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1990 Security commitments to the Soviet Union on Germany's reunification and NATO's eastward expansion

The 1990 Commitments to Russia on NATO's eastward expansion  were a series of diplomatic exchanges and a treaty in the lead-up to German reunification. The USSR and NATO member countries engaged in conversations on whether the USSR would allow East Germany to reunite with West Germany, ending the Soviet control of the former. With West Germany already a member of NATO, the USSR was concerned that a Soviet withdrawal would lead to a NATO expansion, which the USSR viewed as contrary to its security.

The negotiations famously included a conversation between U.S. Secretary of State James Baker and Gorbachev in which Baker proposed that NATO would not expand "one inch to the east". The negotiations concluded with the Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany of September 12, 1990, which included a guarantee that in the until then Eastern Germany would only have German troops, and there would be no nuclear weapons.

When later in the 1990's NATO began the process of admitting countries formerly members of defunct Warsaw Pact, two different interpretations surfaced as to whether the guarantee of NATO not expanding to the east was limited to East Germany or more broadly the Eastern Bloc.

Two schools of thought have emerged in interpreting the scope of the assurances made by the West to the USSR. The view that NATO and its members only made a narrow commitments stem from a focus on what was included and not included in written agreements, and that any references to "eastern expansion" made in the lead-up to the written agreements, were made specifically about East Germany. The view that NATO and its members were making a broader commitment to not expand to the countries of the eastern bloc stems from a series of diplomatic conversations held _________, and from interpreting "eastern expansion" not at a German level but at a pan-european level, both pointing to a "spirit" of a broader set of assurances.

Proponents of the narrow interpretation point to the fact that no written agreement explicitly stipulated NATO's inability to allow new members.

New York Times reporter Michael R. Gordon in reviewing contemporaneous sources from both sides, suggested that the misunderstanding [there were different interpretations] stemmed from whether the NATO assurances of limited military expansion to East Germany was limited to Germany itself, or whether it implied a guarantee of not expanding to any other eastern contries, former membersof the Warsaw pact.

Whether NATO's explicit assurances of limited expansion to East Germany also carried an implied assurance of not expanding Eastward to other countries.

That while the concrete negotiations were [surrouindng] the quetions of German unification, that those negoatiations were speaking to a larger priciple of respecting the USSR (and Russia as its successor state) concerns of security.

When one reads the full text of the Woerner speech cited by Putin, it is clear that the secretary general’s comments referred to NATO forces in eastern Germany, not a broader commitment not to enlarge the Alliance.

The NATO countries have tended to point to written sources and written agreements as the basis for the narrrow scope of the non-expansion commitments made. On the other hand, Russian officials have made claims of broader commitments made in non-written commitments, as well as interpreting more broadly the "spirit" of the written commitments.

Division of Germany and the fate of the Soviet Bloc 1945-1990


Upon Germany being defeated at the end of World War II in 1945, the winning powers occupied the country in four zones, controlled by France in the Southwest, the United Kingdom in the Northwest, the United States in the South, and the Soviet Union in the East. In 1949 the zones occupied by France, U.K, and the U.S. were brought together to constitute the Federal Republic of Germany also commonly known as West Germany. In turn, the soviet-occupied Germany was constituted as a separate state of the German Democratic Republic also commonly known as East Germany, and firmly within the control of the Soviet sphere.

East Germany became part of the Eastern Bloc, a group of communist states tightly aligned with the USSR. When NATO was established in Western Europe and North America as for the collective security against the perceived Soviet threat in Eastern Europe, the Eastern Bloc reacted by establishign its own treaty of mutual defense, the Warsaw Pact.

The East-West division persisted for over four decades until the weakening of the Soviet Union in the late 1980's, leading to fall of many communist governments between 1988 and 1991, the termination of the Warsaw Pact on 25 February 1991, and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 26 December 1991.

Geopolitical outlook in early 1990
In the few months preceding the 1990 on German unification, the East European Communist regimes had collapsed in rapid succession. Interim non-Communist governments had come to power in Eastern Europe until elections could be held later in 1990.

The progressive collapse of the Soviet regimes and bloc was quick and unforeseen. Even as as it was happening, it was unknown to what extent it would continue to unfold. For example, in 1990, especially early in the year, it was still assumed that the Warsaw Pact would survive, and even thrive, for years to come. Therefore, the prospect of any Warsaw Pact country joining NATO was not yet under consideration. To the contrary, senior officials in Moscow were only slowly beginning to grasp the magnitude of what had occurred in Eastern Europe, with Gorbachev and and his advisers even hoping that they could direct the events int a beneficial direction for them. Gorbachev was still fully confident that the USSR would continue to "work with its allies."

In this context, the negotiations on German unification unfolded.

German Reunification
As part of the political changes within the Eastern Bloc, the East German government began to falter in May 1989, and the Berlin Wall fell in November 9, 1989. On November 28, 1989 West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl announced a 10-point program calling for the two Germanies to expand their cooperation with a view toward eventual reunification. On March 18, 1990, a national election was held in the GDR, leading to an alliance of parties that favored German reunification winning plurality.

This lead to the negotiations of the reunification of Germany. With West Germany already part of NATO, the negotiations of unification also included the issue of whether NATO would expand to East Germany with the unification of the country. Gorbachev agreed in the Summer of 1990 on ordinary NATO membership for the whole of a reunified Germany, with the agreed exceptions that the former East German territory would not have foreign NATO troops or nuclear weapons.

This agreement was codified within the Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany signed by the "two plus four" parties involved in the negotiations; the two Germanies, and the four powers which had occupied Germany at the end of World War II in Europe. The treaty was signed on September 12, 1990. Concurrently a treaty of unification between the two Germanies had been negotiated also in 1990, signed by two governments 31 August 31, 1990, ratified by their respective legislative bodies in September, and went into effect (Germany became officially reunified) on October 3, 1990.

Documentary sources
Scholars have drawn from sources that include treaties, contemporary public speeches and pronouncements, records of diplomatic conversations and negotiations, and diplomatic cables. They also include later statements, interviews, and biographies from the officials involved in the 1990 negotiations and German reunification.

Scholars have pointed to a growing body of sources, with more information coming progressively to light in the process, interpretations, and outcomes of the 1990 negotiations. Each new significant release of previously inaccessible information has afforded researchers the opportunity to reassess previous conclusions.

As of 2022, researchers have pointed to four waves of publicly available documentation. The first is the information available contemporaneously in 1990. The second the near-contemporaneous accounts within the 1990's, mostly consisting of public statements and memoirs by Western and Soviet leaders.{{sfn|Itzkowitz Shifrinson|2016}|p=8}} The third was the information that became gradually available in through the 2000's. The fourth in the 2010's with additional access to declassified archival materials.

The Genscher proposal of January 31, 1990


In 1990 West and East Germany were about to reunify, but to do so they required the cooperation of the Soviet Union. The latter, who had occupied East Germany since the end of World War II was willing to allow for reunification, but it was concerned that the Soviet withdrawal from East Germany would lead to NATO expansion, and with it the USSR was concerned that it would become more vulnerable to NATO.

To assuage the Soviet Union's concerns, West Germany's Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher in a speech at Tutzing, Bavaria on January 31, 1990, urged the Western powers to offer Moscow a major concession: If Germany reunified, there would be "no expansion of NATO territory eastward." Genscher had not cleared his speech beforehand with West Germany Chancelor Helmut Kohl or his aides.

The U.S. Embassy in Bonn reported to Washington that Genscher made clear “that the changes in Eastern Europe and the German unification process must not lead to an impairment of Soviet security interests. Therefore, NATO should rule out an expansion of its territory towards the east, i.e. moving it closer to the Soviet borders.”

On February 2, 1990 Genscher further clarified to U.S. Secretary of State James Baker that under his proposed plan, “NATO would not extend its territorial coverage to the area of the GDR [West Germany] nor anywhere else in Eastern Europe.” Baker accepted Genscher's proposal when he would later that month meet with USSR General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev in Moscow. Baker also consistently emphasized that the issue would have to be definitively settled in the "2+4 framework" encompassing the East and West Germany, and four external powers (France, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the USSR).''

Baker-Gorbachev meeting of February 9, 1990
On February 7 and 9, 1990 and ahead of the meeting between U.S. Secretary of State Baker and General Secretary of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev, Baker met with Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze.

Baker told Shevardnadze that NATO would be transforming itself into a more political organization and that the USSR and all other European countries would be better off if a united Germany were firmly anchored in NATO, which would act as a crucial check on German power. Baker also said, using Genschener's formulation, that if the whole of a reunited Germany were included in NATO, the U.S. and its allies would guarantee that NATO’s jurisdiction or forces would not move "eastward".

On February 9, 1990, Baker met privately with Gorbachev and Shevardnadze and conveyed the same message as previously discussed with Shevardnadze. West Germany was already a NATO member, and the issue was whether the USSR should accede to a German unification, and what whether NATO would then expand to East Germany.

In that meeting Gorbachev stressed that "any extension of the zone of NATO is unacceptable", to which Baker responded that he agreed. And, taking Genscher's advice to persuade Gorbachev to support reunification, Baker said that "There would be no extension of NATO's current jurisdiction eastward." This conversation was recorded in a memorandum by the U.S. Department of State. A soviet record was also made available by the Gorbachev Foundation.

Baker reported a detailed summary to West Germany Chancellor Kohl.

On February 10 Kohl and Gorbachev held wide-ranging talks on the future of Germany. The issue of Germany and its NATO membership was mentioned briefly twice, along the same lines as Baker-Gorbachev meeting the day prior. According to the Soviet transcript, Kohl at one point mentioned that "Naturally, NATO must not extend its sphere to the territory of today’s GDR."

Baker publicized the negotiations in a press conference, saying that the United States proposed "there should be no extension of NATO forces eastward in order to assuage the security concerns of those of the East of Germany [sic]," and that reunifying Germany in NATO was "not likely to happen without there being some sort of security guarantees with respect to NATO's forces […] or the jurisdiction of NATO moving eastward."

Subsequent proposal modifications and negotiations February - May, 1990
Shortly after the February 9 meeting, the U.S. Government had second thoughts about the Genscher plan that Baker had just offered to Gorbachev. The White House instructed Baker to pursue a different plan: instead of making a commitment of NATO refraining from expanding of its "jurisdiction" to East Germany, the whole of Germany would be formally part of NATO, but with East Germany having a "special military status" to address Soviet concerns, to be better specified in ensuing negotiations. This stance was closely coordinated with German Chancellor Kohl.

As negotiations progressed within the 2+4 framework, that "special military status" was detailed to mean that in East Germany there would only be German forces, and no placement of nuclear weapons. Gorbachev and the Soviet government would eventually agreeing to it.

Gorbachev and the Soviet government were reluctant to allow for a unified Germany, and how that would change the security calculus for the Soviet Union. Gorbachev tried to slow down the negotiations for several months. In the meantime momentum was building in West Germany towards unification, to the point when Anatoly Chernyaev, a close advisor to Gorbachev concluded by early May 1990 that "it is perfectly obvious that Germany is going to be in NATO. There is simply no realistic way for us to prevent this. It is inevitable." Baker met again with Gorbachev and Shevardnadze on May 16—19, 1990, and to further encourage the Soviets, offered a package of "nine assurances" mostly on German and European security matters.

Speech of NATO Secretary General of May 17, 1990
While the negotiations on German unification were taking place, NATO Secretary General Manfred Wörner made a speech on May 17, 1990 in which he aimed to address the security concerns raised by the Soviet Union.

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Treaty of September 12, 1990
The "2+4" negotiations culminated with the Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany. The agreement on not deploying foreign troops on the territory of the former East Germany was incorporated in Article 5: until Soviet forces had completed their withdrawal from the former GDR, only German territorial defense units not integrated into NATO would be deployed in that territory; there would be no increase in the numbers of troops or equipment of U.S., British and French forces stationed in Berlin; and once Soviet forces had withdrawn, German forces assigned to NATO could be deployed in the former GDR, but foreign forces and nuclear weapons systems would not be deployed there.

The agreement was signed on September 12, 1990 by the foreign ministers of the two Germanys, the United States, Soviet Union, Britain and France.

As part of the 1990 negotiations on Germany's unification, in addition to the 2+4 Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany, Germany also provided other assurances, including of economic assistance, to the USSR, that were laid out in four bilateral documents signed shortly after unification.

Uncontested facts
The negotiations on the reunification of Germany and its full membership in NATO took place through most of 1990, when neither the Western powers nor the Soviet sphere predicted that a few months later in 1991, the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the termination of the Warsaw Pact would happen. The negotiations were focussed on Germany's reunification and the geopolitical security ramifications stemming from that.

The "2+4" negotiations culminated with the signing of the a treaty that allowed a reunified Germany to become member of NATO as a whole, but with the stipulation in article 5 of the treaty that foreign forces and nuclear weapons systems would not be deployed in former Eastern Germany. These commitments have been honored.

The treaty nor any other written formal agreement in the 1990 negotiations between Western countries and the USSR made any mention of NATO's ability or limitation to admit countries who had been members of the Warsaw Pact. Further, the diplomatic record showed that the two sides never discussed the possibility of other Central European countries joining NATO.

Potential broader scope in negotiations
The "no one inch eastward" affirmation was repeated three times in varied formulations throughout the conversation, and it became a key source with different interpretations as to whether those were firm guarantees or whether they were superseded by later conversations and agreements, and whether the "east" referred -formally or in spirit- only to East Germany, or more broadly to Eastern Europe.

Mark Kramer, in a journal paper in The Washington Quarterly in 2009 concluded that the context of the negotiations was specifically Germany and its relationship with NATO, and that none of the participants in the negotiations raised the issue of NATO membership to other Warsaw Pact countries beyond Germany.

No written agreement was ever made specifically ruling out the the possibility of Poland, Hungary or other Central European nations joining NATO.

Based on the records available in the 1990's, some scholars at the time concluded that during the negotiations surrounding German reunification, the diplomatic record showed that the two sides never discussed the possibility of other Central European countries joining NATO. Further documentation made available during the 2000's led researcher Mark kramer to the same conclusion.

However, in the 2010's additional U.S., Soviet, German, British and French records were declassified and made available through George Washington University's National Security Archive shedding new light. Researchers reviewing the new information point to multiple occasions between 1989 and 1991 in which western leaders made assurances to the USSR, as well as communicated internally the same intent, about NATO not making threatening moves towards the Soviet Union. Svetlana Savranskaya and Tom Blanton, Senior Analyst and Director respectively at the National Security Archive, characterized these as a "cascade of assurances" that may have convinced the Soviet leadership that NATO would not expand to countries of the Eastern Bloc, other than East Germany.


 * December 1989: President George H.W. Bush assured Gorbachev during the Malta summit in that the U.S. would not take advantage of the revolutions in Eastern Europe to harm Soviet interests.
 * February 6, 1990: Genscher met with British Foreign Minister Douglas Hurd “The Russians must have some assurance that if, for example, the Polish Government left the Warsaw Pact one day, they would not join NATO the next."
 * February 10, 1990: West German chancellor told Gorbachev “We believe that NATO should not expand the sphere of its activity."
 * April 11, 1990: British foreign minister, Douglas Hurd, told Gobachev that Britain clearly "recognized the importance of doing nothing to prejudice Soviet interests and dignity."
 * May 18, 1990: Baker met Gorbachoev to deliver his “nine points,” which included the transformation of NATO, strengthening European structures, keeping Germany non-nuclear, and taking Soviet security interests into account. Baker started off his remarks by saying: “Before saying a few words about the German issue, I wanted to emphasize that our policies are not aimed at separating Eastern Europe from the Soviet Union. We had that policy before. But today we are interested in building a stable Europe, and doing it together with you.”

(...)

Interpretation of agreements narrowly applying to East Germany
Based on the text of the written agreements, and the narrow

However, James Baker later asserted that in his negotiations with the USSR, his statements and proposals were always narrowly focussed on East Germany joining West Germany, and that he had never intended to rule out the admission of new NATO members. In an interview with the New York Times, Baker said: "I got off the word 'jurisdiction' very quickly,", and, "I do not recall using it with the Soviets. But let's assume I did use it once or twice. We quickly walked away from it. What defeats this whole argument is that we then insisted on the G.D.R. being in NATO, thereby moving NATO eastward."

Other U.S. policymakers who were directly involved in the German reunification, including U.S. President George H. W. Bush, national security adviser Brent Scowcroft, affirmed that other than East Germany, the topic of NATO expansion to former Warsaw Pact countries never came up, and that the U.S. never pledged to limit NATO expansion to those countries.

Philip Zelikow, who in 1990 was a senior official on the National Security Council (NSC) staff responsible for German reunification issues, validates Baker's view based on the lack of any explicit agreement nor negotiations on expansion to Eastern Europe: "No Soviet ever said, 'NATO may extend to East Germany but no farther'."

Steven Pifer, who served as the deputy director of the State Department’s Soviet Desk in 1989–90, likewise contends that “Western leaders never pledged not to enlarge NATO.”

in 2014, NATO released a report asserting that “[n]o pledge was made, and no evidence to back up Russia’s claims has ever been produced.”

Multiple other western analysis come the similar conclusions, including Anne Applebaum, James Kirchick, Edward Joseph, Kramer, Kristina Spohr.

''in arguably the most extensive research on the subject, [[Mary Elise Sarotte]] has repeatedly challenged claims of a non-expansion promise, concluding in 2009 that “no formal agreements were reached,” as the 1990 negotiations kept “open the door for future expansion to Eastern Europe.” In later work, Sarotte found that Gorbachev failed “to get assurances in writing [. . . and] missed opportunities to challenge the United States on the topic later.” These andings caused her to conclude that “the Soviet Union could have struck a deal with the United States, but it did not.” Simply put, “Gorbachev never got the West to promise that it would freeze NATO’s borders.”''

in arguably the most extensive research on the subject, Sarotte has repeatedly challenged claims of a non-expansion promise, concluding in 2009 that “no formal agree- ments were reached,” as the 1990 negotiations kept “open the door for future expansion to Eastern Europe.”35 In later work, Sarotte found that Gorbachev failed “to get assurances in writing [. . . and] missed opportunities to challenge the United States on the topic later.”36 These andings caused her to conclude that “the Soviet Union could have struck a deal with the United States, but it did not.”37 Simply put, “Gorbachev never got the West to promise that it would freeze NATO’s borders.”

Similarly, Mark Kramer at the U.S. Center for Strategic and International Studies asserted that "the Soviets never raised the question of NATO enlargement other than how it might apply in the former German Democratic Republic (GDR)." "[soviet officials never claimed] United States had made a formal commitment in 1990 not to bring any of the former Warsaw Pact countries into NATO."

''The purpose here has simply been to determine whether Russian and Western observers and officials are justified in arguing that the U.S. government, and perhaps some of the other NATO governments, made a ‘‘pledge’’ to Gorbachev in 1990 that if the USSR consented to Germany’s full membership in NATO after unification, the alliance would not expand to include any other East European countries. Declassified materials show unmistakably that no such pledge was made. Valid arguments can be made against NATO enlargement, but this particular argument is spurious.''

even Russian leaders claiming a broken promise do not argue that the Soviet Union received a formal deal.

NATO countries generally argue that Manfred Wörner's statement was made within the narrow context of persuading the USSR to cooperate in 1990 in the German Democratic Republic] (East Germany) reunifying with the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany). Russia authorities have argued that this statement is broader and providing a guarantee of NATO not expanding to Eastern Europe in general.

[re: Other related treaties of 1990] According to Mark Kramer, the German government fulfilled all their treaty obligations.

Differing importance of informal agreements
''The real issue, however, is not whether a formal agreement ruled out NATO expansion—even Russian leaders claiming a broken promise do not argue that the Soviet Union received a formal deal. Instead, the question of a non- expansion pledge involves whether various informal, even implicit, state- ments of U.S. policy in 1990 can be viewed as promises or assurances against NATO expansion, and whether discussions among U.S., Soviet, and West German ofacials related solely to East Germany or to Eastern Europe as a whole. Here, even studies acknowledging that U.S. policymakers in February 1990 brieoy discussed limits on NATO’s future presence risk understating the signiacance of U.S.-Soviet bargaining in 1990 by missing the importance of informal deals to politics, in general, and to Cold War diplomacy, in particu- lar. In U.S. domestic politics, for example, an informal offer can constitute a binding agreement provided one party gives up something of value in consid- eration of payment in goods or services.54 A similar principle applies to inter- national politics: not only are formal agreements often the codiacation of arrangements that states would make regardless of a formal offer, but if pri- vate and unwritten discussions are meaningless, then diplomacy itself would be an unnecessary and fruitless exercise.''

''Moreover, informal agreements and understandings were especially impor- tant during the Cold War. The 1962 Cuban missile crisis, for example, was re- solved in part through an informal agreement whereby the United States and the Soviet Union each removed missiles near the other’s territory.''

Divisions
Western scholars are similarly divided on the question of what the United States offered the Soviet Union in 1990.

Drawing largely upon public state- ments and memoirs by Western and Soviet leaders, some scholars in the 1990s contended that NATO’s eastward expansion violated what Michael MccGwire termed “top-level assurances” against NATO enlargement.

''Still, current studies are divided into two schools of thought over the process and implications of the 1990 reunia- cation negotiations for NATO’s future. One school largely agrees with U.S. policymakers that—as Mark Kramer claims—NATO expansion into Eastern Europe “never came up during the negotiations.”6 As a result, Russian accusa- tions of a broken non-expansion promise are “spurious.”7 In contrast, a second school contends that a NATO non-expansion offer that may have applied to Eastern Europe was discussed brieoy in talks among U.S., West German, and Soviet leaders in February 1990. This non-expansion proposal was quickly withdrawn, but given the February meetings, Russian complaints cannot be entirely dismissed: the United States and the Soviet Union never struck a deal against NATO expansion, yet Soviet leaders may have thought otherwise.''

 Since the late 2000s, many Western policy- makers and pundits have attributed Russian actions to a revisionist foreign policy.

despite the ab- sence of a formal deal, the United States did raise the issue of NATO expansion with the Soviet Union during the 1990 negotiations.

''the topic of NATO expansion was more than just a oeeting aspect of the negotiations in February 1990. Additional archival evidence indicates that U.S. ofacials repeatedly offered the Soviets informal assurances—a standard diplomatic practice—against NATO expansion during talks on German reuniacation throughout the spring, summer, and fall of 1990. Central to this effort was a se- ries of bargaining positions through which the George H.W. Bush administra- tion indicated that Europe’s post–Cold War order would be acceptable to both Washington and Moscow: NATO would halt in place, and Europe’s security architecture would include the Soviet Union.18 Collectively, this evidence sug- gests that Russian leaders are essentially correct in claiming that U.S. efforts to expand NATO since the 1990s violate the “spirit” of the 1990 negotiations: NATO expansion nulliaed the assurances given to the Soviet Union in 1990.''

United States floated a cooperative grand design for postwar Europe in discussions with the Soviets in 1990, while creating a system domi- nated by the United States. Baker told the Soviet foreign minister that NATO would be transforming itself into a more political organization

Interpretation of a broad pledge of non-expansion
The Soviet leader was convinced that the Warsaw Pact would survive (and even thrive)

 Gorbachev would not even have contemplated seeking an assurance about NATO expansion beyond Germany because in February 1990 that issue was not yet within his ken. ''spring and summer of 1990. Moreover, none of the critics at the plenum even hinted at the possibility that the East European countries would seek to join NATO. For them, as for Gorbachev and Shevardnadze, that issue was not yet of any relevance.''

''Neither Gorbachev nor any of his advisers even thought to bring up the question of the expansion of NATO to other Warsaw Pact countries beyond East Germany. This was simply not an issue at the time. Gorbachev was still fully confident that the USSR would continue to ‘‘work with its allies’’ in the Warsaw Pact, and he therefore did not yet even conceive of the possibility that they might someday aspire to join NATO.''

In early 1990 the general expectation was for the Warsaw pact to be maintained for years to come, and NATO expansion to Warsaw pact countries was not in the mind of anyone East or West.

According to Jack F. Matlock Jr., the United States Ambassador to Moscow at the time, while a more narrow commitment was reached on NATO's presence within a reunified Germany, James Baker never formally retracted the broader pledge to Gorbachev that NATO's "jurisdiction" would not extend eastward, and therefore that Gorbachev received a "clear commitment that if Germany united, and stayed in NATO, the borders of NATO would not move eastward." Mikhail Gorbachev, made similar assertions in 1996—1997.

When in the late 1990's NATO was preparing to expand, Russian officials claimed that the entry of former Warsaw Pact countries into NATO would violate a solemn "pledge" made by the governments of West Germany and the United States in 1990 not to bring any former Communist states into the alliance. Anatoly Adamishin, Soviet deputy foreign minister in 1990, said in 1997 that "we were told during the German reunification process that NATO would not expand."

Former U.S. defense secretary Robert McNamara asserted that "the United States pledged never to expand NATO eastward if Moscow would agree to the unification of Germany." According to this view, ‘‘the Clinton administration reneged on that commitment. . . when it decided to expand NATO to Eastern Europe.’’

''In 2008, the proposed admission into NATO of two other former Soviet republics (Georgia and Ukraine) sparked a new flurry of allegations. In September 2008, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov of Russia insisted that in the 1990s the United States had ‘‘made a commitment not to expand NATO’’ and had ‘‘repeatedly broken this commitment’’ in the years since.''

Gobachev on the one hand affirmed that the negotiations were primarily focussed on conditioning or limiting NATO expansion within East Germany upon German unification. Further, he noted in a 2014 interview that "The topic of ‘NATO expansion’ was not discussed at all, and it wasn’t brought up in those years." On the other hand, Gobachev criticized NATO enlargement and called "a violation of the spirit of the statements and assurances made to us in 1990.".

''In 1998, the British analyst Michael MccGwire wrote an article strongly opposing NATO’s decision in 1997 to invite the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland to join the alliance. MccGwire claimed that ‘‘in 1990 Mikhail Gorbachev was given top-level assurances that the West would not enlarge NATO, ensuring a non-aligned buffer zone between NATO’s eastern border and Russia.’’ The U.S.-led decision to expand the alliance, MccGwire argued, ‘‘violates the bargain struck in 1990 allowing a united Germany to be part of NATO.’’'' ''The declassified evidence undermines MccGwire’s contention that ‘‘top-level assurances’’ were provided to Gorbachev in 1990 ‘‘ensuring a non-aligned buffer zone between NATO’s eastern border and Russia.’’ No such assurances were ever given or sought. Gorbachev did for a long while seek assurances that Germany would be kept out of NATO, but he failed to receive them. The West German and U.S. governments stuck by their position that Germany should be a full member of NATO and the Soviet leader ultimately backed down on the issue.''

Commenting on NATO’s preparations for its arst round of expansion in the mid- 1990s, for instance, Russian President Boris Yeltsin wrote President Bill Clinton that “the treaty on the Final Settlement with respect to Germany signed in September 1990 [. . .] excludes, by its meaning, the possibility of expansion of the NATO zone to the East.” Subsequent Russian leaders including President Putin, President Medvedev, Russian political analyst Sergey Karaganov assert the same position.

Gorbachev in 2014 he clarified that although NATO expan- sion may not have been explicitly discussed in 1990, expansion remained “a vi- olation of the spirit of the statements and assurances made to us in 1990.”

Nevertheless, scholars are divided over whether the diplomatic talks on German reuniacation lend some support to Russian claims of a broken non- expansion pledge. Especially important are a series of February 1990 conversa- tions among U.S., Soviet, and West German ofacials in Moscow during which U.S. and West German negotiators advanced some kind of verbal offer against some form of NATO expansion.

The February 1990 talks of Baker, and Kohl, with Gorbachev "carried real consequences, as Gorbachev agreed to negotiate the terms of German reuniacation following the discussions with Baker and Kohl." Still, scholars disagree on the implications of these meetings and, thus, whether to sympathize with Russian claims of a NATO non-expansion pledge.

Kramer, supports the position of former policymakers that the February 1990 talks were simply that—talks nar- rowly focused on NATO’s future in a reuniaed Germany.42 Hence, because the offer focused on Germany rather than all of Eastern Europe and because noth- ing was ever codiaed, subsequent Russian complaints about NATO enlarge- ment lack an empirical basis.43 “No Western leader,” Kramer writes, “ever offered any ‘pledge’ or ‘commitment’ or ‘categorical assurances’” about NATO expansion into Eastern Europe.

An alternate account developed by Sarotte, Thomas Blanton, and Spohr, however, treats the February 1990 talks as creating understandable confusion in Russian circles over what the United States promised.45 From this perspec- tive, some or all of the February discussions may have alluded to limiting NATO’s future in Eastern Europe.

''As Sarotte describes the discussions, however, U.S. leaders saw these terms as being raised “speculatively” as part of an ongoing negotiation and far from a anal deal. The United States was thus free to revise the offer and, by late February, was already moving to sidestep talk of limiting NATO’s future presence by extending NATO’s jurisdiction over the former East Germany (i.e., the German Democratic Republic, or GDR).47 Still, Soviet ofacials may have seen the early February talks as offering a arm guar- antee against NATO expansion: used to operating in a world where a leader’s word was his or her bond, they could have believed that they had reached an agreement in which, once the Soviet Union took steps on reuniacation, NATO would not move into Eastern Europe.48 This school of thought thus identiaes a particular moment in the 1990 negotiations that generated a misunder- standing whereby Soviet/Russian ofacials focused on what was verbally pre- sented to them in early February. In contrast, U.S. ofacials emphasized the narrower terms advanced in later conversations and eventually codiaed as part of the Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany.49 No deal was reached against NATO expansion, but Russian charges are therefore not so much misleading as they are a misinterpretation of events.5''

Researcher Itzkowitz Shifrinson argues that the Baker and Kohl talks with Gorbachev were a pivotal moment in Gorbachev opening to further negotiations.

In 1990, few gave the possibility of a broader NATO enlargement to the east any serious thought.

More info
The recent declassification of crucial archival materials in Germany, Russia, the United States, and numerous other European countries finally allows for clarification on the basis of contem- poraneous records.

more info 2
https://www.baks.bund.de/sites/baks010/files/working_paper_2018_03.pdf

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/newly-declassified-documents-gorbachev-told-nato-wouldnt-23629 assurances our western partners made after the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact

MORE here.

Contemporaneous sources

some scholars point to at least the negotiations having been misleading [sarotte]

Subsequent events
Moreover, even in 1991, when the East European countries’ overtures to the alliance became more serious, the NATO governments tried their best to discourage East European leaders from even broaching the topic

1997
Recognizing that the 1990 commitments were understood differently by each side, Russia and NATO undertook new talks to reaffirm a security framework that would work for both.

The allegations of broken promises have colored the negotiations for a new NATO-Russia accord. Not wanting to give the Russians a veto over NATO policy, the United States took the position that the agreement should be a non-binding charter. Eager to pin the West down, the Russians insisted on a formal, legal agreement.

The compromise was the Founding Act, a legally non-binding agreement at the highest political level. It records the alliance's assurances not to deploy nuclear weapons or substantial numbers of foreign troops on the territory of its new members.

However, this agreeement was a political, non-binding document.

New York Times reporter _____ asserted that thi

"Mr. Zelikow said that close scrutiny of the verbal diplomatic exchange does not support Moscow's claim that it was bamboozled. But the new written agreement, he cautioned, may cause new disagreements because its commitments are already being interpreted differently by the two sides."

The allegations of broken promises have colored the negotiations for a new NATO-Russia accord. Not wanting to give the Russians a veto over NATO policy, the United States took the position that the agreement should be a non-binding charter. Eager to pin the West down, the Russians insisted on a formal, legal "agreement."

The compromise was the Founding Act, a legally non-binding agreement at the highest political level. It records the alliance's assurances not to deploy nuclear weapons or "substantial" numbers of foreign troops on the territory of its new members.

Several years after German reunification, in 1997, NATO said that in the “current and foreseeable security environment” there would be no permanent stationing of substantial combat forces on the territory of new NATO members. Up until the Russian military occupation of Crimea in March, there was virtually no stationing of any NATO combat forces on the territory of new members. Since March, NATO has increased the presence of its military forces in the Baltic region and Central Europe.

Conclusions
With the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union still in existence in the context of the negotiations of 1990, it was not conceivable that the soviet union would end a year later. Therefore, the negotiations on Gergman unification were approached as single issue, given than NATO expanding to contries that were continuing to be part of a decades-long warsaw pact was unimagined at the time.

The negotiations were focussed at specific to the issue of East Germany reunifying with West Germany, becauase it was the only possible and conceivable expansion of NATO. explicit negotatitons on the ability of NATO to expand to other contries in the East were inexisten because the prospect at the time was inexistent.

However, Russia as the successor state to the SOviet Union generally argues that the principle underlying the specific negotiations of East germany, there was an underlying broader principle that was being recognzied: that any eastern exapnsion on NATO was not acceptable to the USSR and later Russia, as Russia would see that as a significant threat to its security.

While the principle was applied to the only case that came up in 1990, the principle ought to have been continued to be applied more broadly after the unexpected sudden dissolution of the USSR.

On the other hand, NATO generally argues that what really matters are not so much what was said during the negotiating process, but the textual result embodied in the treaty, and that the treaty alone is what NATO through its key members bound itself to, and nothing else.

much thought to the possibility of NATO expanding to warsaw pact countries.