Nigel Farage, a British broadcaster and Former Member of the European Parliament, stated that Putin’s invasion of Ukraine was horrendous, but it was also entirely predictable. Farage warned in 2014 that E.U. and NATO expansion would lead to war.
Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is totally abhorrent, but it was also entirely predictable.
I warned in 2014 that EU and NATO expansion would lead to war. pic.twitter.com/AxZKsHZwYY
— Nigel Farage (@Nigel_Farage) February 24, 2023
Farage’s statement indirectly targets the events of the collapse of the USSR, and the end of the Cold War presented a meaningful opportunity to secure world peace in the early 1990s.
Gorbachev and Reagan agreed to ensure a lasting peace. Gorbachev assured Reagan that the WARSAW PACT would disband and decided to reunite East Germany and West Germany. Reagan promised that NATO would not expand and threaten the border security of Russia.
According to Farage, Gorbachev kept his promise, but Reagan (and subsequent U.S. Presidents) did not. In 1996, President Clinton called for former Warsaw Pact countries and post-Soviet republics to join NATO—to the dismay and alarm of Russia. Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev officially conveyed its opposition to NATO expansion.
The United States, Germany and others promised the Soviet Union leadership that with the unification of Germany that there would be no NATO expansion to the east.
But, President Clinton began to expand the U.S. military Alliance into Central and Eastern Europe. Afterwards, President Bush came into office and extended the alliance into the Baltic states. Bush also unilaterally withdrew from the anti-ballistic missile treaty in 2002, to Russia’s great dismay.
NATO bombed a Russian Ally in Europe in 1999, bombing Serbia and showing that NATO was going to deploy its power without consultation with Russia and potentially as a direct threat to Russia.
In the past years, Putin demanded that NATO not expand into Ukraine. However, the United States ignored those demands & said that Ukraine has the choice to join NATO, which means the U.S. has the right to expand into Ukraine.
It means a U.S. military Alliance could expand against Russia’s border. These are antecedent causes that contributed to the current disaster. Nigel Farage outlined that ongoing war is disgusting but predictable; the main reason for this conflict is NATO’s expansion.
