As the Biden administration attempts to avert war in Europe by backing Ukraine’s sovereignty and NATO’s primacy against Russia’s threatened invasion, history is once again casting a long shadow.
In this episode of History As It Happens, former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Bill Taylor and the Quincy Institute’s Anatol Lieven debate whether the Russian national security establishment, and not merely President Vladimir Putin, has legitimate concerns about NATO’s post-Cold War expansion, which Mr. Putin repeatedly condemns as threatening to Russia’s borders.
“I think he wants Ukraine,” said Mr. Taylor, who served as the U.S. ambassador in Kyiv from 2006-09 and then as interim charges d’affaires during the Trump administration.
“I think he wants more than Donbas. I think he wants more than Crimea … and his obsession with Ukraine is there for all to see,” said Mr. Taylor, referring to Mr. Putin’s past statements deriding Ukrainian independence.
Mr. Lieven has argued Russia may have legitimate qualms with the West, based on past agreements and statements promising that U.S. and NATO forces would not encroach on Russian territory. For instance, then-Secretary of State Howard Baker in 1990 told Soviet leaders that NATO would not expand “one inch” toward the USSR after a unified Germany was incorporated into the alliance.
“In the end, to admit legitimate Russian security concerns in its neighborhood would contradict what has been the standard operating procedure of American administrations since the mid-1990s … which is that America has universal, global primacy,” Mr. Lieven said.
For the full debate between Mr. Taylor and Mr. Lieven, listen to this episode of History As It Happens.
