2022.03.23 北约的扩张只是导致冲突的几个因素中的一个

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By Invitation | Russia and Ukraine
Sir Adam Roberts rebuffs the view that the West is principally responsible for the crisis in Ukraine
The scholar argues that the expansion of NATO was just one factor among several that led to conflict

Mar 23rd 2022 (Updated Mar 23rd 2022)


WHY IS IT that John Mearsheimer, a distinguished American exponent of international relations, has reached such an apparently perverse conclusion about Russia’s “special military operation” in Ukraine? It is a “special military operation” indeed—one whose initiation and conduct have been condemned as violating the most fundamental rules and norms. Yet he argued in an article for The Economist’s By Invitation section on March 19th that “the West, and especially America, is principally responsible for the crisis which began in February 2014.”

Professor Mearsheimer does not let Vladimir Putin off the hook entirely: “There is no question that Vladimir Putin started the crisis and is responsible for how it is being waged,” he writes. But Professor Mearsheimer’s central argument is that the crisis began at NATO’s Bucharest summit in April 2008, when President George W. Bush, along with the other NATO member states, ostensibly committed the alliance to the future membership of Ukraine and Georgia. The Russian leadership was deeply opposed to the prospect of NATO extending its reach so close to the heartland of Russia.


It’s questionable whether Mr Putin was right to say NATO posed a threat to Russia’s sphere of influence. From the start in 2008 there were different interpretations of what was meant by “will become members”. For some these words, with no time-frame specified, were there to enable President Bush to return home from Bucharest with something to show for his trip. Other member states, all of whose votes would have been essential for any formal offer of membership, remained doubtful. But Mr Putin took the phrasing seriously.

Professor Mearsheimer’s argument has some strength in suggesting that the 2008 Bucharest summit declaration was a disaster. He has shown consistency in this matter. He practically invented a school of international relations called “offensive realism”, based round the idea that systems in which there are several great powers are prone to manage their mutual relations with deep rivalry and a high risk of war. One conclusion that follows from his world-view is that states are bound to take seriously the concept of “spheres of influence”, an old-fashioned term for a phenomenon that is still very much alive. However much spheres of influence may challenge the idea of the sovereign equality of states, they have by no means disappeared in international relations.

Take the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. In demanding the withdrawal of Soviet nuclear-armed missiles from Cuba, America was, in effect, defending the Monroe Doctrine of 1823. The doctrine sought to exclude European colonial rule and military presence from the western hemisphere. As for the Soviet Union, throughout the cold war it regarded virtually all of eastern Europe, where it imposed client regimes, as its sphere of influence under the euphemistic label of “commonwealth of socialist nations”.


There is no dispute now that Mr Putin wants to defend Russia’s sphere of influence. Right at the start of his speech on February 24th, as his forces invaded Ukraine, he criticised the “expansion of the NATO bloc to the east, bringing its military infrastructure closer to Russian borders”. He embarked on a tirade against the actions of the Western powers and of the Ukrainian government. He infamously claimed, without a shred of evidence, that there was an ongoing “genocide against the millions of people” in the Donbas region.

However, for Professor Mearsheimer to reduce the causes of Russia's invasion to the Bucharest declaration is simplistic and wrong. Other, more important factors were at play. For a start, there were some obvious frustrations, fears and mistakes. The continuing American strategic partnership with Ukraine, which Professor Mearsheimer mentions, may indeed have played a part, rubbing salt in the wound of NATO’s projected expansion. Ukrainian defiance in response to Russia’s huge military exercise on its border last year would have been hard for Mr Putin to tolerate. A successful and democratic Ukraine undermines the Russian leader’s own authoritarianism at home. And there was a faulty understanding of the situation on the ground: both America in Iraq and Russia in Ukraine have launched wars on terrible “intelligence”.

Alongside these proximate causes there are three other factors that help to explain the current crisis in Ukraine. The most important, and the most neglected, is that the break-up of empires is often messy and traumatic. Often foreign military intervention of some kind follows. The end of European colonial empires, and the collapse of the Soviet and Yugoslav empires in the 1990s, forced new or re-constituted states to make fateful decisions. Is citizenship based on ethnicity or simply residence? Should kin living outside the state have a right to citizenship? What frontiers does the state have? What friends and allies? What constitution? What language? Such questions have been at the heart of most of the political crises and armed conflicts of the past 100 years or more. The dozens of UN peacekeeping missions established since 1945 have all had the task of addressing post-colonial and post-imperial crises.

Both Georgia and Ukraine faced many if not all of these quandaries in the 1990s—and faced them long before the question of NATO membership arose. From the very beginning of their new existence the status of Russian minorities in Georgia and Ukraine was particularly difficult. In Georgia two breakaway republics provided a basis, or at least a pretext, for Russian intervention on occasion. In Ukraine, too, defending the rights of its two Russian-supported breakaway republics was the ostensible reason for Russian military interventions there. And in these pro-Russian republics there were forced expulsions, of Georgians and Ukrainians respectively, leading to calls that they should be enabled to return to their homes.

Second, the existence of nuclear weapons outside of Russia necessitated a degree of Western involvement in security matters. An array of nuclear weapons remained in Ukraine (and also in Belarus and Kazakhstan) following the collapse of the Soviet Union. The problem of what to do with this arsenal was addressed in the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances of December 5th 1994. The three post-Soviet states agreed to hand these nuclear weapons over to Russia. In return, they received security assurances from Russia, Britain and America, which all undertook to respect the sovereignty, independence and existing borders of Ukraine and the other two states. This provision was violated by Russia’s takeover of Crimea in March 2014. The breakdown of the Budapest Memorandum left Ukraine in an awkward situation. It was unable to trust Russia’s word, but also had reason to doubt Western security guarantees. The idea of full-blooded membership of NATO appeared increasingly attractive but not necessarily more attainable.


The third factor is colour revolutions—the popular revolutions that occurred in many countries in the former Soviet Union in recent decades. They must have reminded Mr Putin of the movements in eastern Europe in 1989 that precipitated the collapse of one communist regime after another. Mr Putin was deeply suspicious of the revolutions, such as the Rose revolution in Georgia in November 2003. It was the first successful assault in the former Soviet Union against the corrupt strongmen who had come to power in the immediate aftermath of communist party rule. It was followed within a year by the Orange revolution in Ukraine that threw out another such strongman, Viktor Yanukovych.

It suits Mr Putin to treat civil resistance movements as parts of a grand international conspiracy. I have been studying such movements for more than 50 years. In that time all kinds of accusations have been made that such movements are the pawns of outside forces. There is little evidence to support such theories. Professor Mearsheimer, in a lecture on “The Causes and Consequences of the Ukraine Crisis” at Chicago University in 2015, actually lent some credence to the idea that such movements verge on being an American instrument. “Our basic strategy is to topple regimes all over the world.” Evidence for this generalisation was not presented. Throughout his analysis Professor Mearsheimer pays remarkably little attention to the ideals and political desires of people in countries that have experienced “people power” revolutions.

These factors suggest that the 2008 proposal to expand NATO to include Georgia and Ukraine is just one among many developments that have made the current crisis so acute. It is arguable, indeed likely, that the NATO expansion proposal made matters worse, as may some other Western actions, but to assert that “the West is principally responsible for the Ukrainian crisis” goes too far.

Sir Adam Roberts is an emeritus professor of international relations at the University of Oxford.



应邀参加｜俄罗斯和乌克兰
亚当-罗伯茨爵士驳斥了认为西方应对乌克兰危机负主要责任的观点。
这位学者认为，北约的扩张只是导致冲突的几个因素中的一个。

2022年3月23日



美国杰出的国际关系专家约翰-米尔斯海默（John Mearsheimer）为何对俄罗斯在乌克兰的 "特别军事行动 "得出了如此明显的反常结论？这的确是一次 "特殊的军事行动"--其发起和行为被谴责为违反了最基本的规则和规范。然而，他在3月19日为《经济学人》的《应邀》栏目撰写的文章中认为，"西方，特别是美国，对2014年2月开始的危机负有主要责任。"

米尔斯海默教授并没有完全放过普京的责任。"他写道："毫无疑问，弗拉基米尔-普京是这场危机的始作俑者，并对危机的发动方式负责。但米尔斯海默教授的核心论点是，这场危机始于2008年4月的北约布加勒斯特峰会，当时乔治-W-布什总统与其他北约成员国一起，表面上承诺该联盟未来将接纳乌克兰和格鲁吉亚为成员国。俄罗斯领导层对北约将其触角延伸到如此接近俄罗斯中心地带的前景深表反对。


普京先生说北约对俄罗斯的势力范围构成威胁，这一点是值得怀疑的。从2008年开始，人们对 "将成为成员 "的含义有不同的解释。对一些人来说，这些没有明确时间框架的词语是为了让布什总统从布加勒斯特回国时能给他的旅行带来点什么。其他成员国仍然持怀疑态度，它们的投票对于任何正式的成员资格提议都是必不可少的。但普京先生认真对待了这一措辞。

米尔斯海默教授认为2008年的布加勒斯特峰会宣言是一场灾难，他的论点有一定道理。他在这个问题上表现出了一致性。他几乎发明了一个被称为 "进攻性现实主义 "的国际关系学派，该学派的观点是，在有几个大国的体系中，很容易以深刻的竞争和高度的战争风险来处理它们之间的关系。从他的世界观中得出的一个结论是，各国必须认真对待 "势力范围 "的概念，这是一个老生常谈的术语，但这种现象仍然非常活跃。无论势力范围如何挑战国家主权平等的理念，它们在国际关系中绝没有消失。

以1962年的古巴导弹危机为例。在要求苏联从古巴撤出核武导弹时，美国实际上是在捍卫1823年的门罗主义。该学说试图将欧洲的殖民统治和军事存在排除在西半球之外。至于苏联，在整个冷战期间，它把几乎所有的东欧都视为它的势力范围，并以 "社会主义国家共同体 "为委婉的标签，在那里强加客户政权。


现在，普京先生想要捍卫俄罗斯的势力范围，这一点没有争议。2月24日，当他的部队入侵乌克兰时，他一开始就批评了 "北约集团向东扩张，使其军事基础设施更接近俄罗斯边界"。他开始大肆抨击西方大国和乌克兰政府的行动。他臭名昭著地声称，在没有任何证据的情况下，顿巴斯地区正在发生 "针对数百万人的种族灭绝"。

然而，米尔斯海默教授将俄罗斯入侵的原因归结为布加勒斯特宣言是简单化和错误的。其他更重要的因素也在发挥作用。首先，有一些明显的挫折、恐惧和错误。米尔斯海默教授提到的美国与乌克兰的持续战略伙伴关系，可能确实起到了一定的作用，在北约的预期扩张的伤口上撒盐。针对俄罗斯去年在其边境举行的大规模军事演习，乌克兰人的挑衅会让普京先生难以容忍。一个成功的、民主的乌克兰会破坏俄罗斯领导人自己在国内的独裁主义。而且，对当地局势的理解也有问题：美国在伊拉克和俄罗斯在乌克兰都是根据可怕的 "情报 "发动战争。

除了这些近因，还有其他三个因素有助于解释乌克兰当前的危机。最重要的，也是最被忽视的是，帝国的解体往往是混乱的和创伤性的。通常情况下，外国的某种军事干预随之而来。欧洲殖民帝国的结束，以及20世纪90年代苏联和南斯拉夫帝国的崩溃，迫使新的或重新组建的国家做出致命的决定。公民身份是基于种族还是仅仅基于居住地？生活在国家之外的亲属是否应该有权利获得公民身份？国家有哪些疆域？有哪些朋友和盟友？什么宪法？什么样的语言？这些问题是过去100多年来大多数政治危机和武装冲突的核心。自1945年以来成立的几十个联合国维和特派团都承担着解决后殖民主义和后帝国主义危机的任务。

格鲁吉亚和乌克兰在20世纪90年代都面临着许多（如果不是全部）这样的窘境--而且是在北约成员资格问题出现之前就面临着这些窘境。格鲁吉亚和乌克兰的俄罗斯少数民族从一开始就面临着特别困难的处境。在格鲁吉亚，两个分裂的共和国为俄罗斯有时的干预提供了基础，或者至少是借口。在乌克兰，捍卫其两个由俄罗斯支持的分离共和国的权利也是俄罗斯在那里进行军事干预的表面理由。而在这些亲俄罗斯的共和国中，分别有格鲁吉亚人和乌克兰人被强行驱逐，导致人们呼吁让他们返回自己的家园。

第二，由于俄罗斯境外存在核武器，西方国家有必要在一定程度上参与安全事务。苏联解体后，乌克兰（以及白俄罗斯和哈萨克斯坦）仍有一系列的核武器。1994年12月5日的《布达佩斯安全保证备忘录》解决了如何处理这一武器库的问题。这三个后苏联国家同意将这些核武器移交给俄罗斯。作为回报，他们得到了俄罗斯、英国和美国的安全保证，它们都承诺尊重乌克兰和其他两个国家的主权、独立和现有边界。俄罗斯在2014年3月接管克里米亚时违反了这项规定。布达佩斯备忘录的破裂使乌克兰处于一个尴尬的境地。它无法相信俄罗斯的承诺，但也有理由怀疑西方的安全保证。完全加入北约的想法似乎越来越有吸引力，但不一定更容易实现。


第三个因素是颜色革命--近几十年来在前苏联许多国家发生的人民革命。它们一定让普京先生想起了1989年东欧的运动，这些运动催生了一个又一个共产主义政权的垮台。普京先生对这些革命深表怀疑，例如2003年11月格鲁吉亚的玫瑰革命。这是前苏联第一次成功地打击了在共产党统治后立即上台的腐败强人。一年之内，乌克兰发生了橙色革命，推翻了另一个强人维克多-亚努科维奇。

普京先生把民间抵抗运动当作国际大阴谋的一部分，这很适合他。我研究这类运动已经超过50年了。在这段时间里，人们提出了各种各样的指控，说这些运动是外部势力的棋子。没有什么证据可以支持这种理论。米尔斯海默教授2015年在芝加哥大学发表的关于 "乌克兰危机的原因和后果 "的演讲中，实际上对这种运动接近于美国的工具这一观点给予了一定的信任。"我们的基本战略是推翻世界各地的政权。" 这一概括的证据并没有提出。在整个分析过程中，米尔斯海默教授对那些经历过 "人民力量 "革命的国家的人民的理想和政治愿望关注得非常少。

这些因素表明，2008年关于扩大北约以包括格鲁吉亚和乌克兰的提议只是使当前危机如此严重的众多发展之一。可以说，确实有可能，北约的扩张提议使事情变得更糟，就像其他一些西方行动一样，但断言 "西方对乌克兰危机负有主要责任 "就太过分了。

亚当-罗伯茨爵士是牛津大学的国际关系荣誉教授。