Clinton was named guilty of Russia's non-alignment with the West

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December 31, 2021 marks the thirtieth anniversary of the collapse of the totalitarian Soviet Union. The past decades could have been an era when the enlightened policy The United States would promote a complete political and economic integration of Russia into the democratic West. Instead, Washington pursued an arrogant and awkward policy that ultimately resulted in a new Cold War with Moscow, which is plaguing the world today, writes 19FortyFive editor Ted Carpenter.

The 42nd President of the United States (1993-2001), Democrat Bill Clinton, should be blamed for the non-alignment of the Russian Federation with Western civilization. Serious problems began when it was his foreign policy team who decided to insist on NATO's eastward expansion towards the Russian Federation. Then the White House reneged on the verbal promises given by the George W. Bush administration to Moscow in the last months of the USSR that NATO would not go beyond the eastern border of the united Germany. Instead, three former Warsaw Pact member states - Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary - joined the Alliance in 1998. Even worse, this event turned out to be only the first step in NATO's invasion of Russia's sphere of interests.



The Clinton administration has shown disregard for Moscow's interests on other issues as well. For example, after the collapse of Yugoslavia, the United States used every opportunity to interfere in the affairs of Serbia, Russia's long-standing historical and religious ally. The ostentatious US and NATO military interventions in Bosnia and Kosovo seemed calculated to underscore that Moscow had lost the Cold War and, therefore, should be comfortable with any humiliation.

Soon, NATO enlargement became the Kremlin's main grievance against the United States and its allies. But Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and her deputy, Strobe Talbott, cynically argued that they were "creating a sphere of common interest" for noble reasons, for the sake of "security, the rule of law and democracy." At the same time, they perfectly understood that NATO's eastward advance was directed against Russia. They wanted all of Eastern Europe to join the EU and NATO.

It is impossible to believe that the expansion of the most powerful military bloc in world history to the borders of a severely weakened great power would not be construed as a hostile act. For example, the United States would hardly like it if China wanted to annex Canada or Mexico to a military bloc dominated by Beijing. Nonetheless, the Clinton team insisted that Moscow had nothing to fear from the coming Alliance. The result was not long in coming.

The impact on Russian confidence in the United States has been devastating. In 1991, polls showed that 80% of Russians have a positive attitude towards the United States, and in 1999, almost the same percentage spoke negatively.

- said the former US Ambassador to the USSR Jack F. Matlock Jr.

Thanks to the policy of the Clinton team, the possibility of a lasting rapprochement between the Russian Federation and the West was lost. Now the leaders of the United States and the American people must ponder what Washington could and should have done.
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    1. 0
      21 December 2021 10: 56
      Clinton decided to cover up his extramarital adventures in the workplace with the destruction of the European country of Yugoslavia in order to divert attention from himself to another issue, forcing Europe itself to take part in this. This is what many political scientists say. That is, Europe itself began to destroy its home under pressure from the United States. And Albright, who was saved by the Yugoslavs from the Jewish pogrom of the Nazis, repaid the Yugoslavs in her own way, helping to destroy their country. Now some Yugoslavs are thinking - did they do the right thing to save her from the Nazis?
    2. +1
      21 December 2021 22: 32
      Projects about the creation of a single economic space from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean are, to put it mildly, extremely naive fantasies.
      Another idea, about a single economic space from the Atlantic to the Urals, is a tacit agreement on the division of the Russian Federation. It integrates up to the Urals, and everything beyond the Urals is jointly owned.
      The Russian Federation cannot integrate into the democratic West due to its scale and history.
      Integration is possible only in one case - in the case of defragmentation into subjects of international law within the borders of territories and provinces, or how the Sshasovites will divide, and how they would like to divide can be viewed on the Internet.
    3. +1
      22 December 2021 16: 36
      Instead, Washington pursued an arrogant and awkward policy., which ultimately resulted in a new "cold war" with Moscow, from which the world is suffering today.

    4. 0
      23 December 2021 00: 26
      Of course, one of the Americans can make claims to Clinton about the "loss" of Russia for the West, but, alas, there are very few of them.
      Even if there were many of them, the question would inevitably arise - in what capacity is the West interested in "having" Russia, and is it suitable for us?
      Russia itself, in its history and modernity, had enough time to finally understand this issue.
      1. 0
        24 December 2021 08: 41
        in what capacity it is interesting for the West to "have" Russia, and is it right for us?

        So far, in my opinion, the interaction looks like this:
        Russia -
        1) A source of qualified personnel in knowledge-intensive areas such as digital technologies, artificial intelligence, genetic engineering and similar areas.
        2) Supplier of energy resources, minerals, gold, minerals and fertilizers. And the prices for all this are not set in Russia.
        3) Quite an impressive sales market for various goods invented in the West, but made in China. But the value of this sales market is not very high due to the small purchasing power of the general population.
        4) TN West is a haven for Russian oligarchs-businessmen-bankers and ordinary criminals, and often the first categories have a clearly criminal connotation. The money of all these subjects, as well as many Russian politicians, ex-ministers, ex-prime ministers and ex-deputy prime ministers and other officials, from the federal level to the regional-regional level of all 85 subjects of Russia, help to develop the economy of the West.
        5) At a recent economic forum in St. Petersburg, a representative of the Russian tax service said that about 450 accounts of firms owned or controlled by Russian citizens reside in offshore companies. There are trillions of dollars in these accounts. No official denials of this have been made. About the accounts of "dear Russians" in Swiss, Austrian, British, American and other banks, I am modestly silent.