Re NATO's "expansion", no one has provoked Russia: Rather than NATO moving East, Eastern European countries moved West — eager for a Western security umbrella after 40 years of Kremlin dictatorship

In response to a member of Hong Kong's Legislative Council, Regina Ip, claiming in The Economist that NATO played a part in fuelling Russian aggression ("NATO, an American-led military organisation, expanded eastward four times, inching closer and closer to Russia’s border"), several voices rose in protest. Here are a couple:

No one has provoked Russia. Eastern European countries wanted a Western security umbrella after 40 years of Kremlin dictatorship. Rather than nato moving East, as Ms Ip implies, these countries moved West. Who should be surprised, or even offended?

michael kuttner
Stege, Denmark

Regina Ip (Letters, March 19th) either misunderstands or wilfully misinterprets nato’s expansion into central Europe. That expansion was not the result of pressure from nato but rather the free decisions of democratically elected governments. They recognised the threat from the Russian dictatorship, which thinks that adjacent countries and their populations are an indissoluble part of its polity. If the central European governments wish to leave nato they are free to do so, though Russia’s savage butchery of Ukraine now makes their original case a thousand times stronger.

If Ms Ip were to open her window in the Legislative Council offices in Hong Kong, she might find that a democratic majority of Hong Kongers see very distinct parallels in their own Asian region.

david hart
Harrogate, North Yorkshire

 

Related: Russian Revanchism and Revisionism — given their histories with Russia, it’s not hard to understand why the newly independent countries of Central and Eastern Europe all desperately wanted to join NATO