THE IMPACT OF NATO’S EASTWARD ENLARGEMENT ON THE DETERIORATION OF THE WEST-RUSSIA RELATIONSHIP

Abstract

2019 can be considered a symbolic year for the North Atlantic Treaty Organi- zation. On the one hand, the longest-lasting military-political block of modern times celebrated its seventieth anniversary; on the other hand, this circular date coincided with the thirtieth anniversary of the fall of the Iron Curtain. Indeed, the North Atlantic Alliance had something to be proud of: it managed not only to survive its geopolitical visage of the Cold War era – the Soviet Union – but also to accept new countries that were either part of the USSR or were in its sphere of influence. But it would be inappropriate to claim that the post-Cold War period has been an “easy walk” for NATO. Of course, there was an expan- sion of “Pax Atlantica” due to the entry of countries that were on the other side of the “Iron Curtain”. It is noteworthy, however, that precisely this step is often seen as one of the reasons for the gradual deterioration of relations between the West and the Russian Federation. Assessing the impact of the post-bipolar ex- pansion of the North Atlantic Alliance on the deterioration of relations between the West and the Russian Federation largely depends on the specific framework applied. On the one hand, political idealists see the NATO enlargement as the realization of each states’ natural right to choose its own foreign policy: in the end, the states of the former “socialist camp” themselves opted for Euro-At- lantic integration. On the other hand, supporters of political realism, for whom the balance of power and spheres of influence remain the main determinants of international relations, consider the enlargement of NATO to be a tool for asserting the U.S. global dominance after the collapse of the USSR. Some rea- lists argue that the post-bipolar enlargement of NATO, allegedly initiated and promoted by the United States, was perceived in the Russian Federation as an encroachment on its “legitimate” sphere of interests, hence contributing to the Kremlin’s turn to aggressive revisionism. However, the assertion that the United States should “recognize reality” and return to a policy of balance of power is overly focused on the geopolitical games of the so-called “great po- wers,” where other states, including Ukraine, are only objects whose interests are irrelevant. In any case, the question of NATO enlargement is not a defining issue, but merely a symptom of the underlying problems of the post-bipolar – or rather transitional – world order, whose transformation is a matter of time.