Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger has stated that Washington’s efforts to integrate Ukraine into NATO following the Soviet Union’s demise were not appropriate.
Kissinger told the Council on Foreign Relations on Friday that “attempting to integrate Ukraine in NATO was not a good American policy.”
He claimed that Russia saw its sphere of influence in Eastern Europe as a “safety belt,” and that US efforts to intrude on former Soviet bloc nations under its umbrella after the Berlin wall fell essentially jeopardized Russian security.
He maintained, however, that the US-led NATO move to intrude on former Soviet Union members did not justify Russian President Vladimir Putin’s intentions to re-incorporate Ukraine into Moscow’s sphere of influence by a “surprise attack.”
Kissinger said he doesn’t know if peace with Putin is feasible, but that the West “must explore an opportunity for an arrangement that secures Ukrainian freedom” and keeps the country in the European Union.
Furthermore, Kissinger stated that Russia has “already lost the battle” in the sense that its ability to threaten Europe with conventional attacks, which it had enjoyed for decades or perhaps centuries, “has now been clearly overcome.”
Despite this, the former secretary of state indicated that the West and Russia must engage in talks sooner or later. “Some communication, perhaps on an unofficial level, perhaps in an exploratory approach,” he said again, adding that “given the nuclear environment,” such a conclusion is preferable to a “battlefield choice.”
Kissinger accused the United States’ lack of visionary leadership of pushing the world to the brink of conflict with Russia and China in August.
Kissinger, a Republican, is a famous professor of global affairs at America’s famed Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.
In addition, he is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
