US President Bill Clinton, 48, and Russian President
Boris Yeltsin, 63, didn't say a word about NATO's eastward expansion.
Finally, Clinton placed his hand on his guest's forearm and said:
"Boris, one last thing, this is about NATO. I want you to know: I have
never ruled out Russia's membership. When we talk about expanding NATO,
we mean inclusion, not exclusion." And he added: "My goal is to work
with you and others to create the best conditions for a truly united,
undivided, integrated Europe."
"I understand," Yeltsin replied, "and I thank you for what you said."
Of all people?
Donald Trump is attempting a new role as a peacemaker in the Ukraine
war. Europeans are courting the US president for his initiative. Kremlin
chief Putin appears to have no interest in a ceasefire for the time
being. A deal also depends on the solidity of the security guarantees
for Kyiv.
Read our cover story, further background information and analyses in the digital SPIEGEL.
To the issue
The memorable US-Russia summit took place in September 1994. Five years
later, Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary joined the Western
alliance, followed by eleven other European states as part of the
eastern enlargement. But Russia, the world's largest country, was not
among them.
Statesmen Clinton, Kohl at the NATO summit in Brussels 1994: German resistance
Enlarge image
Statesmen Clinton, Kohl at the NATO summit in Brussels 1994: German resistance Photo: picture alliance
It would have been the most powerful military alliance in human
history: stretching from San Francisco to Vladivostok, with command over
almost all the nuclear weapons in existence in the world at the time.
Of the official nuclear powers, only China would have been left out.
But, as we know, that never happened. In fact, relations between Russia
and the West have dramatically deteriorated. Under Yeltsin's successor,
Vladimir Putin, Moscow is probably as far away from NATO membership
today as it was under Kremlin dictator Joseph Stalin. Stalin's
aggressive foreign policy led to NATO's founding in 1949. Some Western
politicians even fear that Putin will attack NATO after a victory over
Ukraine.
Tip: Schleswig-Holstein
From mudflats to well-being: By train to the North and Baltic Sea coasts
So what was going on when the US President once discussed Russia's
accession to NATO with his visitor? Was this idea serious, as Clinton
asserted after the Russian attack on Ukraine in 2022: "We've always left
the door open"?
Or should we rather agree with Putin, who contradicted Clinton and
created the impression that there was never a serious path for Russia to
join the alliance? Did the West perhaps miss an opportunity to dissuade
Russia from the path that ultimately led to the attack on Ukraine?
SPIEGEL has previously analyzed confidential German documents from
1994, the year the NATO members made the fundamental decision to admit
states from the former Warsaw Pact. The documents come from the private
collection of one of the participants and from the collection of files
regularly published by the Institute for Contemporary History on behalf
of the German Federal Foreign Office (AA). They include letters from
Chancellor Helmut Kohl (CDU) to Clinton, reports from German diplomats
in Moscow and Washington, and internal documents for Foreign Minister
Klaus Kinkel (FDP).
Russian President Yeltsin, US colleague Clinton in New York 1995: Almost anything is possible
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Russian President Yeltsin, US colleague Clinton in New York 1995: Almost anything is possible Photo: GRANGER / IMAGO
According to the documents, Clinton was actually considering the Russia
option. This was the "official US position," reported German envoy
Thomas Matussek from Washington in 1994. Clinton, a cheerful Southerner
with an optimistic disposition, believed that his—the new—generation had
a special responsibility to shape the future. And he believed that the
Cold War had shown that almost anything is possible.
At that time, the US government repeatedly discussed the possibility of
Russian accession with its allies, for example, on January 15 at NATO
headquarters in Brussels. US Special Envoy Strobe Talbott, a Russia
expert, college friend of Clinton's, and his most important advisor on
eastern expansion, had arrived there. Talbott informed the assembled
NATO ambassadors of Clinton's position. The German representative
subsequently wrote to Bonn that if the alliance followed the US
approach, the question of Russian membership would arise "in just a few
years." A few weeks later, a German diplomat reported from Washington
that Talbott had specified a time frame—it could begin around 2004.
German concerns
The now accessible documents also show, however, that Clinton and
Talbott encountered considerable resistance. Clinton had only moved into
the White House the previous year. And journalist Talbott was a lateral
entrant, having come from "Time" magazine. The two were unable to
convince even experienced officials within their own government, as a
Foreign Office delegation discovered with surprise in Washington in
August 1994. The Germans met with high-ranking representatives from the
US State Department, the White House, the Pentagon, and the CIA. They
explained that it was unclear to them why Clinton had "not long ago
revised" his stance on Russia's NATO membership. "Remarkable," commented
a German embassy official.
The US president also faced strong opposition from his European allies,
led by the Kohl government. When it came to Russia's NATO membership,
the German government was as flexible as concrete. Russia's admission
would be a "death certificate" for the alliance, complained Defense
Minister Volker Rühe of the CDU, who later revised his opinion.
Withdrawal of Russian soldiers from Magdeburg in 1994: "Desolate state"
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Withdrawal of Russian soldiers from Magdeburg in 1994: "Desolate condition" Photo: Vision Photos / ullstein bild
Bonn diplomats listed pages of objections: The internal conflicts would
become too great, rendering NATO incapable of taking action. They also
argued that the alliance was an "insurance against Russian instability,"
which wouldn't work with Russia. Most importantly, if Moscow were to
join the alliance, Western soldiers might have to "defend Russia on the
border with China (a nuclear power) and Mongolia." Unimaginable. But
then the promise of assistance within NATO would be completely lost.
Their conclusion: "Russian accession would mean the end of the alliance
as we see it."
This fundamental objection could not be refuted. Bonn explicitly saw no
place in the alliance even for a secure, democratic Russia.
Since other Europeans shared this view, it's hard to imagine in
retrospect how an expansion to include Russia could have happened.
Decisions to join NATO must be unanimous. Years later, Clinton's
successor, George W. Bush, was thwarted by Chancellor Angela Merkel and
other allies when he tried to bring Ukraine into the alliance (read more
about this here).
Kinkel's excuse
However, Kohl and Kinkel did not want to alienate the Kremlin. A
working group composed of staff from the Chancellery, the Federal
Foreign Office, and the Ministry of Defense drafted a policy paper that
was sent as a circular to all Bonn missions abroad in November 1994. It
states: "Russia—just like Ukraine and Belarus—cannot become a member of
either the WEU or NATO. However, public statements should be avoided out
of consideration for the desired agreements with the Moscow
leadership." The WEU—Western European Union—was a European defense
alliance that was later dissolved.
When Russian Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev once pressed his German
counterpart about what spoke against his country's membership, Kinkel
resorted to an excuse: NATO was only "currently" unready for Russia's
accession. This is what the new documents state.
Minister Kinkel, Kosyrew after tennis match near Bonn in 1994: Weak excuse
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Minister Kinkel, Kosyrew after tennis match near Bonn in 1994: Weak excuse Photo: Sepp Spiegl / IMAGO
Kohl, however, was spared the unpleasant NATO topic in phone calls and
meetings with Yeltsin, as Joachim Bitterlich, the Chancellor's most
important foreign policy advisor at the time, testifies. Yeltsin
presumably didn't bring it up because he considered only the Americans
important on this issue. Kohl also remained silent on the matter.
"Spiegel once described me as the last dinosaur," he told Clinton at the
time, "and if that's true, I should tread carefully." Dinosaurs don't
always have to be in the front row.
The three politicians Kohl, Clinton, and Yeltsin liked each other and
were on first-name terms. Yeltsin, the son of a farmer from the Urals,
had grown up in extreme poverty. Kohl appreciated the courage and desire
for reform of the engineer, who was about his age and had crushed a
communist coup in 1991. He considered Western support for Yeltsin
"unavoidable," except for NATO membership.
Yeltsin's test
The spectacular idea originally came from the Kremlin. Yeltsin first
expressed his interest in NATO membership on December 20, 1991. These
were the last days of the Soviet Union, which was set to dissolve at the
end of the year, and as president of the new Russia, he wrote to
Brussels that he was ready to consider membership "as a long-term
political goal." The proposal fit the spirit of optimism: Russia had
"sniffed the air of democracy and felt freedom," and it would become "a
different country," Yeltsin promised.
Yeltsin and Kohl, friends of the first name, during the withdrawal of
Russian troops in Berlin in 1994: the topic of accession avoided
Enlarge image
Yeltsin and Kohl, friends on first-name terms, during the withdrawal of
Russian troops in Berlin in 1994: the issue of accession avoided.
Photo: Wolfgang Kumm / picture alliance
When Poland, the Czechs, and Hungary pushed for the alliance a year and
a half later, Yeltsin's Foreign Minister Kozyrev asked the Americans to
please treat the Russians the same way they treated the other new
democracies.
Kozyrev now lives in the United States and is a critic of Putin. Russia
experts at the German Foreign Office attested to his orientation toward
"Western ideals (democracy, human rights, the development of new
security structures)." He was promoting "Russia's integration into
European and transatlantic institutions." In his memoirs in 2019,
Kozyrev wrote that the question of NATO membership was, for his
government, "the litmus test for whether the alliance was fundamentally
opposed to Russian interests."
From Moscow's perspective, there has been a "basic understanding" since
the talks on German unification in 1990, as the Foreign Office put it
in 1994: "SU/RUS will relinquish its control over the area up to the
Elbe and withdraw its military presence from the entire region. In
return, the West will not exploit this politically or militarily; the
European security architecture will be built jointly in an equal
partnership."
Documents on the Foreign Policy of the Federal Republic of Germany 1994
Edition: Published on behalf of the Federal Foreign Office by the Institute of Contemporary History
Publisher: De Gruyter Oldenbourg
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It is unclear, however, whether Russia was truly willing to join the
alliance as one of many members – or whether it hoped for a special
hegemonic status.
In any case, the Kremlin felt it had upheld its part of the "basic
understanding." In 1994, Russian troops finally withdrew from Germany,
Estonia, and Latvia. Diplomats in Bonn also described the armed forces
as being in a "desolate state." An eastward expansion of NATO was
inconsistent with the security situation—even pro-Western reformers in
Moscow saw it that way. Unless Russia were involved.
In January 1994, during a trip to Europe, Clinton declared that NATO
expansion was no longer a question of if, but of when and how. When the
US President subsequently flew to Moscow, Yeltsin suggested that NATO
should admit Russia as the first country. Clinton was not committed to
the order of priority, but agreed in principle to the possibility of
Russian accession, as Talbott reported to the allies soon afterward.
Bonn's diplomats immediately countered: "We have advised the Americans
against encouraging considerations in Russia that point in this
direction."
Kohl's hesitation
From Kohl's perspective, the entire enlargement debate came at an
inopportune time: "We have to tell the Eastern European countries that
they can count on our support, but not on membership." Four years after
German reunification, the Chancellor was at the height of his
international reputation. He considered Clinton's considerations
half-baked, and he was determined not to weaken Yeltsin, who had to face
the voters in 1996 and was under pressure from ultra-nationalist
hardliners.
More on the topic
German-Russian Friendship: How Helmut Kohl helped President Yeltsin violate the constitution By Klaus Wiegrefe
How Helmut Kohl helped President Yeltsin break the constitution
Kohl seemed overreacted by Polish President Lech Walesa's warning about
the Russian bear, which should be caged and not allowed to roam free.
The Poles are desperate to join NATO, and "they don't care what price we
have to pay for it," he complained. Kinkel also asked the Americans to
reassure the Poles: "It's not to be expected that Russia will invade
them tomorrow."
The Chancellor and his Foreign Minister pursued their own plan: Poland,
Hungary, the Czech Republic, and possibly others were to be admitted to
the EU, which still needed to be reformed. Rapprochement with NATO was
to take place in parallel. Given this sequence, a first expansion of the
Atlantic Alliance was not to be expected before 2000—if at all.
Clinton's decision
But Clinton didn't want to wait that long. He had studied at Oxford and
apparently genuinely dreamed of a united and peaceful Europe, including
Russia. But he, too, was under increasing pressure. The opposition
Republicans had discovered the topic of eastward expansion and were
coordinating with the Polish government. They accused Clinton of being
too accommodating toward Moscow. This, in part, contributed to the
Republicans' spectacular success in the U.S. congressional elections of
November 1994.
More on the topic
New secret documents released: Helmut Kohl and his consideration for Russia By Klaus Wiegrefe
Helmut Kohl and his consideration for Russia
Contemporary History: "Give Europe to Russia" by Klaus Wiegrefe
"Give Europe to Russia"
With a certain malice, Alexander Vershbow, a fervent supporter of
enlargement and senior director in the White House, told a top German
diplomat that Kohl himself had even contributed to Clinton significantly
accelerating the pace. Kohl had revealed the Bonn timetable for EU
reform to the apparently clueless US president. Instead, from the US
perspective, it should have begun in 1996/97. Poland was the first
candidate. Germany's NATO ambassador, Hermann von Richthofen, reported
on November 22, 1994, that the Americans would now act according to the
motto "My way or no way." It was their way or none.
Advisor Ushakov (4th from right) with Putin (5th from right) on August 16, 2025 in Alaska: Negotiations on the Ukraine war
Enlarge image
Advisor Ushakov (4th from right) with Putin (5th from right) on August
16, 2025 in Alaska: Negotiations on the Ukraine war. Photo: Gavriil
Grigorov / ZUMA Press / IMAGO
Russia's membership in NATO thus became a distant prospect. From then
on, it seemed like a transparent attempt to reconcile the Russians with
the impending membership of Poland and other countries in the alliance –
which failed. As early as November 1994, Russian diplomat Yuri Ushakov
complained that eastern expansion was "a kind of betrayal."
It is the same Ushakov who is negotiating for Putin today about the Russian war in Ukraine.