Why did NATO break their promise given to the Russians not to expand eastwards?

Question

When the Russians pulled out of Germany in 90's, NATO gave them “firm guarantees” that it would not go beyond the borders of Germany:
“…The very fact that we are ready not to deploy NATO troops beyond the territory of the Federal Republic gives the Soviet Union firm security guarantees… “
(17 May 1990, "The Atlantic Alliance and European Security in the 1990s” - Speech by NATO Secretary General, Manfred Wörner, to the Bremer Tabaks Collegium, Brussels. Here is the link: http://www.nato.int/docu/speech/1990/s900517a_e.htm )
Now we know that NATO is bordering on Russia. So, the question is why did NATO break its promise?
I asked this question many times in the past and often would receive answers that were either not to the point or not sufficient. Please read them below before answering, otherwise you may waste your time.

1. The newly independent countries that were under the yoke of the Soviet Union requested to join NATO. Independent nations can choose their own destiny. They don’t need permission from Russia. ----- True, but this is not the answer to my question. I agree that the newly independent countries don’t need permission from Russia, but the fact that they requested to join NATO doesn’t mean that NATO had no freedom not to accept them. If NATO really wanted to keep its promise not to go beyond the borders of Germany, it could have refused to accept those nations – NATO did have this choice. Plus, at the time when they requested to join NATO, the “yoke of the Soviet Union” did not exist as the Soviet Union had already stopped existing by that time.

2. NATO must not honor a promise to a past, corrupt, communist regime -------- Well, when NATO started expanding eastwards, Russia was already a far cry from having a communist regime – the new government in Russia had actually overthrown the Communist regime, and the Communist Party had become an opposition. Plus, if NATO doesn’t honor its own promises – no matter to what regime these promises were given – it only proves that NATO itself is corrupt and quite hypocritical.

3. The promise was given to USSR, not to Russia ------ True, but with the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia declared itself the successor to the Soviet Union, which means that all that agreements that had been achieved between NATO and USSR were still valid now between NATO and Russia. NATO, as well as the whole Europe and the USA, does consider Russia to be the successor to the Soviet Union.
So, the question is still the same: why did NATO break its promise?

Answer 1

Peter Hitchens has written very clearly on this topic and I tend to agree with him: When Russia was down, Nato thought they'd never get back up, so they kicked them. Simple as that, no one thought Russia would ever again be in a position to contest American/Nato interests, so they decided that expansion would be the best way to keep Russia down for good. They were wrong, and expansion was a bad idea in my opinion, we should have kept our promises and treated Russia differently.

Answer 2

Russia is not the U.S.S.R. which is whom NATO made the agreements with. The Cold War is over (or at least the Western world thinks so). Those are the basic reasons.

Answer 3

Perhaps it would have been better to post this section of the speech which clearly defines the intentions of the Western members, the "guarantees"
mentioned were in the context of by doing what they state under NATO Policy Russia would not be threatened.

There is no concrete guarantees being offered in writing to the Russians here at all!!!

Remember, Russia was an occupying force that stole vast areas of land from Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and a section of Finland immediately after WW2, as well as dominating East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, etc..
Russia as always been the aggressor post WW2 and NATO was set up along Defense lines to keep the USSR out of Western Europe.
Russia (Putin) is annoyed over a missile shield being erected but there are no plans (as of yet) for thousands of NATO troops to be stationed along the Russian border, (unless the new dictator Putin, stops flexing is military muscle by provocative flybys of NATO Air-space.

German Membership.

The other primary task is to anchor a united Germany firmly into the institutional structures of the West, the EC and NATO.

Three basic considerations determine our Alliance policy:

1. Neutrality or non-alignment of the united Germany are not acceptable for us. They would destabilize Europe and take us back to the days of balance of power diplomacy, of alliances and counter-alliances.

2. The united Germany must not be subjected to any discriminatory special regimes. They would only produce resentment sooner or later. On this point too, history teaches us a sobering lesson.

"3. We have to find solutions that respect the legitimate security interests of all the participants - including the Soviet Union. I emphasize: all participants; in other words not only the Soviet Union. That nation has a right to expect that German unification and Germany's membership of the Atlantic Alliance will not prejudice its security."

"But it is also clear that it cannot expect us to put NATO's existence on the line and thus give it something that it never succeeded in obtaining in the past, even at the height of its power.

The West cannot respond to the erosion of the Warsaw Pact with the weakening or even dissolution of the Atlantic Alliance; the only response is to establish a security framework that embraces both alliances: in other words one that draws the Soviet Union into a cooperative Europe."

We are already in the process of examining our strategy and our Alliance tasks, and of adapting them to changed circumstances.

"Yet nobody can expect us to deprive NATO of its core security function and its ability to prevent war."

"Our strategy and our Alliance are exclusively defensive. They threaten no-one, neither today nor tomorrow.
We will never be the first to use our weapons.

We are prepared for radical disarmament, right down to the minimum level that we must retain to guarantee our security."

This will also be true of a united Germany in NATO. The very fact that we are ready not to deploy NATO troops beyond the territory of the Federal Republic gives the Soviet Union firm security guarantees.

Moreover we could conceive of a transitional period during which a reduced number of Soviet forces could remain stationed in the present-day GDR. This will meet Soviet concerns about not changing the overall East-West strategic balance.

"Soviet politicians are wrong to claim that German membership of NATO will lead to instability. The opposite is true. Europe including the Soviet Union would gain stability. It would also gain a genuine partner in the West ready to cooperate."

We have left behind us the old friend/foe mind-set and the confrontational outlook. We do not need enemies nor threat perceptions. We do not look upon the Soviet Union as the enemy. We want that nation to become our partner in ensuring security. On the other hand, we expect the Soviet Union not to see us as a military pact directed against it or even threatening it.

"Instead we wish the Soviet Union to see our Alliance as an open and cooperative instrument of stability in an over-arching European security system. We are not proposing something to the Soviet Union which is against its interests. What we have to offer can only be to its advantage. I am confident that this insight will gradually gain ground in Moscow, especially as the other Warsaw Pact countries see things the same way as we do."

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You obviously have a problem understanding what is meant here:

"The very fact that we are ready not to deploy NATO troops beyond the territory of the Federal Republic gives the Soviet Union firm security guarantees."

This does not mean anything was given in writing, no pledge / promise was made 17 years ago with regards NATO policy, it only states it (NATO / WEST) wants Russia to see any adaptation as a defensive gesture and not to be looked upon with the old Communist mentality, as anything not sanctioned by them (Russia) is a threat.

Answer 4

Seeing as how the Soviet Union violated just about every agreement it ever made I guess NATO felt turn-about was fair play.

Answer 5

Did they make that promise before the Soviet Union collapsed? If so, then when the Soviet Union collapsed, that probably changed the situation.

Answer 6

Because NATO has become Gross Deutchland, It should have been disbanded when the Warsaw Pact Collapsed.