Changes

==Post-Soviet Europe==

==Post-Soviet Europe==

Beginning in 1989, the [[Soviet]] [[empire]] and then the [[Soviet Union]] itself imploded, disappearing as a [[security]] threat to the rest of [[Europe]], [[China]], the [[Middle East]], and the world. [[NATO]]'s "[[Partnership for Peace]]" briefly held out the promise of a Europe-wide cooperative security architecture in which the reconstituted [[Russian Federation]] as well as the [[United States]] would both participate and play a stabilizing role. But instead of dismantling the alliances and protective arrangements it had established to deal with now vanished [[Cold War]] threats, as the 1990s proceeded, [[Washington, D.C.|Washington]] embraced the [[Russophobia]] of [[Central Europe|central]] and [[eastern Europe]]an countries and their [[America]]n [[diaspora]]s by reemphasizing NATO as a defense against possible threats from a revived [[Russia]]. The United States undertook to [[NATO expansion|expand NATO]] not just to the frontiers of the former USSR but beyond them, breaking its pledge not to expand NATO "one inch East" beyond the [[Oder-Neisse Line]] after [[German Reunification]].<ref>[https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/russia-programs/2017-12-12/nato-expansion-what-gorbachev-heard-western-leaders-early NATO Expansion: What Gorbachev Heard], National Security Archive. nsarchive.gwu.edu</ref> As early as the U.S. midterm elections of 1994, both the [[Republican Party]] and the [[Clinton administration]] were courting ethnic [[Slavic]] and [[Baltic]] voters by suggesting early membership in NATO for their ancestral homelands. By December 1994, Russia, which professed to have been seeking partnership with the United States, declared that it felt threatened and betrayed.<ref>[https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/russia-programs/2018-03-16/nato-expansion-what-yeltsin-heard NATO Expansion: What Yeltsin Heard]. The [[Czech Republic]], [[Hungary]], and [[Poland]] were admitted to NATO in 1999, [[Bulgaria]], [[Estonia]], [[Latvia]], [[Lithuania]] (all formerly part of the [[USSR]]), [[Romania]], [[Slovakia]], and [[Slovenia ]]in 2004, [[Albania]] and [[Croatia]] in 2009, [[Montenegro]] in 2017, and [[North Macedonia]] in 2020. In April 2008, when NATO declared it would be prepared to admit the [[Republic of Georgia]] and [[Ukraine]] to membership, Russia warned that it would regard this as "a direct threat" to its security. Meanwhile, the [[United States]] briefly attempted to establish its influence in [[Central Asia]] before ceasing to contest the dominant [[politico]]-[[military]] influence of Russia and the [[economic]] influence of [[China]] there.</ref> This was an impulse born of America's so-called "[[unipolar moment]]," in which it sought universal deference to its [[values]] and interests and began to launch massive [[intervention]]s to [[regime change|change regime]]s that refused to comply. In doing so, it set aside the [[UN Charter]] and other foundational elements of [[international law]].

Beginning in 1989, the [[Soviet]] [[empire]] and then the [[Soviet Union]] itself imploded, disappearing as a [[security]] threat to the rest of [[Europe]], [[China]], the [[Middle East]], and the world. [[NATO]]'s "[[Partnership for Peace]]" briefly held out the promise of a Europe-wide cooperative security architecture in which the reconstituted [[Russian Federation]] as well as the [[United States]] would both participate and play a stabilizing role. But instead of dismantling the alliances and protective arrangements it had established to deal with now vanished [[Cold War]] threats, as the 1990s proceeded, [[Washington, D.C.|Washington]] embraced the [[Russophobia]] of [[Central Europe|central]] and [[eastern Europe]]an countries and their [[America]]n [[diaspora]]s by reemphasizing NATO as a defense against possible threats from a revived [[Russia]]. The United States undertook to [[NATO expansion|expand NATO]] not just to the frontiers of the former USSR but beyond them, breaking its pledge not to expand NATO "one inch East" beyond the [[Oder-Neisse Line]] after [[German Reunification]].<ref>[https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/russia-programs/2017-12-12/nato-expansion-what-gorbachev-heard-western-leaders-early NATO Expansion: What Gorbachev Heard], National Security Archive. nsarchive.gwu.edu</ref> As early as the U.S. midterm elections of 1994, both the [[Republican Party]] and the [[Clinton administration]] were courting ethnic [[Slavic]] and [[Baltic]] voters by suggesting early membership in NATO for their ancestral homelands. By December 1994, Russia, which professed to have been seeking partnership with the United States, declared that it felt threatened and betrayed.<ref>[https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/russia-programs/2018-03-16/nato-expansion-what-yeltsin-heard NATO Expansion: What Yeltsin Heard], National Security Archive. nsarchive.gwu.edu. The [[Czech Republic]], [[Hungary]], and [[Poland]] were admitted to NATO in 1999, [[Bulgaria]], [[Estonia]], [[Latvia]], [[Lithuania]] (all formerly part of the [[USSR]]), [[Romania]], [[Slovakia]], and [[Slovenia ]]in 2004, [[Albania]] and [[Croatia]] in 2009, [[Montenegro]] in 2017, and [[North Macedonia]] in 2020. In April 2008, when NATO declared it would be prepared to admit the [[Republic of Georgia]] and [[Ukraine]] to membership, Russia warned that it would regard this as "a direct threat" to its security. Meanwhile, the [[United States]] briefly attempted to establish its influence in [[Central Asia]] before ceasing to contest the dominant [[politico]]-[[military]] influence of Russia and the [[economic]] influence of [[China]] there.</ref> This was an impulse born of America's so-called "[[unipolar moment]]," in which it sought universal deference to its [[values]] and interests and began to launch massive [[intervention]]s to [[regime change|change regime]]s that refused to comply. In doing so, it set aside the [[UN Charter]] and other foundational elements of [[international law]].

Belying its original purely defensive ''raison d'être'', NATO then vivisected [[Serbia]] (ripping [[Kosovo]] from it), joined the post-[[9/11]] American effort to pacify and transform [[Afghanistan]], and helped Libyan war|overthrow the government of Libya]]. Russia and other great powers came to see NATO as a threateningly offensive tool of [[American foreign policy]]. Meanwhile, the alliance, which was coterminous with an American sphere of [[politico]]-[[military]] influence in [[Europe]] and the [[Mediterranean]], resumed justifying its continued existence by reference to the threats from Russia it had helped to resurrect. Eventually, Russia resorted to shows of force followed by military intervention in [[Ukraine]] to block any further expansion of the American military sphere of influence in Europe.

Belying its original purely defensive ''raison d'être'', NATO then vivisected [[Serbia]] (ripping [[Kosovo]] from it), joined the post-[[9/11]] American effort to pacify and transform [[Afghanistan]], and helped Libyan war|overthrow the government of Libya]]. Russia and other great powers came to see NATO as a threateningly offensive tool of [[American foreign policy]]. Meanwhile, the alliance, which was coterminous with an American sphere of [[politico]]-[[military]] influence in [[Europe]] and the [[Mediterranean]], resumed justifying its continued existence by reference to the threats from Russia it had helped to resurrect. Eventually, Russia resorted to shows of force followed by military intervention in [[Ukraine]] to block any further expansion of the American military sphere of influence in Europe.