What is the motivation for the expansion of NATO in Eastern Europe, including Ukraine, at the risk of starting a hot war with Russia?

Question

My understanding is that due to its overall economic conditions today, Russia, a country much weaker than Soviet Union, does not have enough military power to defeat NATO in a hot war without invoking nuclear weapons (e.g., the military budget of Russian is ~$70 billion, compared with ~$700 billion military budget for U.S), although they might have the motivation to start one. See here for NATO's military budget.

I believe there are many ways for NATO to confront Russia. For example, if there are cyber-attacks from Russia, simply fight back with cyber techniques. Sanctions are also good tools to use.

However, the enlargement of NATO in the recent years seemed to raise the risk of hot war with Russia. For example, NATO tried to build missile defense complex in Poland and even trying to include Ukraine, neighbor of Russia into their organization. What is their motivation of doing so?

Why can't NATO simply let the Eastern Europe stay (at least militarily) neutral between NATO and Russia? What is the motivation of their expansion in Eastern Europe, irritating Russian, and at the cost of a potential Russia-Ukraine war which could involve NATO themselves?

Answer 1

However, what NATO was doing in the recent years seemed to raise the risk of hot war with Russia. For example, NATO tried to build missile bases in Eastern Europe and even trying to include Ukraine, neighbor of Russia into their organization. What is their motivation of doing so?

The way that paragraph is phrased makes it seem as if NATO is an entity that does things. NATO expands and NATO increases military activity closer to Russia. That's one way of looking at it.

Another way of looking at it is through the scope of those individual nations which make up NATO. That way, NATO countries don't expand further east, but countries which are further east decide for themselves that they want to be part of NATO. That's actually an important principle: self determination. Non-NATO members Sweden and Finland used this reasoning, according to dw.com:

Recently, the leaders of Sweden and Finland, non-member states aligned with NATO, signaled they see their decision to join NATO as their own right of self-determination in the wake of Russia's troop movements near the Ukraine border.

This isn't new though, from the NATO website:

NATO’s door has been open to new members since it was founded in 1949 – and that has never changed. This “Open Door Policy” is enshrined in Article 10 of NATO’s founding treaty, which says “any other European State in a position to further the principles of this Treaty and to contribute to the security of the North Atlantic” can apply for membership. Decisions on membership are taken by consensus among all Allies. No treaty signed by the United States, Europe and Russia included provisions on NATO membership.

And more recently NATO's Secretary General said:

On membership and the NATO's open door all Allies are united on the core principle that each and every nation has the right to choose his own path. This is enshrined in a lot of fundamental documents, many different documents, which are the foundation for European security. And, therefore, also Allies totally agree that it is only Ukraine and 30 Allies that can decide when Ukraine is ready to become a NATO member. No one else has anything to say and of course Russia doesn't have a veto on whether Ukraine can become a NATO member. Allies are ready to support Ukraine on this path towards membership, helping to implement reforms, modernise the armed forces to meet NATO standards. And then, at the end of the day, it has to be NATO Allies and Ukraine that decides on membership.

In other words, NATO isn't the entity that decides to expand. A third country requests to join and that decision then needs to be agreed by the existing members.

Once a country is a member of its own will, it coordinates with other NATO allies on how to defend its territory. It's not like NATO forces a country to take certain military activity it does not want.

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Why can't NATO simply let the Eastern Europe stay (at least militarily) neutral between NATO and Russia? What is the motivation of their expansion in Eastern Europe, irritating Russian, and at the cost of a potential Russia-Ukraine war which could involve NATO themselves?

Because that goes against the principle of self determination upon which NATO is founded. If countries in Eastern Europe want to join NATO, then why should NATO say no? That is directly contrary to NATO's open door policy.

Continuing your line of thought, one might argue that it is in NATO's interest to leave Eastern European countries out. That way they come across as less threatening to Russia. That goes against another principle upon which NATO countries or the West more broadly is built: the liberal international order. All NATO members and candidate members are sovereign nations. That means these countries can decide for themselves and whether joining NATO upsets some third country (Russia) isn't a factor in the decision.

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My understanding is that due to its overall economic conditions today, Russia, a country much weaker than Soviet Union, does not have enough military power to defeat NATO in a hot war without invoking nuclear weapons (e.g., the military budget of Russian is ~$70 billion, compared with ~$700 billion military budget for U.S), although they might have the motivation to start one. See here for NATO's military budget.

Why would Russia have motivation to start a war with NATO? Without using nuclear weapons they would lose and they risk NATO escalating to nuclear weapons. If Russia started a nuclear war against NATO then they guarantee themselves a nuclear response. So in the first case Russia loses, in the second both sides lose by the principle of mutual assured destruction.

As for your comparison of military budget, it's not really a fair comparison. Most countries in the West have paid military membership while Russia relies in large part on conscription. Though the US military is stronger than the Russian military, it's not ten times stronger.

Answer 2

The question with Ukraine is basically down to Ukraine not trusting Russia one bit and trying to join NATO to get under its protective umbrella.

It's like the little kid at school buddying up to you to help out against the school bully. Sure, it might feel good to be protective and a good guy and all that. But you may also get a bloody nose from fighting the bully and the lil guy won't be a big help in a fight. If only it wasn't your problem...

How did this come to be? Well, partially from Bush in 2008 who thought it would be a good idea to promise accession. Why did they do it? Probably not directly to threaten Russia, but the Bush team was always pretty hubristic in seeing everything the American way.

Diplomats and analysts say that the transatlantic split is such that today's session will produce a formula that effectively replicates the conflicting signals sent in Bucharest. They add that the Bucharest decision was a mistake that contributed to the Caucasus crisis in August.

The issue of Nato membership for the two countries is intimately linked with western policy towards Russia, currently incoherent and contradictory. President Nicolas Sarkozy of France earlier this month backed Russian calls for a major summit next year to try to redefine Europe's "security architecture." An international foreign ministers' meeting in Helsinki later this week could see Germany, France, Russia, and Finland supporting the summit, which is also opposed by the US and Britain.

Plus ca change...

Since then, no one's really had the guts to walk it back - including the US which probably isn't that happy with the Bush promise - and doing so now would look like rewarding Putin for his aggression.

Given all the contortions NATO is going through in its statements about Ukraine:

• Ukraine is free to apply if it wishes
• but there are conditions that it has to meet first
• and it won't happen in immediate future
• and, btw, since Ukraine is not a member of NATO, we don't have to defend it.

The bulk of NATO doesn't want Ukraine aboard right now and would be happy to see the whole embarrassment shelved (yes, places like Poland or the Baltics would love to stick it to Russia, but they are smaller members).

Here are some pros and cons of accession now, articulated by some heavy hitters in international relations (not just this week's assigned Ukraine "expert" by papers needing to cover the news). Note from it that, since accession needs unanimity from existing members, Ukraine has effectively no chance under current circumstances.

The lack of enthusiasm of NATO towards Ukraine accession or the, supposed, lack of aggressive intent by NATO does not mean that Russia doesn't have security concerns about NATO's proximity. Look at the US and its serial hissy fits with regards to Cuba or its formulation of the Monroe Doctrine. Russia, like other states, is in its right to be cautious about inimical influences near its borders. Unlike most states, it is extremely capable to push back against real or perceived threats. Expecting it to "put up with it" is wishful thinking.

But if it was an easier neighbor to live with, as Russia, and as its predecessor state, USSR, then neighboring countries would be more willing to stick to neutrality.

Ukraine crisis is not the same thing as the Polish ABM base, which is one domain where Russia has more reasonable reasons for concerns (although it has hard to see what its 10 ABMs would do to deter Russian forces, rather than Iran's).

Russia did this to itself, starting with the 2008 invasion of Georgia and the 2014 annexation of Crimea. That annexation of Crimea? Came months after Ukraine's ousting of their corrupt leader, Yanukovich, a protege of Putin's who went straight to Moscow. Just a coincidence.

Few neighboring countries that are not totalitarian themselves trust Putin's Russia. That's why those countries want to join NATO.

It is telling that amidst this brouhaha Finland, which has decades of careful real neutrality under its belt, is vaguely considering joining NATO. That's just odd. Sweden was mentioned by JJJ, but Finland seems much more fundamentally neutral than them. Again, Finland's hitherto distant collaboration with NATO warmed up after 2014 - see a pattern?

Is it NATO's wider interest to include members that have immediate borders with Russia? No, not really, unless they plan to invade Russia which our electorates would never agree to. By having direct borders with Russia NATO risks border incidents that could easily escalate. It really isn't worth the hassle and the prospective members bring negligible force projection capabilities, outside of their own territory at least.

It would be great to have a neutral Ukraine, with its security guaranteed by NATO and Russia and call it a day.

Why, it could even look like this agreement, which Russia signed in 1994 to get Ukraine's share of Soviet nukes:

2. The Russian Federation, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the United States of America reaffirm their obligation to refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine, and that none of their weapons will ever be used against Ukraine except in self-defence or otherwise in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations;

3. The Russian Federation, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the United States of America reaffirm their commitment to Ukraine, in accordance with the principles of the Final Act of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, to refrain from economic coercion designed to subordinate to their own interest the exercise by Ukraine of the rights inherent in its sovereignty and thus to secure advantages of any kind;

Now, can Ukraine believe it would solve its problem, this time? This is the problem with breaking agreements, no one believes you later.

For the record, I think it is wrong to accept Ukraine in NATO, now or later. It would be an aggressive move by NATO. However that leaves the question what exactly would provide assurances to Ukraine that they can continue to be an independent state at this point, free of military, economic or political intimidation by either the West or Russia. And free to manage their political and economic alliances as they choose.

Answer 3

For Ukraine specifically:

In 2010, Viktor Yanukovych became president and introduced a law of neutrality, which doesn’t permit Kyiv to seek membership of any military-political alliances.

“There was a hope that non-alignment would serve as “payment” to Russia, it would appease Moscow, and Russia would recognise Ukraine as a state, including its borders and territorial integrity. However, we have seen that that wasn’t the case and naive of Ukraine to believe so,”

Ukrainian public opinion on NATO membership remained low, according to numerous independent polls conducted between 2005 and 2013. Just months before the start of the revolution in Ukraine and Russia’s annexation of Crimea just over 50% of Ukrainians were against joining NATO and only 40% supported the idea of Alliance membership.

However, opinion changed once Moscow had taken Crimea and hostilities flared in eastern Ukraine with over 50% of Ukrainians in favour of NATO membership while just 43% said they were against it.

“When Ukraine-Russia relations turned more and more complicated and the people, who thought Russia was a friendly country, with a friendly policy, changed their minds, the situation changed,” explained Valeriy Khmelko, President of Kyiv International Institute of Sociology.

see https://www.euronews.com/2014/12/23/ukraine-s-complicated-path-to-nato-membership

So at least for Ukraine, the motivation to not stay neutral any longer and to join the NATO is the fact that by the annexation of the crimean peninsula Russia made it very clear that it is not accepting the borders and territorial integrity of Ukraine, despite it's law of neutrality.

Answer 4

Whatever the official rhetoric is that NATO is expanding to east or that the east countries want to join NATO to be safer from Russia strong arm, or that Russia is an aggressor, all this is just plain politics:

1. NATO, specially USA wants to remove Russia power in the region,a weaker and surrounded Russia is easier to control. Troops and missile bases near the Russia borders is a too good outcome to resist. Anti-missile defenses near the border is really a arms race and that move is a very strong card.
2. NATO, specially Europe wants those east countries have more western like politics and sooner or later join EU. A united Europe is stronger in the long run. Even if those countries are sometimes hardly western like (see Poland and Hungary right now).
3. Ukraine want both be western and historically away from Russia, but also the exact opposite. Remember that they have a BIG Russian minority(~17%) that wants to be closer to Russia politics. The further to the west you go, the more NATO and EU friendly they are. The further you go to the east, the more Russia friendly they are. If Russia were to join to the EU, no problem would exist, both sides would be somewhat happy.
4. Russia do not want a that close NATO country, even worse when historically that country was for a long time under Russia control (even pre-URSS), it shows both a sign of weakness and a threat to their own security and power. So some reaction is expected for the obvious constant expanding USA influence in to Ukraine.

So all sides want something and the local population are for sure the ones that suffer for all this politic game.

Lets present the opposite, if Russia managed to get Cuba and Venezuela (or radical point and maybe closer to Ukraine importance, Mexico!) in to the CSTO (Russian lead, as NATO is USA lead), the USA would not be happy at all, even worse if extra militarily support is expected, like missile platforms (even if anti-missile defense platforms, the same that Russia complains in Europe). we probably would have a new Cuba crisis. Both Cuba and Venezuela [1] want more protection from USA power, USA wants to keep their own power in their backyard and Russia would gain a foothold, close to the USA border This is exactly the same, but with sides exchanged.

So basically, the cold war ended, but Russia is still strong enough and getting stronger again, so the USA wants to get the upper hand and limit Russia possible grow as soon as possible. Also do not forget the "hate" that many Americans (not all) have grown up during the cold war to URSS, communism and Russia. While times have changed, those people (mostly republicans, tea party) still see Russia as a enemy and have a strong influence in USA politics.

[1]: Mexico is not in this situation of course, but imagine that Trump was reelected and tried to abuse Mexico even more, people could turn radical and vote in some political party that was Russia align and follow up this line. Not something impossible to happen.