Shifrinson Speaks at Georgetown Doha on NATO Enlargement
Joshua Shifrinson, Assistant Professor of International Relations at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University, gave an October 3, 2018 at Georgetown University in Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service in Doha, Qatar entitled “The Past as Prologue: NATO Enlargement and the Origins of Russian Revisionism.”
In the talk, Shifrinson explored whether the United States promised the Soviet Union at the end of the Cold War that the U.S. would not expand NATO into the USSR’s former Eastern European sphere of influence.
From the abstract of the talk:
Since 1991, a range of former Soviet and Russian leaders have charged that NATO enlargement violated an American pledge not to expand the transatlantic alliance in the post-Cold War era; not coincidentally, they also point to this alleged violation when explaining the origins of Russian revisionism in its near abroad. Western scholars and policymakers, in contrast, largely reject Russian accusations, seeing Russian charges as a ploy to legitimate Russian aggression undertaken for other reasons. Drawing on a range of recently declassified archival materials and international relations theory, this project re-evaluates claims of a NATO non-expansion pledge and the origins of NATO enlargement more generally. I find that not only did American policymakers systematically imply to then-Soviet officials that NATO would not expand after the Cold War, but they were engaged in an effort to ensure that Europe’s post-Cold War security architecture would leave the United States with a free hand to enlarge NATO if it so chose. These results – while certainly not justifying recent Russian aggression – thus carry implications for understanding the systemic sources of Russian behavior and highlight potential pathways for improving U.S.-Russian relations today.
Joshua R. Itzkowitz Shifrinson’s teaching and research interests focus on the intersection of international security and diplomatic history, particularly the rise and fall of great powers and the origins of grand strategy. He has special expertise in great power politics since 1945 and U.S. engagement in Europe and Asia. Shifrinson’s first book, Rising Titans, Falling Giants: How Great Powers Exploit Power Shifts (Cornell University Press, 2018) builds on extensive archival research focused on U.S. and Soviet foreign policy after 1945 to explain why some rising states challenge and prey upon declining great powers, while others seek to support and cooperate with declining states.