US Ambassador Julie Smith on NATO and the Russia-Ukraine War

This is a podcast interview with Julianne Smith, the US Ambassador to NATO since December of 2021 about the Russia-Ukraine War.¹

Since she has a prominent diplomatic position, she has to be assumed to be speaking primarily for the Biden Administration here.

With that in mind, this early exchange is particularly interesting:

DAN KURTZ-PHELAN

I want to ask one more backward looking question before we talk about what’s going on today in Ukraine. There was a brief period when the question of NATO expansion suddenly became a kind of front page topic after many years of it being, you know, debated in places like Foreign Affairs but not getting a lot of public attention. I don’t want to rehearse the debates about whether NATO expansion was a mistake, but as, you know, you’ve been involved in transatlantic issues and worked on NATO for a long time, as you look back over post-Cold War American policy and transatlantic strategy, are there mistakes that we made with regard to NATO, with regard to Russia, that you think could have set us on a better course than the one we’re on today? Are there things you would do differently if you go back to the 90s or 2000s and think about what U.S. policy did?

JULIE SMITH

I don’t know—I am not someone who’s in the camp of NATO enlargement was a mistake or was escalatory or poked Russia in the eye. I feel like throughout the 90s the NATO allies, either individually or collectively, were very transparent, very open to ideas about how NATO and Russia could work together. There were new initiatives and programs that were launched on the NATO-Russia relationship—more specifically, at some point we created what is called the NATO-Russia council [2001]. At some point Russia was invited to actually have an office at NATO headquarters with a proper ambassador there. So I think if you talk to the Russians they have what I would describe as sometimes revisionist history, of some sort of conspiracy where NATO came together and decided to take advantage of Russia being in this weakened position. But when I look back I see an alliance that was fairly open-minded about its future relationship, and was very transparent on the conditions under which it would add new members, why it was adding new members. We had the NATO-Russia Founding Act [1997²] that set the conditions on how and when and whether NATO troops would ever be present in those new member states.

So it wasn’t as if NATO blindsided Russia, that they didn’t understand that enlargement was underway. I think it was the right decision: I think NATO enlargement has spurred some very significant changes in those new member states along with EU membership. Between EU membership and NATO membership, those two have driven significant changes in the governments and the structures that exist in those new member states. So I remain a supporter of the process, and I think NATO’s current position, where it’s been in the last couple of months, of stating very directly to Russian counterparts that its open door policy is non-negotiable—I think those views are coming across loud and clear, and I think there’s total consensus on NATO’s current position as it relates to enlargement. [MY EMPHASIS]

Interpreting the diplomacy-speak here, when she refers back to the NATO-Russia Founding Act of 1997 during the Clinton Administration: that cooperative agreement to consult on NATO enlargement was established in response to the clear opposition that Russian President Boris Jeltsin to the initial round to NATO enlargement to the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland.

As Rodrik Braithwaite has written from a retrospective viewpoint:

The Clinton administration that took over in 1993 attempted to enlarge NATO while maintaining good relations with Russia. It was a forlorn hope. The Russians were alienated and alarmed by Western military intervention in Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq, and Afghanistan.³

But the Clinton Administration recognized in both practical and former ways that the Russians were expressing their concern and opposition to NATO enlargement. And the NATO-Russia Founding Act did lead to a formal consultation process with Russia over issues like positioning of troops in new NATO countries. The succeeding Cheney-Bush Administration charged in with the arrogant “neoconservative” militarism and made it blatantly clear to the Russian government, then run by Vladimir Putin, that they didn’t much give a flip what the Russians thought about anything the US decided to do.

In other words, Ambassador Smith is saying politely that the Democratic Clinton Administration was paying attention to risks with Russia. Then the Republican Administration of George W. Bush created a mess of things.

Steven Pifer described in January 2021 the negotiations in the NATO-Russia Council to which Julie Smith alludes. he states the Russian position at the time:

For the Kremlin, however, this is first and foremost about Ukraine and Moscow’s desire for a sphere of influence in the post-Soviet space.  After meeting U.S. officials on January 10, Deputy Foreign Minister Ryabkov said “it’s absolutely mandatory to make sure that Ukraine, never, never ever becomes a member of NATO.”  (While there is little enthusiasm among NATO members now for putting Ukraine on a membership track, as the Russians almost certainly understand, NATO will not foreswear the future possibility.)

Smith in her June interview notes that NATO is a collective body which has to have unanimous approval from all members to add another country to the alliance. But she also repeats the polite diplomatic position, "this decision rests only with one person, and that is [Ukrainian] President Zelensky."

But the reality is, despite the diplomatic niceities, that it’s first and foremost a decision of the United States.

1. NATO’s New Momentum. Foreign Affairs YouTube channel 07/25/2023. (Accessed: 2023-30-07).

NATO’s New Momentum (Podcast Transcript). Foreign Affairs 06/09/2023.<https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/natos-new-momentum> (Accessed: 2023-30-07).

2. NATO-Russia Founding Act. US Department of State Archive, n/d, information released online prior to 01/20/2001, <https://1997-2001.state.gov/regions/eur/fs_nato_whitehouse.html> (Accessed: 2023-30-07).

3. Braithwaite, Rodrik (2016): NATO enlargement: Assurances and misunderstandings. European Council on Foreign Relations 07/07/2016. <https://ecfr.eu/article/commentary_nato_enlargement_assurances_and_misunderstandings/> (Accessed: 2023-30-07).