We Always Knew the Dangers of NATO Expansion

https://original.antiwar.com/ted_snider/2022/08/15/we-always-knew-the-dangers-of-nato-expansion/ 

 

In 2008, William Burns, who is now Biden’s director of the CIA but was then ambassador to Russia, warned that "Ukrainian entry into NATO is the brightest of all redlines for the Russian elite (not just Putin)." He warned Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that "I have yet to find anyone who views Ukraine in NATO as anything other than a direct challenge to Russian interests." Short even of expansion into Ukraine, Burns called NATO expansion into Eastern Europe "premature at best, and needlessly provocative at worst." If it came to Ukraine, Burns warned, "There could be no doubt that Putin would fight back hard.

 1. William Burns
2. secretary of defense, Bill Perry
3. Jack Matlock, a former US ambassador to Russia,
4. George Kennan,  former US ambassador to Russia and the architect of the US policy of containment
5. former US ambassador to Poland Richard T. Davies
6. Assistant Secretary of State Thomas Niles
7  Colin Powell, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
8. State Department’s director of policy planning, James Steinberg,
9. US ambassador to Moscow Robert Strauss
10.Robert Gates
11.Richard Holbrooke,
12.UN Secretary General Javier Solana,