin and Clinton had pretty much ended and even if it hadn’t, Yeltsin was leaving office to be replaced by Putin and Clinton was leaving office as well, with Putin’s take over marking the end of Russia’s brief dalliance with democracy to be replaced by the time-honored Russian tradition of personal politics and dictatorships, any chance of Russia entering NATO or of further arms reductions vanished, and overall a return to an East-West divide. Between these two extremes, Sarotte showed the many elements that lead to a golden age of opportunity ending, ranging from the war in Chechnya (and European and American reactions to that war) to American domestic politics to the rise of Putin to Russian reactions to the expansion of NATO…. there was a lot going on, but not once did I ever feel lost or overwhelmed.
Well worth reading, giving a good and balanced account of European, American, and Russian views on NATO expansion. It wasn’t dry at all and had a few wry touches of humor every now and then.
January 8, 2022
This was an extremely educational book on the post-Cold War expansion of NATO, the collapse of the Soviet Union and thus, the Warsaw Pact. Not One Inch provided insight into the strategies and goals of the US (and various administrations), the Soviet Union and later Russia, West and East Germany after the fall of the Berlin Wall and German unification; the former Warsaw Pact countries, former Soviet Republics. It provided a picture of the peace and cooperation that existed from 1989 until 1999 in the US-Russia relationship - the effort to develop democracies in Russia and former Warsaw Pact countries, efforts to reduce nuclear weapons Russia and the US, and create cooperation and security throughout Europe. It also points out where things went wrong and the results of an excluded Russia - cyberattacks, failing fledgling democracies in former Warsaw Pact countries, specifically Hungary and Poland, and interference in US elections, fomenting conflict with Belarus and Ukraine.
I want to read this book again. Highly enlightening and a great book to start off the new year. Here is hop
I want to read this book again. Highly enlightening and a great book to start off the new year. Here is hop
May 3, 2022
The book that clearly and succinctly shows that the Cold War never really ended with the breakup of the Soviet Union. The confrontation was frozen with an armistice while feeble attempts by a feeble man (Yeltsin) to align Russia with West were taken advantage of by the succession of US presidents (Bush senior, Clinton) and the US political establishment in order to expand the NATO alliance and redraw the Cold War dividing line further to the east and to their advantage. It is really sad to read this as we witness the destruction of Ukraine today in May 2022, knowing that this outcome could have been avoided had it not been hubris and triumphalism in the West. Maybe the US leaders should have heeded Churchill’s advice on being magnanimous in victory. Maybe this would have resulted in a less spiteful and revengeful Russia and maybe Putin would never have come to power. Of course we can only wonder and speculate, knowing too well how problematic such counterfactuals always are.
In any case this book is highly recommended to anyone who wants to try understanding better how we arrived to the fateful day of the 24th of February 2022 when Russian troops and tanks crossed into Ukraine
In any case this book is highly recommended to anyone who wants to try understanding better how we arrived to the fateful day of the 24th of February 2022 when Russian troops and tanks crossed into Ukraine
January 15, 2023
Highly recommend. To make sense of the Russian-Ukrainian hostilities and headlines of 2022-23, one needs to trace the history of the relationship of Eastern Europe with the post WWII Soviet Union; and with: NATO, the EU, the Warsaw Pact, the Fall of the Berlin Wall, and the rise of the Russian Federation under Putin.
M.E. Sarotte is a fantastic writer, a brilliant historian, and she explains clearly all the events, and the analysis required, for a student of history to make sense of the question -- "Why the Ukraine, and why now?"
Filled with footnotes, endnotes, a bibliography, and Geopolitical Maps showing fluid borders and shifting alliances, this book is exceptional. 5 Stars.
M.E. Sarotte is a fantastic writer, a brilliant historian, and she explains clearly all the events, and the analysis required, for a student of history to make sense of the question -- "Why the Ukraine, and why now?"
Filled with footnotes, endnotes, a bibliography, and Geopolitical Maps showing fluid borders and shifting alliances, this book is exceptional. 5 Stars.
June 6, 2022
An interesting, well written book about one of the most future shaping events of the post Cold-War era - NATO expansion. The US perspective is noticeable. However the story is very well documented and detailed.
The hints at the importance of Ukraine for the European stability gain new significance under the current circumstances and understanding the background and evolution of the US-Russia relations in the last two decades puts everything into a clearer perspective.
The hints at the importance of Ukraine for the European stability gain new significance under the current circumstances and understanding the background and evolution of the US-Russia relations in the last two decades puts everything into a clearer perspective.
January 24, 2023
Probably the best documented book on recent history of the Eastern Europe. A must for anyone who wants to understand the current situation in Ukraine and what is at stake.
August 10, 2023
Phenomenonal amount of research covering an extremely important and equally contentious topic. Whose fault is it? Could different beginnings lead to different ends? Or is the current war an inevitable long overdue confrontation? A seminal, highly underrated must read.
March 3, 2022
The light that was an oncoming train
The current war in Ukraine might have its roots in the post-Cold War expansion of Nato, creating what could look like a tightening vice grip to an increasingly autocratic Russia, continuing on a desperate path to restore its former empire.
Bad enough that admitting Poland created the first contiguous Nato border with Russia, then admitting the Baltic States plunging Nato military hardware on land once annexed by the former USSR. An independent and westward looking Ukraine would appear as an even deeper thrust into what had once been part of the Russian Empire. (Imagine Mexico suddenly reclaiming Texas.)
It does seem to have unfolded that the U.S. push for Nato enlargement created an unbalance of strength leading one side into a false sense of security, while the other falls into fear, mistrust and ultimately paranoia, especially when seen through the beady eyes of a true sociopath.
As the great philosopher Pogo said, "We has met the enemy, and he is us."
The current war in Ukraine might have its roots in the post-Cold War expansion of Nato, creating what could look like a tightening vice grip to an increasingly autocratic Russia, continuing on a desperate path to restore its former empire.
Bad enough that admitting Poland created the first contiguous Nato border with Russia, then admitting the Baltic States plunging Nato military hardware on land once annexed by the former USSR. An independent and westward looking Ukraine would appear as an even deeper thrust into what had once been part of the Russian Empire. (Imagine Mexico suddenly reclaiming Texas.)
It does seem to have unfolded that the U.S. push for Nato enlargement created an unbalance of strength leading one side into a false sense of security, while the other falls into fear, mistrust and ultimately paranoia, especially when seen through the beady eyes of a true sociopath.
As the great philosopher Pogo said, "We has met the enemy, and he is us."
February 25, 2022
Well written but sometimes a bit 'heavy': too much minutiae on trivial matters (like dialogs between leaders).
The irony of situation is that I've just finished it now, sitting in a bomb shelter near Kyiv.
After Putin's speech on Ukraine, its absolutely clear, that in XXI century despotic countries feel threat not only from military infrastructure, but pretty much threat by cultural-ideological influence of neighbouring countries.
The irony of situation is that I've just finished it now, sitting in a bomb shelter near Kyiv.
After Putin's speech on Ukraine, its absolutely clear, that in XXI century despotic countries feel threat not only from military infrastructure, but pretty much threat by cultural-ideological influence of neighbouring countries.
February 23, 2022
Brilliant. Must read to understand the deterioration of post-Soviet Russia/US relations.
February 10, 2022
In the meticulously researched history, Not One Inch, M.E. Sarotte details the backstory of U.S.–Russian relations in the critical years between the fall of the Berlin Wall and Putin’s rise to power. Sarotte describes the clashes over German unification, NATO enlargement, Ukraine, arms control, and the post-Cold War security order that underscore several points of contention between the U.S. and Russia.
While the United States successfully safeguarded its strategic interest - keeping NATO viable – Russia, weakened after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, felt compelled to accede to the undesired political changes. The new political realities fermented resentments that escalated in 2008 with Russia’s conflict with Georgia and Ukraine in 2014.
In addition to a valuable historical reference, Not One Inch stands as a primer for how nations identify and pursue national interests. To answer, “How can an understanding of these events guide efforts to create a better future?” Sarotte offers three principles:
1. The necessity of renewed competition from Moscow provides a unifying mission that can help bridge fractures within the United States.
2. Washington should address Russian challenges by aggressively and unashamedly prioritizing transatlantic cooperation. One issue requiring transatlantic focus is Ukraine, a country crucial to European stability.
3. Understanding history can help us, if not to predict, then certainly prepare for the future.
Sarotte reminds us that both the United States and Russia undermined the opportunity for a lasting and enduring partnership.
While the United States successfully safeguarded its strategic interest - keeping NATO viable – Russia, weakened after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, felt compelled to accede to the undesired political changes. The new political realities fermented resentments that escalated in 2008 with Russia’s conflict with Georgia and Ukraine in 2014.
In addition to a valuable historical reference, Not One Inch stands as a primer for how nations identify and pursue national interests. To answer, “How can an understanding of these events guide efforts to create a better future?” Sarotte offers three principles:
1. The necessity of renewed competition from Moscow provides a unifying mission that can help bridge fractures within the United States.
2. Washington should address Russian challenges by aggressively and unashamedly prioritizing transatlantic cooperation. One issue requiring transatlantic focus is Ukraine, a country crucial to European stability.
3. Understanding history can help us, if not to predict, then certainly prepare for the future.
Sarotte reminds us that both the United States and Russia undermined the opportunity for a lasting and enduring partnership.
May 19, 2022
The conclusion of this book (the last chapter, which might be a good place to start if you're pressed for time) summarizes the content and attempts to draw some lessons, although "we could have done better" isn't necessarily helpful for policymakers. The book as a whole is a detailed account of US -- Soviet/Russian wrestling over NATO expansion. The detail of who said what to whom is at times too much, but it is a fascinating glimpse into the relationships among the various world leaders, including, toward the end of the book, the rise of Putin. The book is highly relevant as we ponder the shifting now taking place in Europe as a result of Russian aggression in Ukraine, which has spurred Finland and Sweden as of this writing to apply for NATO membership.
May 23, 2022
Very dry, very informative explanation of every single thing that happened in the 90s to expand NATO, but can't help but notice her taking every opportunity to excuse Russian actions that influenced the expansion of NATO. It's as if she simultaneously thinks the Russians are completely reasonable, and too stupid to be taken seriously.
February 6, 2023
Mary Sarotte's Not One Inch is a brisk insider-baseball account of the fateful decision to expand NATO in the 1990s - reunified Germany, Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic - and its negative effects on US-Russia relations, told from the point of view of US and European policymakers. The former happened because Russia - weak, unstable, and reliant on Western aid in the 90s - simply wasn't in the position to resist, with the whirlwind for this policy being reaped in the battlefields of Ukraine as I type this. The Russians felt cheated by NATO enlargement, having received an indicator from then US Secretary of State James Baker in 1990 that in exchange for a reunified Germany joining NATO (itself a huge concession by the Soviets), NATO would "not shift one inch eastward from its present position" (hence the book's title). Of course, the opposite proved to be the case: every inch east of Germany and west of Russia became open to NATO membership, including Ukraine.
Having mined the relevant documents in Western archives, Sarotte reveals that there wasn't much debate in the Bush 41 and Clinton administrations over the wisdom of expanding NATO. The benefits seemed obvious: it would preserve NATO's role (and by extension America's) in post-Cold War Europe and help embed liberalism in the newly emerging democracies of Eastern Europe while tacitly rewarding them for their role in tearing down the Iron Curtain (living legends Lech Walsea and Vaclav Havel pushed hard for NATO membership). Third, although this went mostly unsaid in the private deliberations, expansion would serve as an insurance policy in the event of a revanchist Russia that sought to project its power; the West would be better served by containing the Russian bear as close to its own borders as possible.
Underlaying all of this, however, was the simple power imbalance between the US and Russia. America in the 1990s was the rich superpower confidently striding the globe, convinced of the universality of its socio-political model and the permanence of its power; Russia, on the other hand, was stripped of its empire, lurched from crisis to crisis, and relied on Western aid to pay its bills and feed its people. It was a decade of humiliation. "The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must," Thucydides famously wrote. So it was in the 1990s relationship between the US and Russia. The US saw a chance to win big on the European chessboard and took it, no matter the effect on Russia's pride and place in the world.
Sarotte is a supporter of NATO expansion, but argues that it was executed poorly. She attempts to square the circle here by arguing that NATO should have used its Partnership for Peace program as a halfway house for potential members who would have gradually gained admission, against the reality of a select number of countries quickly becoming members as in 1999. I don't really find this convincing: it's the essence of NATO membership - the extension of the Article 5 guarantee (an attack on one is an attack on all) and the stationing of military forces in Eastern Europe - that concerns Russia rather than a staggered timing of entry for future members. I doubt it would have been of great consolation to Russia if Poland joined NATO in 2009 instead of 1999.
She also make some strange stylistic choices in the book, occasionally shifting gears to sidebar conversations of Clinton's myriad domestic scandals. There's no evidence they affected the course of US-Russia relations or the debate over NATO, so I'm not sure why Linda Tripp rates 33 mentions in a book about foreign policy.
The bottom line is that a military alliance led by the world's most powerful country steadily moving towards another country's borders is going to cause consternation in that country. No one seriously thinks the US would placidly accept Mexico or Canada joining a Chinese-led military pact, so why should Russia accept NATO expansion? There's no real attempt in the book to examine NATO enlargement from the Russian point of view. NATO's permanence is also taken for granted, notwithstanding its loss of a rationale after the collapse of the Soviet empire. And because the book's narrative ends in 1999, it doesn't encompass the future expansion waves and, most fatefully, the open-ended membership offer to Ukraine made in 2008. Still, I think there's enough information in this book vis-à-vis US motives for expanding NATO that it earns a tepid endorsement from me. Important history.
Having mined the relevant documents in Western archives, Sarotte reveals that there wasn't much debate in the Bush 41 and Clinton administrations over the wisdom of expanding NATO. The benefits seemed obvious: it would preserve NATO's role (and by extension America's) in post-Cold War Europe and help embed liberalism in the newly emerging democracies of Eastern Europe while tacitly rewarding them for their role in tearing down the Iron Curtain (living legends Lech Walsea and Vaclav Havel pushed hard for NATO membership). Third, although this went mostly unsaid in the private deliberations, expansion would serve as an insurance policy in the event of a revanchist Russia that sought to project its power; the West would be better served by containing the Russian bear as close to its own borders as possible.
Underlaying all of this, however, was the simple power imbalance between the US and Russia. America in the 1990s was the rich superpower confidently striding the globe, convinced of the universality of its socio-political model and the permanence of its power; Russia, on the other hand, was stripped of its empire, lurched from crisis to crisis, and relied on Western aid to pay its bills and feed its people. It was a decade of humiliation. "The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must," Thucydides famously wrote. So it was in the 1990s relationship between the US and Russia. The US saw a chance to win big on the European chessboard and took it, no matter the effect on Russia's pride and place in the world.
Sarotte is a supporter of NATO expansion, but argues that it was executed poorly. She attempts to square the circle here by arguing that NATO should have used its Partnership for Peace program as a halfway house for potential members who would have gradually gained admission, against the reality of a select number of countries quickly becoming members as in 1999. I don't really find this convincing: it's the essence of NATO membership - the extension of the Article 5 guarantee (an attack on one is an attack on all) and the stationing of military forces in Eastern Europe - that concerns Russia rather than a staggered timing of entry for future members. I doubt it would have been of great consolation to Russia if Poland joined NATO in 2009 instead of 1999.
She also make some strange stylistic choices in the book, occasionally shifting gears to sidebar conversations of Clinton's myriad domestic scandals. There's no evidence they affected the course of US-Russia relations or the debate over NATO, so I'm not sure why Linda Tripp rates 33 mentions in a book about foreign policy.
The bottom line is that a military alliance led by the world's most powerful country steadily moving towards another country's borders is going to cause consternation in that country. No one seriously thinks the US would placidly accept Mexico or Canada joining a Chinese-led military pact, so why should Russia accept NATO expansion? There's no real attempt in the book to examine NATO enlargement from the Russian point of view. NATO's permanence is also taken for granted, notwithstanding its loss of a rationale after the collapse of the Soviet empire. And because the book's narrative ends in 1999, it doesn't encompass the future expansion waves and, most fatefully, the open-ended membership offer to Ukraine made in 2008. Still, I think there's enough information in this book vis-à-vis US motives for expanding NATO that it earns a tepid endorsement from me. Important history.
July 12, 2022
Not One Inch: America, Russia, and the Making of Post-Cold War Stalemate by ME Sarotte is a very interesting historical narrative of the late 1980s to the year 2000. Meticulously put together with a great deal of primary research efforts, Sarotte is able illuminate a period that I was familiar with only in passing. The potrayal provided is a bit uneven. The facilitation of misunderstandings, Kohl's "weather making" approach to create opportunities for Germany, the desire to maximize gains, the drowning Gorbachev, and the sickly sink into paranoia of Yeltsin from some rather dramatic heights. NATO does not come off particularly well in the narrative, but in so far as Sarotte captures our past correctly, it can illuminate how we should conduct ourselves in the future. Gorbachev and Yeltsin come across as worse, with Putin treated as an obstacle from the first, and an overly dramatic break in continuity. Very clearly, the narrative is shaped in a way to frame train wreck. We see all the cars in motion, with every potential roadblock and obstacle being highlighted far in advance so that the reader may begin to lament or shout, hoping that different actions are taken.
Which is the point of the book. ME Sarotte is quite convinced that we had an opportunity, and that opportunity was missed. We need to await a new chance and behave differently to make a more stable world.
Good, but I have some doubts. Some of the narrative doesn't quite jive with other things I have read, and it seems a bit too perfectly set up. Good, but I wonder if I'm being led too forcefully to water.
Which is the point of the book. ME Sarotte is quite convinced that we had an opportunity, and that opportunity was missed. We need to await a new chance and behave differently to make a more stable world.
Good, but I have some doubts. Some of the narrative doesn't quite jive with other things I have read, and it seems a bit too perfectly set up. Good, but I wonder if I'm being led too forcefully to water.
June 15, 2022
"Not One Inch" is a comprehensive history of the big transformations European geopolitics underwent in the 1990's - from the fall of the Berlin Wall to the ascension of Vladimir Putin.
M.E. Sarotte is a professor of History, specializing in Cold-War History, at Johns Hopkins University. She portrays the 1990's as a "lost decade", where a lasting cooperation between the U.S and Russia was within grasp, but ultimately slipped away, both by accident and stubborness on both sides.
It is a thorougly researched - the note section alone are 150 pages long - and is packed with facts, figures and quotes. Released two weeks before Russias invasion of Ukraine, it's both chilling and sad to read about how close we came to a significantly different, more peaceful, Europe than what we have today. If you want to understand what lead us to the current situation, you won't find a better explanation anywhere else.
M.E. Sarotte is a professor of History, specializing in Cold-War History, at Johns Hopkins University. She portrays the 1990's as a "lost decade", where a lasting cooperation between the U.S and Russia was within grasp, but ultimately slipped away, both by accident and stubborness on both sides.
It is a thorougly researched - the note section alone are 150 pages long - and is packed with facts, figures and quotes. Released two weeks before Russias invasion of Ukraine, it's both chilling and sad to read about how close we came to a significantly different, more peaceful, Europe than what we have today. If you want to understand what lead us to the current situation, you won't find a better explanation anywhere else.
November 22, 2022
Mary Elise Sarotte, Soğuk Savaş sonrası tarihçisi, ağırlıklı çalışmaları Avrupa ve Berlin Duvarının yıkılması üzerine.
Bu kitap günümüz Rusya-ABD ilişkilerini, Ukrayna sorununu anlamak için oldukça önemli bir eser.
Kitap Berlin Duvarının yıkılması sürecinden Nato'nun eski doğu bloğu ülkelerini alarak genişlemesine giden süreci anlatıyor. Tavsiye ederim.
Bu kitap günümüz Rusya-ABD ilişkilerini, Ukrayna sorununu anlamak için oldukça önemli bir eser.
Kitap Berlin Duvarının yıkılması sürecinden Nato'nun eski doğu bloğu ülkelerini alarak genişlemesine giden süreci anlatıyor. Tavsiye ederim.
February 26, 2023
This book is absolutely fantastic. A must-read for anyone focusing on NATO. I commend Dr. Sarotte for putting together such a detailed account of that decade and unearthing documents that are highly valuable to the entire community. A fascinating read.
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