From Out of The Memory Hole: NATO’s Eastward Crawl One Inch at a Time

The Memory Hole Regurgitates Unpalatable Truths About NATO’s Eastward Crawl

A revelatory video detailing the West’s broken promise not to expand NATO eastward has emerged from the memory hole, that repository of inconvenient facts. The truth has an obstinate way of persisting, despite the tireless efforts of war’s scribes and mythmakers to erase it.

Play this for Biden, Stoltenberg, Scholz and the other political clergy who ritually intone that no deal was ever struck. The historical record belies their gospel. To secure Soviet approval for a unified Germany, the West plainly pledged not to encroach one inch further upon their sphere of influence.

The Russians were assured of no inch of Eastward growth. Yet, sceptics now argue that the phrase “not one inch” was not a solemn pledge but rather a rhetorical device deployed during negotiations.

In February 1990, James Baker, the U.S. Secretary of State, confronted Mikhail Gorbachev, the President of the U.S.S.R., with a choice: “Would you prefer to see a unified Germany outside of NATO, independent and devoid of U.S. forces, or a unified Germany tied to NATO, with assurances that NATO’s jurisdiction would not shift one inch eastward from its current position?”

Though negotiations progressed, this assurance was never formalised in any agreement or treaty It was recorded as a given there was literally a consensus and in contract law a statement of intention.

The custodians of the present aim to make certain pasts disappear, airbrushing away whatever disruptive truths undermine the needs of today. But the memory hole is a capricious creature, sometimes regurgitating what it was fed. The West’s perfidy stands exposed by its own words.

“We agreed NATO’s defensive lines should not shift eastward,” German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher affirmed to his American counterpart, James Baker, in 1990. Eduard Shevardnadze echoed Genscher’s recollection. Even America’s own redacted transcripts confirm Baker’s assurances to Gorbachev at their 1989 Malta Summit, that NATO would not trespass beyond the borders of a newly assimilated Germany.

The genesis of the Ukrainian-Russian conflict was years in the making. Ukraine, with its 52 million inhabitants, was the second most populous Soviet republic, comparable to major European states. Its longstanding ties as an East Slavic, Orthodox state meant Ukraine’s history was deeply intertwined with Russia’s. Millions of ethnic Russians resided among Ukrainians in a seemingly united people.

Ukraine’s pivotal 1991 referendum on independence set in motion an agonizing rupture, both economic and political, between Slavic brethren. It also propelled Ukraine into the ranks of nuclear powers, eclipsing even Britain and France. The stakes were seismic as Moscow grappled with losing what Russians considered an integral part of their body politic.

Gorbachev fiercely resisted American overtures to Kiev, leveraging their common ancestry to dissuade Ukraine from leaving. He argued its very borders were an unstable Bolshevik invention, warning that heavily pro-Russian regions would fight independence.

But Ukraine’s NATO aspirations persisted, carrying profound import as a delineator of Europe’s eastward extent. When Bush advisor Baker raised concerns over Ukraine’s nuclear weapons falling into unstable hands, Gorbachev’s aide Yakovlev dismissed the risks outright. Yet Baker intuited the potential for open conflict between Russia and a newly independent Ukraine. With chilling prescience, he concluded: “a normal war.”

The Normal War

In light of the evidence you have to ask, was NATO’s expansion always part of a grand design? An Invisible Empire of America steadily fills the map. The questions loom large: Why did the United States opt to enlarge NATO after the Cold War? How did this decision interact with Russia’s choices? Did this interaction result in the fateful deterioration of relations between the two nations? Were there viable alternatives to the path chosen, and what was the cost of expansion as it unfolded?

Three decades on, Russia finds itself embroiled in a bitter conflict in Ukraine, while NATO, unrestrained in its ambitions, inches closer to Russia’s doorstep. This insatiable expansionism has not only accelerated the ticking of the nuclear clock but also plunged the world economy into a tailspin.

Amidst this chaos, vampire oligarchs gorge themselves on the lifeblood of hundreds of thousands engaged in a proxy war in Ukraine, turning the land into an altar of human sacrifice. The Gods of war, it seems, must be appeased before the Gods of greed can enter, under the flag of BlackRock, to feast on the spoils of a shattered nation.

Waiting in the wings The European Union, with its promise of Free movement, beckons those who thrive on the remnants of conflict, while the survivors are sent to toil as cheap labour in the Western world. The dream of freedom dissipates, leaving only subjugation in its wake.

And so brother Slav is pitted against brother Slav, their bonds sacrificed upon the altar of expansionism. The zealous missionaries of Western liberalism wedged themselves between two kindred peoples, indifferent to the damage. Manufactured divides spiralled into the unholy war we see today.

All that is left is the light of truth, our last and only defence against the endless shadowy machinations of greed. By its light, we see the insatiable vampires of war, greed and power for what they are and the one question that remains comes when we ask…will the harsh illumination of facts deter their endless thirst for wealth created in our blood? Or will they consume our sons and daughters too in their never-ending quest for power, wealth and fresh veins to tap?

Paul Knaggs