The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia

by Masha Gessen

Speaking in Munich at an international security conference in February 2007, Putin said: The format of the conference enables me to avoid superfluous politesse, the need to speak in smooth, pleasant, and empty diplomatic clichés. The format of the conference allows me to say what I really think about international security issues.37 Conference participants, who included German chancellor Angela Merkel and U.S. defense secretary Robert Gates, were taken by surprise: it seemed no one had expected a confrontation.38 Putin railed against NATO’s acceptance of new members: I think it’s obvious: the process of NATO enlargement has nothing to do with the modernization of the alliance itself or with raising the level of security in Europe. Just the opposite: it is a seriously inflammatory factor that lowers the level of mutual trust. And we have a justified right to ask openly: Who is NATO enlarging against? And what happened to the assurances given by Western partners after the Warsaw Pact was dissolved? What happened to those declarations? No one even remembers them. But I will dare remind the audience of what was said. I’d like to quote from NATO Secretary-General Wörner’s speech in Brussels on May 17, 1990. He said then: “The very fact that we are ready not to deploy NATO troops beyond the territory of the Federal Republic [of Germany] gives the Soviet Union firm security guarantees.” Whatever happened to those guarantees?39 The quote indeed came from a speech by NATO Secretary...