Technically he's correct about the right, NATO agreed not to expand east back in the day and then violated that. I haven't seen the evidence that they could bury everyone though.
The topic of 'NATO expansion' was never discussed; it was not raised in those years. I am saying this with a full sense of responsibility. Not a single Eastern European country brought up the issue, not even after the Warsaw Pact had ceased to exist in 1991. -- Gorbachev
So yeah this is another case of russia bending history to fuel their victim complex.
None of NATO’s pledges to the leaders of the Soviet Union have been written down in any agreement, signed by the two parties and codified. Indeed, no one claims to have such a document.
It's all that matters. Some random utterances, speaking off the record etc. don't count, aren't and cannot be binding.
How could we bind ourselves to something if we don't even know what exactly was promised?
Furthermore, were those people uttering those hypothetical sentences even authorized to make such promises? We'll never know, they were never written down, never vetted, nothing. It's all meaningless.
In U.S. domestic politics, for example, an informal offer can constitute a binding agreement provided one party gives up something of value in consideration of payment in goods or services. A similar principle applies to inter- national politics: not only are formal agreements often the codiacation of arrangements that states would make regardless of a formal offer, but if private and unwritten discussions are meaningless, then diplomacy itself would be an unnecessary and fruitless exercise.
Nope. The article then goes on to describe his research into exactly how NATO discussed how there was a long history of informal agreements during the cold war. The Cuban Missile Crisis was resolved informally for example.
Well, US domestic politics isn't international, is it?
an informal offer can constitute a binding agreement provided one party gives up something of value in consideration of payment in goods or services.
What did the other side receive? We'll never know, since it wasn't recorded, most people involved can't remember (Gorbachev couldn't recall any such promises) and/or are already dead.
The Cuban Missile Crisis was resolved informally for example.
It can be used to resolve an immediate problem. But it's absurd to think that an unrecorded agreement whose terms nobody knows will be binding for eternity.
Technically yes isn't yes tho. I mean Russia will do anything to justify itself. The difference between NATO expansion and Russian expansion, Russia engages military operations while countries are trying to join NATO to protect themselves from Russia
so to be clear on the original point, NATO hasnt broken any treaty and its 'expansion' is people wanting to join so that they dont get invaded by russia