Russia's Ukraine invasion was PROVOKED by NATO expansion & US-backed 2014 coup

Russia's invasion of Ukraine was *PROVOKED* by NATO expansion and a U.S.-backed 2014 coup, according to three decades of leading U.S. military and foreign policy experts:

•Ambassador George Kennan
•Ambassador Jack Matlock
•Senator Joe Biden
•Senator Bill Bradley
•Senator Sam Nunn
•Senator Gary Hart
•Senator Gordon Humphrey
•Secretary of State Henry Kissinger
•Defense Secretary Robert McNamara
•Defense Secretary William Perry
•Defense Secretary Robert Gates
•CIA Director William Burns
•CIA Director Stansfield Turner
•Professor Edward Herman
•Professor Noam Chomsky
•Professor John Mearsheimer
•Prime Minister Paul Keating
•Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser

In this thread, I’ll dive into their warnings, showing how this reckless policy enriched the U.S. military-industrial complex, reignited the Cold War, and pushed the world closer to nuclear catastrophe than ever before.

1⃣ 1997 Open Letter: NATO Expansion a "Policy Error of Historic Proportions"

In June 1997, 50 U.S. foreign policy experts—including former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara and ex-CIA Director Stansfield Turner—sent President Clinton an open letter, labeling NATO’s eastward expansion a “policy error of historic proportions.”

They predicted it would provoke Russia, fuel nationalism, and undermine nuclear disarmament efforts like START II, urging cooperation over confrontation.

2⃣ Senator Biden Predicts Hostile Russian Reaction (1997)

That same month, Senator Joe Biden warned that NATO expansion into the Baltic states would provoke a "vigorous and hostile" reaction from Russia.

All three Baltic states—Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania—became NATO members in 2004.

3⃣ Australian PM Keating: A "Great Mistake" Echoes Historical Errors (1997)

In September 1997, Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating called NATO expansion a “great mistake,” comparing it to missteps that sparked both World Wars.

He argued that moving NATO to Russia's border signaled that Russia remained a potential enemy, jeopardizing continental stability.

"The decision to expand NATO by inviting Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic to participate and to hold out the prospect to others—in other words, to move Europe’s military demarcation point to the very borders of the former Soviet Union—is, I believe, an error which may rank in the end with the strategic miscalculations which prevented Germany from taking its full place in the international system at the beginning of this century."

"The great question for Europe is no longer how to embed Germany in Europe—that has been achieved—but how to involve Russia in a way which secures the continent during the next century."

"And there was a very obvious absence of statecraft here. The Russians, under Mikhail Gorbachev, conceded that East Germany could remain in NATO as part of a united Germany."

"But now just half a dozen years later NATO has climbed up to the western border of the Ukraine. This message can be read in only one way: that although Russia has become a democracy, in the consciousness of western Europe it remains the state to be watched, the potential enemy."

for the rest of the thread:
https://x.com/i/status/1894833586387501070