NATO non-enlargement promises to Soviet leaders following the fall of the Berlin Wall have again prompted a debate in the media. What’s behind the timing of the Western media’s renewed attempt to downplay the famous “not one inch eastward” assurance as a myth?
Earlier this month two reports emerged concerning the “myth” of NATO’s post-Cold War non-enlargement guarantees given to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and his entourage in 1989-91.
The first one, published by the London-based think tank Chatham House on 13 May claimed that “the USSR was never offered a formal guarantee on the limits of NATO expansion post-1990” listing it as one of multiple “myths” in the debate on Russia.