US Promised Gorbachev NATO Would Not Expand East, Ex-Envoy Claims

Matlock: 'We gave Gorbachev categorical assurances that NATO would not advance east'

Did a formal commitment exist not to expand NATO eastward in exchange for allowing German reunification within the Alliance? Jack Matlock, the US Ambassador to the Soviet Union from 1987 to 1991, argues that it did. He stated this three decades ago and repeated it in a public debate alongside Henry Kissinger at the Budapest Summit on December 5, 1994: 'We gave categorical assurances to Gorbachev, while the Soviet Union existed, that if a united Germany remained in NATO, NATO would not move east.' Matlock adds a nuance often lost: 'It was not a legally binding guarantee.' In other words, word yes, paper no. And the dispute begins there.

What Matlock said exactly and why it matters

The former ambassador does not speak of a treaty. He speaks of a verbal categorical guarantee, given in the context of negotiations on German reunification. In the same forum, the moderator directly challenges him: 'so a guarantee was given to the Soviet Union.' Matlock does not correct him. He confirms it.

In contrast, Mikhail Gorbachev maintains the opposite: according to his account, the issue of NATO expansion was not discussed at all during those years. Robert Zoellick, a US diplomat who participated in the negotiations at the end of the Cold War, defends the same thesis: 'No country in Eastern Europe raised the issue, not even after the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact in 1991. Western leaders did not mention it either.'

Two incompatible versions of the same stretch of history. One relies on the negotiator's testimony; the other, on the interlocutor's memory of what was allegedly promised.

The document that is not a treaty

The most cited material to support the promise thesis is a document from September 12, 1990, dated November 2 of the same year, from the George H. W. Bush Presidential Library. It is a detailed account of the Two Plus Four ministerial meeting held in Moscow, drafted by staff from the European Office of the State Department and addressed to senior officials such as Robert Zoellick and Condoleezza Rice, based on notes taken by US participants.

Here lies the problem for those demanding documentary proof: there is no signature, no seal, no treaty. It is an internal memorandum based on notes. Those defending the existence of the commitment consider it sufficient proof of what was agreed. Those denying it respond that a paper without a signature binds no one and that, moreover, it did not refer to Ukraine or the Budapest Memorandum.

International law and the given word

Here enters a legal concept often invoked in such cases: promissio est servanda. In international law, a unilateral promise can be considered a valid act that must be respected, without the need for a signature. The problem is that this doctrine does not resolve the substantive issue: was there a promise, who was bound by it, and with what scope?

The discussion then shifts to a less legal and more raw terrain. It is argued that, with or without paper, an agreement with an economically self-sufficient and heavily armed power is worth fulfilling. And it is replied that the word of powers, Western or not, is worth only as long as the interest supporting it lasts.

From promise to expansion: the Ukrainian case

The conversation jumps from remote past to present conflict. It is argued that any State's priority is its own interests, above human rights, and that the US has turned war and destabilization into its hegemony model. In response, it is argued that Russia is no exception and that it was the first to break commitments in the Budapest Memorandum, where Ukraine surrendered its nuclear arsenal in exchange for respect for its sovereignty and territorial integrity.

The exchange heats up when asked what is worth more: a memorandum that no one considered legally binding or the 1997 Russian-Ukrainian Treaty of Friendship, signed and ratified, in which Ukraine included the principle of border inviolability in exchange for guarantees for ethnic, cultural, linguistic, and religious minorities in its territory.

Neutrality, resources, and the division of the country

In the economic background lies a fact often buried: in pre-Maidan Ukraine, surveys cited in the discussion placed support for an association agreement with the EU at 37.7%, and support for an agreement with Russia at 37.8%. A country split into two almost identical halves. It is argued that the IMF and Brussels conditions were harsh and that neutrality would have prevented war; it is replied that the underlying problem was Ukrainian resources, coveted by some and denied by others to prevent competition with their own economies.

The full calculation of that tug-of-war —conditions, percentages, who offered what— is juicier than can be covered here, but the repeated conclusion is bitter: whatever the initial split, the country will not recover for generations.

The boxer's sarracena

The most stark version of the matter is summarized by a simple image: if your neighbor is a boxing champion and you are not, do not provoke him; seek a modus vivendi, and do not rely too much on your boxer friend covering your back. Sarracena and international law apply what is fair here.

Thirty years later, the promise remains without paper to support it and without anyone to completely disprove it. Only an ambassador remembering what he said, a former Soviet president denying the conversation, and a continent paying the bill.