Did NATO promise Gorbacev not to move east
Executive summary
Western leaders made verbal assurances in 1990 focused on Germany’s reunification, including James Baker’s line that “NATO’s jurisdiction… would not move one inch eastward,” but no legally binding, written pledge banning NATO enlargement beyond (former) East Germany appears in the records; key participants later gave mixed statements [1] [2] [3]. Russian officials and some former U.S. diplomats say those assurances created a reasonable expectation that NATO would not expand eastward, while NATO and many Western participants insist no formal promise was made and that any comments addressed troop deployment in (unified) Germany rather than future accession of sovereign states [1] [3] [4].
1. The line that launched a controversy
The disputed formulation—most often quoted as Baker’s “not one inch eastward”—comes from U.S. Secretary of State James Baker’s February 9, 1990 talks with Soviet leaders, where he offered “assurances that NATO’s jurisdiction… would not move one inch eastward,” a phrase that appears in declassified transcripts and has been treated as an assurance given during German-unification negotiations [1] [2].
2. What the documents actually show
Declassified U.S., Soviet, German, British and French documents collected by the National Security Archive show a cascade of verbal assurances to Soviet officials about security during German reunification; those records confirm the Baker language but also show it was discussed as part of negotiating a status for (East) Germany, not as a written treaty committing NATO never to accept new members beyond German territory [1] [5].
3. How Western participants interpret the assurances
Many Western officials and scholars read the assurances narrowly: they say Baker’s and others’ remarks referred to the stationing or jurisdiction of NATO forces in the territory of the former East Germany after reunification, not to a blanket promise that NATO would never enlarge to sovereign countries in Central and Eastern Europe; proponents of this view point to the absence of any such limit in the formal Two‑Plus‑Four Treaty or subsequent legal texts [3] [4].
4. How Moscow has framed the promise
Russian leaders and some former Soviet officials — and later Russian political narratives — interpret those 1990 assurances as a broader commitment that NATO would not expand eastward into countries of the former Warsaw Pact; Mikhail Gorbachev himself has given mixed public statements, at times saying the topic “was not discussed,” and at other times calling NATO’s later enlargement a violation of the “spirit of the statements” he heard [2] [6] [7].
5. Credible witnesses disagree
First‑hand participants disagree. Figures who were “in the room” such as former U.S. Ambassador Jack Matlock and others have argued Gorbachev received clear assurances, while officials like Robert Zoellick and Eduard Shevardnadze have said no promise of non‑enlargement was made — demonstrating the interpretive split even among contemporaries [8] [4] [6].
6. No treaty language — and why that matters
Scholars and archival researchers emphasize that no legally binding, written clause prohibiting NATO enlargement beyond Germany was inserted into the reunification agreements; advocates of the “no promise” thesis argue that if Moscow wanted a binding guarantee it had ample opportunity to insist on it and did not secure one [3] [1].
7. The political afterlife of the dispute
After the Cold War, the question became a political argument used by different actors: Russian leaders, including Vladimir Putin, cite alleged broken promises to justify grievances, while Western analysts warn that treating informal 1990 assurances as binding would deny sovereign states the right to choose alliances; both sides use selective quotes and memories to support opposing narratives [2] [3] [9].
8. What the sources don’t say and limitations
Available sources do not present a single, uncontested text in which NATO or the U.S. legally renounced enlargement beyond Germany; the record is dominated by oral assurances, contemporaneous memos and later recollections, many of which contradict one another [1] [5]. The ambiguity in memory and wording is the central factual reality driving the dispute [6].
Conclusion — the narrow empirical point is clear: verbal assurances about NATO “not moving east” were made in 1990 in the context of German reunification [1]. Whether those assurances amounted to a broader, binding promise never to admit new members east of Germany is contested by primary participants, absent from treaty texts, and remains a political—as much as historical—debate [3] [4] [2].