for our discussion of her latest book, not one inch. we usually say, and i think it's true in this case, that the other needs no introduction. they all give one and a moment. in this case all say this book needs no introduction, at the, moment because it's been, for all the right reasons, splashed across reviews and op-ed pages and public conversations and public discussions of the contemporary moment of where nato stands and where it stood historically. so, this is really, i feel fully justified in saying the book of the hour. before we get to this extraordinary and extraordinarily timely new book, let me say a few words about professor sarotte. professor sarotte is the -- distinguished professor at john hopkins university here in washington, d.c.. in addition to not one inch, which is a book that's going to be appearing in many many languages in the months and years to come, this book has already been named a foreign affairs book of the year for 2021. professor sarotte is also the author of a collapse, the accidental opening of the berlin wall. this was published in 2014. in 1989, the struggle to create postwar, europe published in 2009. both of which received the financial times book of the year for their respective years, as well as many other prizes. after completing her graduate education in history at yale, professor sarotte served as a white house fellow and then joined the university of cambridge, where she received tenure in 2004. returning after that the united states, to teach at the university of southern california and then, from there, over to the east coast and to her current position at johns hopkins university. gives me a special pleasure to mention that professor sarotte is a former humble scholar, older of the german chancellor scholarship, as i am. so, we will consider this as a conversation between two german chancellor scholars, talking about nato, what could be more suitable to the spirit of this particular scholarship. with, that were delighted to have you with us this afternoon, mary. let me pass the baton to you for a couple of opening remarks. we'll go from there to a bit of back and forth between the two of us, that will open the floor to a broader conversation. >> absolutely. it's wonderful to be here, with another humble scholar. a bucha, as we nicknamed ourselves in german. wonderful to be here with my friend michael kimmage, a major historian of this time period as well. your work on the abandonment of the west has really been path-breaking. , so i really delighted and looking forward very much to our interaction. michael also has a serious policy side, as well as a historical side. having worked on russia issues under the obama administration. so, i am very much looking forward to our conversation. and i'm honored to be asked to talk here today, although saddened that we should be doing so under such frightening circumstances, where ukraine is essentially being held hostage to force a do-over of some of the historical battles from the 1990s that i've described in my book, not one inch. for me, as someone who went to germany not just as a humble scholar but, a while ago, when i was even younger, as a student studying abroad in west berlin a 1989. it is tragic to see how that spirit of optimism and cooperation between the west and the event soviet bloc, near russia, has dissipated. hopefully today we can talk about some of the reasons for that. so, i would like to make for brief comments but then get going into a conversation with you. the first comment comes out of an experience i had at the beginning of the pandemic. one of my other books, i did know michael was going to mention that, that was nice of you. one of my other, books the collapse, during the beginning of the pandemic was opted for production as a limited tv series, along the lines of the hbo series chernobyl. a fictionalized version. now, i hasten to add that i'm not going out and buying a ferrari yet because, basically, that means that instead of a one and 1 million chance of my book becoming a tv series i now have a one and 1000 chance. so, it's still a long road, but what it did mean was that i spent part of the pandemic in contact with a film producer and screenwriters. from the screenwriters, i learned something interesting. these are people who live from selling their writing. i'm a professor, so if my book doesn't sell, i hope it does, but if it doesn't the lights stay on my house, there's still food on my table, i still get a salary. but the screenwriters, they have to sell the writing to eat. so, they had lots of tips on selling writing. one of their tips was, when you're trying to introduce a big audience to a detailed project, as we're doing today, and i understand there's a big crowd here today. you don't start with the details, you start with the emotional punch. one of the screenwriter said i go out and i say my script is about what happens when white counter crime comes home, and then you get into the details. he said you come up with an emotional image and then you get to that before you come up the details, of people understand why it's important. i thought wow, i never have tried to sell a piece of writing like that, i'm a historian, i do details. so, i force myself out of my comfort, is owned a step back and say what emotional image would i give to summarize the book, not one inch. this was when i came up with. so, imagine that you're swimming in the ocean and you've been carried out by a rip tide. you grab onto a log that you think is going to be your deliverance. this book, not one inch, it's about the moment that deliverance slips away. but i mean by that is the united states in the soviet union where in this ever escalating thorough nuclear standoff that got to the point where those two countries could basically and life on earth. then, they were getting carried away in this rip tide of escalation which, although it had absence, levs was getting to interest again in the 80s. then, this remarkable deliverance happened, the unexpected opening of the berlin wall, the decisions, the fact that my gorbachev became soviet leader after three others died in rapid succession. the world was delivered from that thorough nuclear conflict. this book is about how neither washington nor moscow cherish that deliverance and let it step away, leading to where we are, on the precipice of another conflict. put differently, cold wars are not short lived affairs. so, flaws are precious. neither the west nor russia cherished the thaw enough at now here we, are back at the edge of a hot war. so, that is the big emotional reason why i cared about the topic and spent years my life trying to get documents declassified and trying to pull the story together and create a shared narrative about how cooperation between the u.s. and russia disintegrated into today's stalemate. let me just touch on three factual points, then we move on to the discussion. first, the 1990 debate. this is something that putin has now put back in the headlines. it's of course the title of my book, not one inch, and president putin started on december 23rd saying not one inch, not one inch at press conferences. ever since then, my life has been slightly surreal. total strangers started tweeting at me product placement alert when he said that, under severe 23rd. i've been inundated from requests from media and government organizations and so far as to talk about not one inch. i could get into the weeds on that today. briefly, that not when it was a reference to a comment made by the secretary of state james baker, as many of you may know, as part of speculative hypothetical discussions about how to unify germany in the wake of the unexpected opening of the berlin wall. it was clear that germans wanted to unify but the problem but that was the unconditional nazi surrender of 1945 was just, that unconditional. i meant that still, in 1989, 1990, the soviet union had extensive legal rights over all of germany and at 380,000 troops there. and so, the question was, what would the last later of the soviet union, gorbachev, what would he want to give up? but those rights and those troops. so, as part of an early hypothetical speculative discussion, the u.s. secretary of state, james baker, said to mikael gorbachev something to the effect of, i'm paraphrasing but the exact quarters of my book, is because that how about this. how but you let your half of germany go and we agree that nato will move not one inch eastward. gorbachev said something to the extent of, that sounds good. certainly, nato should not move eastwards, we should keep talking about this. but nothing formal result. when baker gets home from that meeting with moscow, to washington, to talk to his old friend and boss, president george h. w. bush, president bush basically says jim, you lean too far forward over your skis. i think that nato should not only persist but its ability to enlarge should persist, it's been expanding since the 50s and i think we should move eastward across the cold war front line which moves to the middle of germany. not least because, if nato doesn't move one inch eastward, and half of united germany will be outside of nato. we'll have a country that is half in and half out, that doesn't make any sense, and other complications. there's already some really speculative discussion about nato's role in eastern and central europe. again, speculative but it is. there you can see it in the record, i documented and not one inch. , so baker agrees and in one of the newest documents that i present my book immediately rights back to allies in europe and says forget when i was saying about not when it eastward, that's causing confusion, we're going to drop that language. but it takes moscow a while to notice. and so, putin plays on the sense today that there is a bait and switch back then. when he does that, putin is ignoring what happened at the end of the german unification process, which was the final settlement on german unification in september of 1990. gorbachev in that agreement changed his priorities. he was unable to get that not a large mat pledge in writing. he understood the significance of it, as, himself said in 1990, this is from his own records. i told, baker i am aware of the desire of central and eastern european states to leave the warsaw pact in order to join nato later. so, this is my cale gorbachev's own notes for may 1990, he knows that it's about central and eastern europe. despite, that when push comes to shove, he signs the final settlement on germany in exchange not for guarantees about nato but, instead, for a huge financial infusion from the west germans. the deputy national security adviser at the time, bob gates, who of course went on to an illustrious career becoming the secretary of defense, as he put it, we decided on a strategy of bribing the soviets out. this is bob gates. and even better, the west germans paid the bribes. so, that was ultimately what caused gorbachev to allow germany to unify. the document itself, the final settlement on germany, explicitly allows article five to move eastward across the cold war line, as bush had wanted. there are certain conditions. it can't move nuclear weapons into eastern germany, creating the situation where today easter germany is the only country that is nuclear free by treaty. this document, the settlement in germany, does allow article five to move eastward across the line and gorbachev authorizing -- . so, that's a 1990 controversy. gorbachev muddy the waters about that because he, in 2014, on the 25th anniversary of the fall of the berlin wall, tried to improve his historical image by bullying journalist to re-writing this history. so, he, in 2014, said to a journalist that nato expansion never came up when i was an, office never. then, gorbachev switch to referring to himself in the third person and started dictating to the journalistic interviewing him what to write. so, this is gorbachev referring to himself. he says, don't pitch a gorbachev as a knife person. if there is any naivete, it was on a heads of other people. moscow ever came up very gorbachev, not even after the warsaw pact collapse. the problem is that gorbachev 2014 contradicts gorbachev 1990, which shows the power of historical research sources. third and more briefly, the 1987 controversy. the soviet union collapses and then, by the mid to late 90s, the question has now risen under u.s. president bill clinton of nato moving into central and eastern europe. as that question becomes close to becoming a reality, it becomes apparent that there is a profound disagreement between moscow and washington about the final settlement over germany. now, in a rare point of unity, both of them agree that the final settlement is only about germany. they agree absolutely on that. the problem is they disagree on the consequences of that reality. for yeltsin, it means that the permission to move article five eastward across cold war lines was only for eastern germany. it should not go anywhere else. for the west, it means that the movement of article five across the 1989 line with restrictions only applies to germany, there is no restriction on what nato can do anywhere else. so, they disagree fiercely over this as they are trying to negotiate what becomes the nato russia founding act. yeltsin kept pushing back and saying no, that document was basically a veto anywhere else, you could only goodies to germany and nowhere else. the west, says that's not of the document, not the four corners of the document. it only talks about germany. so, yeltsin belatedly tried to 1997 to get a veto over nato enlargement, which gorbachev had gotten a 1990. he fails but this is key, he starts saying publicly that he'd gotten won anyway. he start saying, to appease as domestic critics, i got a veto against further nato expansion, nato infrastructure is likely to move eastward. american diplomats reaching frantically to the then-foreign minister -- and others saying, you know this isn't true, right? yeltsin knows this isn't in the documents. he kept saying i told of this but he keeps saying in public that he got a veto. it's a mistake, but he kept saying. it so, yeltsin creases popular sense that russia got a veto, that's creating another sense of betrayal. so, then, you get to putin, who realizes he can instrumentalize all this history. i don't think he's really concerned about historical accuracy, he doesn't refer to the final settlement of 1990, for example. he refers to the not one inch comment and says, look, we are betrayed. he's targeting 1997. he didn't december, as russian foreign ministry issued a draft treaty demanding that nato take its infrastructure back to where it was a 1997. and he did it in his remarks again just this week. 1997 is becoming a real touchstone for putin. so, finally, the phrase not one inch. as i've just described, as most commonly associated with george h. w. bush and baker ended as 1990 dispute about whether they promise gorbachev nato would move not one inch eastward. but as i got documents declassified for my book, my book actually cover the whole period between the end of the cold war and the start of covid with a particular focus on the 1990s. as i got documents declassified from the clinton library, which took me three years of appeals to do and happened despite kremlin protests. sidebar, when the kremlin protested i knew when i was getting must be good. when presidential spokesperson peskov personally complain to the libraries very excited. it turned out when i was getting was the bill boris bromance in print, all transcripts from clinton yeltsin summits. back to my main point, the phrase not one inch. as i got these clinton documents declassified, i realize the phrase not one inch, over the course of the 90s, gradually took on the opposite meaning. in other words, initially, for james baker it meant nato will not move one inch eastward. but by the end of the 90s, it had taken on the exact opposite meaning. washington had realized by then that it could not only win big, it could win bigger. not one inch of europe needed to be off limits to nato. there could be an open door, basically, in perpetuity. if there is one main takeaway from the book, it's that nato enlargement wasn't one entity, wasn't one thing. there are multiple ways to enlarge nato and they were known at the time. and this decision to go for a manner of expansion that has an endless open door was a conscious choice. there were people pushing back against it at the time. for example, the british said that the way we should expand nato is we should do it once, we should take our time while russia is weak, pick some really good allies, expand nato once and be done. because, otherwise, it's just going to keep aggravating russia. the americans like that the brits and said, no, that is exactly the opposite. we have a strategy encapsulated in the acronym's abroad, i sibrod sibrod, mall is beautiful, robust open door. and other, words were going to expand the smallest number of countries, only positive czechoslovakia, because we want to make it clear that nato expansion is not out of, and not a one-off, but a process. so, the brits are exactly wrong. then there is another vision, which i interest in my book as being appropriate, namely the partnership of peace. which would have smeared the line that nato expansion drew across europe and created less friction with moscow. in other words, my argument is not against nato expansion, my book is not against nato expansion. i think it was a reasonable response to the pressures of the 90s. certainly, the heroic leaders and protest movements like solidarity in poland, -- in czechoslovakia, so many others. they had broken free of soviet control, they had the comment democracies, they had the right to choose their alliances. nato expansion was a reasonable response to, that nato had expanded in the past and it was going to keep doing it. that was not unprecedented is not unreasonable. the problem is how it happened. this aggressive open door policy. i am on record as referring to putin as a grim, murderous leader. so, i have no sympathy with a putin regime. but i do see that the open-door is problematic. if i was in charge of russia, i would be concerned about, it i think that is not unreasonable. i think the basic problem here is that a post cold war order developed, the post cold war security order, without a stake for the largest country in europe, by which i mean russia. it doesn't require us to like putin, i think what he is doing to ukraine's reprehensible. but it is a reality that russia is a major european power. it is a reality that, 30 years after the end of the cold war, the u.s. and russia still control 90% of the nuclear warheads in the world, and russia's two nuclear to ignore. it is a reality that the u.s. and russia are the only countries that can essentially end life on earth. so, to have a european security system with no stake in place for russia is an unsustainable system. i felt fairly certain it was going to come to a crisis, which was byron published this book. and i'm in the surreal position where, on the one hand, i'm pleased that, intellectually, as on the right track. but as a human being concerned about world peace, i'm deeply, deeply worried. , so i'm glad that we're here today to talk about these important issues, especially with my knowledgeable colleague, michael kimmage. >> thank you so much, mary. both for the remarkable substance of your presentation and of course the book behind it, but also for posing several key questions in such a clear for. speaking of questions, let me just mention, not the spirit of anti climax but to make sure our audience knows that they should be submitted through the email address law i -- through twitter at kennedy institute or via the kennedy institute's facebook page. let me delve right and with two questions of my own, mary, and then we will open the conversation to the audience's questions. one thing i wanted to ask you about, since you have such a wealth of detail about the policy decisions but also the policy imagination of the 1990s, it specifically about the western side of the story. it's fascinating here discuss the difference between the british and the american approach about enlargement. but i want to ask about the expectations that accompanied nato enlargement in the 1990s, what kind of europe today's policy makers, there struck tile better bill clinton, other key figures, would kind of europe today invasion and how did they think that a large nato would contribute either the creation or the validation of that europe? >> yeah, thank you michael, for that question. insightful has always. there were, if i'm focusing on the united states, three camps, and i describe all of these in detail in my book, not one inch. let me describe each, in response to your question. the first camp, it's made representatives where secretary of defense bill kerry, a little bit his predecessor secretary of defense bill aspen, secretary of the joint chiefs of staff -- , john crews all in the defense department. these are people who are roughly as follows, and they'll parity their, the exact quote there in my, book not when it's. this is how bill perry summarized, but his view to president clinton. president clinton, i, bill perry, i have the greatest respect for central and eastern europeans, particularly love jensen, and the way they manage through of soviet control. but i, bill perry, and the secretary of defense of the united states of america and my job is to keep america safe and make it safer. and i'm doing a fabulous job because i am engaged in unprecedented collaboration with moscow to dismantle nuclear weapons that were targeting the united states. this is the greatest nuclear cooperation since the dawn of the atomic age. i think this is crucial going forward that this continue, and anything that irritates the russians, anything that moves their hand back to the trigger figuring causes them to rethink denuclearizing in this way is not in the interest of the united states government. to get your question, michael, about what you envision in the future, he said, i think for the future it's crucial to prioritize cooperation with russia above all else. that will be in the interest, not only of americans, but also of europeans. so, i understand, central and eastern europeans want to go into nato but you have to make laden but there's bigger game here. we have to think our time about the relationship with russia. so, personally, i think what we should do with nato enlargement, rather than trying to land across europe, is we should blur that line. we should have an intermediary organization that modulate is nato expansion, saves face for russia, doesn't maximize frictions with russia. and that organization of the partnerships for peace. this is an entity that we are going to create, we're going to be intentionally vague about its relationship to nato expansion. that ambiguity is a feature, not a bug. what we're going to do is make this organization, the pdf p, an institution that has a way to offer loose affiliation with nato to a wide number of countries. quietly, overtime, will bring some through various faces a duffel membership. there won't be an obvious beauty contest with obvious, lines we want mediately draw new lines between article five europe and on article five. europe by way of explanation for non nato experts, article five is the heart of the nato treaty. is the article that refers to every member state treating an attack on one as an attack on all. it's one of the most powerful military guarantees in history. so, before we give that to a lot of places, we'll have this phase and process to make sure they are inter operable, to make sure they have civilian control over the military and so forth. president clinton initially agrees with the steal, he says yes, that is a good fit for my vision of europe. i, president clinton, and conscious of the fact that i have an unbelievable chance. the first time in malaria to actually create a peaceful order in europe. i don't think i should just draw a new article five line across europe right away, i think that we should do this defuse method. not least because that opens up possibilities to post soviet states. again, this is also president clinton. president clinton said, i really concerned that post soviet states are being forgotten in the debate over nato expansion. i, president clinton, and particularly concerned about ukraine. it is the linchpin of security in europe. when i, mary sarotte, read that in the documents almost fell out of my chair because it's incredibly prescient. president clint was saying we need to offer birth to ukraine and we can't just put ukraine in nato in 1983. so, this partnership for peace is great because it doesn't draw you line it off for his birth for ukraine. which, by the, way have been born nuclear. it had so much of the soviet nuclear arsenal of territory, that on the day of independence, it was the third largest nuclear power in the world. -- around the world. so, he wanted to do something for ukraine. this was an approach that i think would've made more sense then, was a perfect now at the time. people hated it because it was not a sexy has expanded nato. the polls really despised, the checks as well. they really wanted to get to the nato, which is understandable. and as a new sovereign democracy they had that right. but they had a huge advantage, it was minimally acceptable to all stakeholders. so, it actually started working. i thought it was a sound policy. the problem with that, there were many, many people opposed to it. they had a different vision for europe. so, within the u.s. government, there were two camps that agreed on a policy. which is, let's draw a new article five line across your bust it is possible. but they disagreed on the reasons. so, there were when i call the optimist and the pessimists. or the offense he said, we don't have to worry about this because we believe that international organizations can for peace on a region. the more we expand nato, that's more safe everyone will feel, the less conflict there will be. so, actually, it's in our interest to start giving at article five as widely as possible because it will calm everybody down, that feels a successful, feel so secure, they'll cease to be conflict in europe. this is the optimistic argument. and clinton increasingly became swayed by this. clinton like the idea, he liked the book called non zero, he like that there could be win-win solutions. that you could expand nato and everybody could be happy. , then there was another camp that agreed with the policy by completely discreet on the reason. these are the pessimists. the pessimistic that the arguments and said, those people are idiots. but they're useful idiots. because what they say it sounds good on camera. we know that moscow will never change, that the soviet union and russian all the say, we need to cage the wildes down, we need to stab the bare walls on its knees. there are all these horrible bear metaphors throughout the documents. for me as a vegetarian, some of them fairly hair raising. a lot of violence towards animals in the documents. the idea was we have to have neo-containment, this appears on the documents, containment be on the cold war. we're not going to say it in, public because that doesn't sound right, so let the optimist make the case for nato expansion but we have to get article five it is possible. that's a different vision for europe. clinton shifts to that vision. in other words, having figured out the right answer, which was the partnership for peace, he then abandoned that it goes to what i call all or nothing article five expansion. partly because his advisers convince him, partly because the republican party supports it and they win big in the november 1994 midterm congressional elections. and clint needs those voters a few wants to be reelected, so he knows needs to pay attention that. partly because of self inflicted russian wounds. a big part of my book is there is russian agency there. i'm trying, innocents, to read a non triumphalist book about the end of the cold war, and a clear eyed look at both russian and american actions. the actions, under yeltsin, some tragic mistakes. i yeltsin start to shed the blood of his political opponents, in moscow in 1993, and in chechnya 1994. that causes central and eastern europeans to say, wait a minute, this is just like the old soviet union. invading places with violence. forget this partnership with pete that we agreed to under duress with moderate, and we need article five yesterday. these come together, that ukraine starts denuclearizing, which makes it a lesser priority. so, giving it a berth becomes a lesser priority, unfortunately. and clinton switch to this all or nothing writer of expansion, which then draws a new line across europe. so, now, we're on a very different timeline to a european feature that the other ones were provided. so, apologies for the long answer but it is a great question there's a lot of substance to it. >> not at all. i'm delighted to see questions piling up from the audience, so i'll just ask one further one. which is implicit to the few questions that already come in. ambassador braithwaite just gave your book a fantastic view on the page of the financial times and argue that there is something about the situation that we're currently in ads inevitable. and, going back to his screenwriting reference at the beginning of the conversation, you could sort of put vladimir putin at the center of the story. he appears at the beginning of the book, of course he appears at the end of your book, but he is here in leaps like perhaps listening to helmet coal speech about a unified germany and that could be a great opening scene of a movie. if you're to do that, the, that would imply that, as the drama comes to an end, so it would begin that, to put it out slightly more technical terms, russia cannot exist without trying to impose a sphere of influence to his neighbors to the west. and the united states, canada except a sphere of influence fresh by any other country -- . because you have this explicit and implicit contrast, you're going to have a collision. i want to ask you about the role that detail, nuance, contingency, twists and turns in the narrative plays. so that you can reflect on this issue of inevitability. it really is of the essence for western diplomats right now, this is an inevitable conflict. that means one thing for diplomacy, if it's not quite inevitable or edible it needs another thing. so it's not just a historical, question a contemporary one as well. yes, absolutely yes. that was very kind of the ambassador to give me such a generous review in the financial times. i am very hesitant to disagree with him on the inevitability of the conflicts. that means, by the way, that i am also disagreeing with george -- the namesake of your institute. who, of course, famously 25 years ago this month said that nato expansion was the greatest mistake of the post world war period. although i am being more hosted by the institute i have to register a complaint. he was on the record as saying that women should not be allowed to talk about international relations. i viola as interesting. he said that when women talk about international relations they are too earnest and it is embarrassing. of course, i disagree on that front and i am not as enamored with him as others maybe more. in disagreements with me kennan and braithwaite i disagree that the problem with nato enlargement was that, i think it was how it happened. there were multiple ways to enlarge it. if we could stop with the partnership to peace me. i'm not saying roses with russia right now but we were replace where we are. it would manage contingency in a much greater way, today we have the contingency of putting ukraine in nato or not, that is it. wouldn't it be great if we could take a time russian back to 1991? that is where i am, you can see me with boris yeltsin when he was a great democrat, we play this and create some more opportunities to manage contingency today. in essence, a way of thinking about that question of inevitability is by using the theory of evolution by the a biologist steven jay gold. if any of my students are in the audience they will grown because i have mentioned this before. he was an evolutionary biologist and did not see gradualism in the fossil record. i do not see a evolutionary page. what i see is a very long period of very little changes. and then, i see moments of dramatic change, dramatic punctuation, a punctuation ill offense such as an asteroid striking the art. an asteroid so large that it throws a cloud of dust into the atmosphere that cools the earth and the dinosaurs cannot survive. the dinosaurs die out and the mammals become dominant. you have long periods of stasis an equilibrium and then this traumatic punctuation a levant. and then a new equilibrium, in this case were mammals become dominant. the reason i answer that and answering your question is that i think another way to think about this is that in international relations there are periods where structure dominates, then there are these moments of change or crisis. contingency or agency dominates. that is what makes it a punctuation all moment. and then, a new stasis or equilibrium gradually settles in. when you are in this punctuation or moment i feel there are many paths future as possible. nothing is inevitable, that is why the moments are important because the chases helped shape the future. gradually as political leaders make choices in that moment they foreclose options and get to a certain path to the future. once you are on the path the time of the punctuation a moment there is no inevitability. it is all contingency. that is why it is historic. it is not just the west, we could have been in a better place now. i do not actually believe an inevitability for a certain point. after a certain point you start to change things once you have a new equilibrium. >> thank you so much, mary, let me just say and you will appreciate this given your meticulous archival research skills. the bell namesake of our institute is actually the uncle of george kennan. for the record, the famous traveler in siberia and author of late 19th century books on russia. >> i stand corrected. >> qualified. i have a lot of wonderful questions than i am in the role of reading. please continue contributing if you have further questions but we now have 11 on the list. what i am going to do, mary, is i will bundle them into groups of two. i may have to bundle them into somewhat larger groups as the clock ticks down. i will mention who is the asker of the question as well. let me start with our first question from iris strauss, former short term scholar and professor at moscow state university. lead organizer for eastern europe and russia and nato 1992. her question is as follows, if the west had responded more favorably to gorbachev and yeltsin in their feelers about joining nato, do you think we would be in a different situation today? i can throw in, by way of footnote, the very interesting 2002 policy planning memo in the u.s. department of state, speculating about russia joining nato. that is a great question about russia and nato membership. and then, the second question from david lane. nato was formed to counter and deter the warsaw pact. with the discontinuation of the pack, please explain why it was necessary for nato to continue? that is a big question. two excellent questions and i will pass the beyond on back to you, mary. >> i will take them in the reverse order, thank you for those great questions. nato was basically founded in the 1940s and 1950s to keep soviet tanks out of western europe. so, when i started doing research on this topic many years ago i expected somewhere to find a discussion of saying, after the wall came out and especially after the soviet union collapsed, mission accomplished. let's go home! to this day i have never found that discussion in the late 90s. obviously under president trump we started having that discussion in a major way in the united states, to the distress of our nato allies. it was carried out of a way that was massively insulting to our nato allies and deeply distressing to people dedicated to the transatlantic partnership such as myself. back in the 89 through 91 period i did not find that discussion, which was surprising to me. as a historian i am conscious of the united states in the 20th century essentially face the same challenge three times. it tried to reconstruct order in europe in the wake of a conflict. i try to do that in 1918, 1945, and then in a slightly different way after the end of the cold war in 1989. the reason i mention that is obviously in 1918 you ended up with a u.s. that retreated into isolationism. so, when the 1945 moment rolled around the state department and its representatives looked carefully at what went wrong in 1918. to learn its lessons. so, what do you do see in 1945, the study of 1918 to see what do we do to do better this time? i thought in 1989 i would see a similar looking back to 1945. but, i did not, and said what i saw was a sense that we just won the cold war. if it ain't broke don't fix it. things are great, why do we need to change anything? of course, political scientists know that institutions are sticky, meaning that once in an institution comes into being it almost always persists. so, although in the abstract exactly what the questioner said, you can have an argument in the abstract but maybe they should disband. and said what happened is this assumption that if it is not broken do not fix it. president george h. w. bush famously said i do not do that, with just one and what's stick with nato, stick with its ability to expand. there was a strong u.s. preference for sticking with pre-existing security organizations. there were people at the time who pushed back. there were central and eastern europeans, many of them former dissidents who had gone from prisons to presidencies once the revolution succeeded. and, many of these people who were pacifists that had refused to do military service in their country. they did not like either the soviet bloc or nato. and, many of them who were in positions of political authority said wishes be cognizant of the great historical tragedies that have happened in central and eastern europe. we should, in response that we have a chance, dissolve the borders in central and eastern europe. demilitarize and through nuclearize it and create a permanent zone of peace between east and west. you can say that would have been crazy, but that would have been a new world order. ideas like that made president george w. bush barry ward he said we need to rush to make sure we lock in this cold war that was so good for the united states. president george h. w. bush continued in succeeding that, it was not surprising to me that nato survived. what was surprising to me it was that george h. w. bush successfully labeled a new world order since it was not. the militarizing central and eastern europe would have been a new world order but it was not. you have an institution, it was fundamentally designed to contour moscow. persisting into the post cold war period, again, i have no sympathy for putin but you can understand why he says that he is worried about it. and then, the question about russian feelers from joining nato. certainly there were russian feelers for joining nato, interestingly there are very many aspects to this question but i want to focus on one. it is actually very relevant to news that broke today. when yeltsin and clinton, one of the times when the billboard romance was going strong talked about potential russian membership in nato, yeltsin said to clinton do you know what is going to be a big problem? the chinese reaction. the chinese are going to be worried about nato suddenly moving close to them. so, as we talk about putting russia into nato, bill, we are going to have to figure out how to manage the chinese reaction. the reason i mention that is because just before i went live i learned that putin is in beijing for the olympics, and issued a joint statement where they jointly criticize nato. so, in other words china has now gone on record in saying it was opposed to nato enlargement. that is a real sign of support for putin. and, very difficult for the united states. they have three big power centers. moscow, beijing, and washington. you do not want to coalescing against you. now moscow and beijing have in the last hour coalesced in written and formal opposition for nato enlargement. the story of russia and nato is a long and complicated story, i describe it in the book, if i talked about it here will be in seven hours. it is a great topic but i will leave it at that for now. >> thank you so much, mary, i am now going to read three questions. i will just invite you to cherry pick what pieces of them you want to respond to. mostly because i think it is important to include all of the questions that we have gotten. so, from michael hurt son, was gorbachev's view that the organization was of exceptional virtue and the best and the brightest representative of the population broadway? also, from edward can you explain if there is factual basis to the bay wake of the dissolution of the soviet union nato and its members acted as construed undertaking to not expand membership into eastern europe? and, third and final question for this round, in 1962 the u.s. was adamant about not allowing any russian missiles in cuba, so close to our border. does putin not have a valid concern about nato missiles and troops eventually being placed in ukraine near its border, and perhaps it other nations bordering russia? this from jonathan. >> the first one, i am not sure i had a question and it. gorbachev and the central kgb, well as the question? >> i think it may have been more of a comment, i will take the other two. mary, you have to unmute. >> as i mentioned in my opening remarks, and as i described in more detail in the book, there are a host of conversations where the words nato will move not one inch eastward or other similar phrases come up. certainly it is not wrong to say that it came up. one way to think about this is as a spectrum. this debate about nato enlargement, for too long it has been binary. i am trying to move beyond a binary, what do i mean by that? on the one hand you have the extreme russian position, which you are absolutely betrayed and it was crystal clear. cannot trust the west. putin has even said this in speeches, he said the biggest problem is you cannot trust a traitor so how do you negotiate anything? you have the absolute opposition on the other hand, this is the idea that it is a complete myth and the russians are psychotic. it never came up and they are just imagining it. it is a false memory, just completely fictitious. unsurprisingly when you get into the historical evidence and look at it, what actually happened is somewhere in between. repeatedly in the 90s discussions about limiting nato's movement come up, but, what is formalized and legally binding treaties is often quite different. as i said, they legally binding treaty that unified germany explicitly allows article five to move eastward across the cold war line. with restrictions, but it allows it to happen. which is an important precedent, the president of crossing the line. the 1997 agreement is not legally binding, again, there are assurances about what nato will do. it is not legally binding or a veto over nato expansion it gets to this tension between what is discussed and what is written down. to some degree, it's a debate about what's the word promise means, which is more a psychological debate that a historical debate. my -- when you're dealing with high-level international relations, agreements between states, you need to get what is important to you in writing. when i try to do two in my work was what was agreed to and writing, signed on to by moscow, but also provide the context of what was discussed. so, in my research, in addition to using the documents that i got declassified, i did over 100 interviews to ask people what was that you discuss that wasn't written down. so, certainly, it came up but then you have to look at what was signed in writing. and then, to go to the other question on potential nuclear forces in ukraine, and justified concerns. yes, to emphasize again, one more, time i have no sympathy with the putin government. but, again, if i was a leader of a country, certainly i'm concerned about where missiles could be in place that might threaten my country. in particular, i think this might offer a possibility, an opportunity, if you will, for ending the crisis. because i think it would be in mount both moscow's interest and in the west interest if we could reactivate at least some of two treaties that we all unwisely tore up. some from washington side, some from moscow side. that is the intermediate range nuclear forces treaty and the conventional forces on europe treaty. i think that, if both sides would be willing to talk about restoring some of those provisions, it could go a long way to ending this crisis. by the, way another recent development that i think is not received enough attention, the spanish newspaper alpines has leaked the american responses to the written responses from last week, that were given to moscow and response to its draft treaties. and again, putin really wants everything and writing, because of the ways gorbachev and yeltsin didn't get things in writing. if the leak is accurate, i don't know if it is but it seems to me these documents are accurate, the u.s. has said now, to moscow, that it is willing to produce written, signed instruments. yes, quote, written, side instruments of the future of european security. that seems, to me, to be a pretty serious opening. because that is what moscow, what's putin wants, these written agreements. so, if there was some way that it could be written down and signed that there wouldn't be intermediate range forces, nuclear forces in ukraine, that could address putin's concern. i, mean the real tragic irony here is that nato is not about to make ukraine or georgia members, it was not about to put intermediate, range next generation intermediate range forces in ukraine and it was not about to use conventional or other forces to invade russia. and yet, we may be about to have a war where, you know, huge numbers of ukrainians die over that possibility. and that is just too tragic for words. so, we need to make clear that nato does not want to do these things. and if the u.s. is willing to sign its myths to that effect, perhaps that is a way out of this crisis. i firmly believe, by the way, that will not invade before the end of the beijing olympics, he will not steal the spotlight from xi, he needs xi too much. not least of which because back in 2000, eight the last time china had the olympics, russia invaded georgia on august 1st, 2008. that's, stealing the spotlight from the chinese olympics, which started on august 8th 2008. and the chinese were not pleased, and let that be known. with putin, they're getting a heroes welcome, issuing joint statements with xi, i simply cannot see russia invading during xi the big party. i don't have any information on, that just pure speculation, but i'm willing to bet a large amount of money on that. so we have a breathing space until the olympics end of february 28th, and i hope that we can -- treaties that prevent ukrainians from dying. >> thank, you mary. certainly, there is a lot of diplomatic meetings planned for the next couple of weeks. as a footnote to what you're saying about putin's attitudes, there is a good piece in the new york times this morning about not putin's attitudes towards nato but russian attitudes toward nato, and they are not very warm. well that is a part of the story as well. obviously, putin has decision-making powers that are unique but he is also part of a political culture that dictates his options as much as he it's deciding upon them himself. i think when i'm going to do, mary, is ask you all the remaining questions and then, again, you can choose which elements of them you want to must respond to and then we will trot today's event to a close. please feel free to go a few minutes beyond 1 pm, we don't have to stick to that deadline. exactly, but will trade and pay flows to that moment. so, let me start with bill hale, global fellow. on the issue of aims the motivations of the u.s. in eastern european leaders a 1990, had evaluate the claims that issue such as the withdrawal of 500,000 soviet troops from eastern europe for the u.s. and withdrawal from the warsaw pact for the eastern europeans were as important and perhaps more important than it is a large? with the implication being that complaints about an alleged broken promise stem from later discontent and disillusion with the eventual architecture of the post cold war security order. another question. this is from paul mayer, adjunct professor of political studies at simon frazier university. doesn't the open door policy regarding new members go back to article ten of the 1949 north atlantic treaty? certainly an important historical question. from scott chesley, program manager who had been an afghan between 1995 1997, how should we even be approaching negotiation with a clearly totalitarian, ruthless eternal leader, completely different from many decades predecessors? here's a question from ted laying, wilson fellow. robert's alec did an event a few days ago, i think i'd be fair to say that he scoffed at the idea that western players never pledged not enlarge nato. for example, he said, by way of paraphrase, that we shouldn't forget that putin was a kgb officer and skill that disinformation. however, what you have described shows that the issue was more complicated. so, my question is, have you found a new research that western participants in the negotiations are now being misleading? that's an important question, because some of the history of nato enlargement has been written by people who are participants in the process. from and phillips, former wilson center scholar, what's it did the u.s. provide the ussr in response to mosque has agreements with the terms of german reunification? finally, from -- , in your book you bring particle as a light light as a wave analogy and you say the washington's highest priority should be the peoples formerly dominated by moscow. washington's highest priority should be moscow both at the same time. can both be done at the same time? that's a perfect question, it goes right to your opening paragraphs of the book. that's it from our and. the floor is now yours, before we thank you for your book and participation a draw today's event to a close. >> i was going to say, we're not extending to another six, hours i can address all of those? obviously, with four minutes i'm not going to build address all those questions. but these are all terrific. let me just pick a few things out. first of all, she said it to bill hill, who has a wonderful book, no place for russia. i strongly recommended to everyone. your point, complaints about a broken promise, today's time from later discontent? yes, absolutely. as i've talked about in my top, moscow signed a document that contain the opposite of a non expansion plant. moscow signed a document that allowed article five to most eastward. by the way, that caused considerable consternation with gorbachev's advisers. one of them ultimately committed suicide. gorbachev, i have great respect for, him i think he deserves a nobel prize. but when you get into the sources you see that it is actually a terrible negotiator and his team knew it. as a matter of fact, there is a famous moment at a u.s. soviet summit in may 31st, june 1st 1990. where gorbachev was just giving things away left right and center in his negotiating team, in the white house, in front of president bush and national security advisers go off, started contradicting which i've. friends go off later said that he was watching a palace coup in realtime. his advisers said you've got to push for this nato enlargement, you've got to get the nuclear weapons that are divided germany. you've got to make sure nuclear weapons don't come closer to russia. and, by the way, mikael, you have public opinion on your side. the west germany in the 19 80s were not on the streets in their hundreds of thousands, if not millions, to protest nuclear weapons. you, mikael gorbachev, you should say, you know, germans, you want to unify? you know the prices? get rid of the for nuclear weapons, and you can unify. a majority of last germans would've said we would be thrilled to make that deal. so, valentine finally kept pressing object to that anyone. he seemed like you prioritize more being part of the big club of global leaders and getting along with them that really pressing soviet advantages and negotiations. and so, moscow signed on to these documents and certainly what happens later, especially with what's going on right now, i think putin right now is saying i want to do over. i want to hold ukrainians hostage until i get a do over, because i could do better the gorbachev certainly a better than yeltsin. so, yes, no, that is absolutely right. then, they question about the open-door denying entry. obviously countries can apply to join nato and nato can defy them if it wants. the real question is what is the stated policy of washington towards enlargement, what does putin care about? this initial status where there was going to be, instead of drawing a hard line they were going to smear the line by having the peace. it would've accomplished the same thing, all of these places would have become members of nato but it would have caused last friction, it is more about presentation than anything else. let me just close on bob, there are obviously more questions but let me close on bob. he was extremely helpful to me about my book, give me multiple interviews and read parts of the book that were related to his participation and events so i could make sure i had understood them correctly, i do not agree with the idea of scoffing at the russians, they lives of ukrainians are hanging in the balance, and more than that as this conflict escalates which is what is very scary. if there were airstrikes, russian aircraft are straying into international airspace while they are in an acquisition mode. they start to log on to nato aircraft, the aircraft have a right of self-defense. there is a lot a very scary escalations in areas. there are also scary refugees in areas. things are getting very serious. i do not think we should scoff, we should be clear as the issues came up. we should work on a shared narrative with the evidence i have tried to present in my book, which had say what we need to do is go forward, it will be in your interest and hours to prevent this war in europe and provide parts of the intermediate range nuclear forces. in your interest and hours to have revived cooperative forces. you need to revive that moment of optimism that existed in the 90s. to try to go back to a potential for peace in europe, we have a window of opportunity until the end of the chinese olympics and i think we should seize it. >> mary, it has been a privilege to have you with us for the last hour, i will say by way of one further statement appraise for your book i think it would have been a masterpiece whenever it was published because of the caliber of the research and the wonderful writing. not hollywood ask in tone but riveting from the first to the last page. all of that will stand the test of time for what the work truly is, a work of history exactly you are articulating in response to the question about robert is alec. we need a credible historical record before we can do anything else. but i am especially happy that this masterpiece has appeared at this present moment. you are offering policymakers what they most need, which is a firm intellectual foundation. i think that does began with history, events, and decision-making will take their course. you have had this audience, given all of us who care about these issues a wonderful book and gift. you have also given it to the policy makers who are in the midst of, exactly as you are describing, immensely consequential decisions. thank you once again for your time, thank you for the book.