# Talk:Enlargement of NATO

I want to make a small edit instead of 30 countries that have ratified the protocol, Sweden's accession to NATO should be replaced by 31 Vladislav Davydenko (talk) 13:46, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

 Not done The latest word is that it will be made official at 11:15 EST today, about 2 hours from now. Don't worry, there will be a flurry of updates once that happens! -- Patrick Neil, oѺ∞/Talk 14:11, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

@Patrickneil: Thank you for updating the map to reflect Sweden's membership. I see that you have Finland and Sweden in different colors. Do we know of any sources that say Finland was round 9 and Sweden was round 10 of enlargement, as opposed to both being in round 9? If they are both 9, then I think the map colors would have to be the same, and if they are 9 and 10, then I think the colors would have to be different. I don't think this situation has happened before in NATO's history. Ergo Sum  15:30, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

Hey friend, good question. I don't have an answer, but maybe I would watch this page on the NATO website for how they denote it. Unfortunately, Wikipedia is getting ahead of NATO's own website. But if they are the same color, then I'm not sure how to note it in the legend in that SVG. Would it just be one box with "2023-2024"? --  Patrick Neil, oѺ∞/Talk 15:49, 7 March 2024 (UTC)
Sangjinhwa Alerting you to this discussion, given this edit. Ergo Sum  17:22, 7 March 2024 (UTC)
@Patrickneil: It appears that NATO has updated that page to include Sweden and its 2024 accession, but still refers to 9 rounds of enlargement. So can you make Finland and Sweden the same color on the map (preferably the one that Finland previously was)? Ergo Sum  17:24, 7 March 2024 (UTC)
Hey, I see that, and while I somewhat wonder if it's an oversight on their part, I think the question I'll come back at you with is whether the colors/table rows are for the round or if they are for the year. The SVG we've had in this spot for a decade and a half doesn't list "Founders, Round 1, Round 2...", it has "1949, 1952, 1955...". I'll note there is 1990 on the map and table, which isn't, strictly speaking, a round of enlargement. Open to ideas for how to correctly note the situation though!
While we are discussing this summary table though, I do want to mention that it is very much not mobile friendly. Back in the dark ages, when I combined the map image into the table, there were only five rounds of enlargement and only an "iPhone" with no number, so perhaps this table/map setup is overdo for a rethink. --  Patrick Neil, oѺ∞/Talk 18:02, 7 March 2024 (UTC)
Hmm, that's a good point. Maps I've seen elsewhere seem to go with both approaches. I suppose it can be whatever WP finds most useful. I really like the table/map combo. I'd hate to lose it. Ergo Sum  20:19, 7 March 2024 (UTC)
It seems that someone at NATO has reconsidered and concluded that there have been 10 rounds of enlargement. For the sake of consistency, would it be possible to reconcile the colors between your two wonderful maps: 1 and 2? Now that it is clear that there are 10 rounds, it would seem preferable to go with the greater contrast found in your GIF. What do you think? Ergo Sum  00:50, 8 March 2024 (UTC)
Hah, I wondered if that was an oversight, must be busy day for them I bet! Yes, I made GIF to match the new SVG I also worked up... but there were some opinions on the Commons about what brown Finland looked like. 💩
So I'm open to ideas! Updating the GIF takes much longer than changing the SVG, so I just want to do it once after there is some settlement about what colors to use. My concern about the colors now is that the two oranges are too similar, and I've never much liked the dark yellow, I'd rather have 4 shades of green, but I like that it follows ROYGBIV (backwards from blue). --  Patrick Neil, oѺ∞/Talk 01:36, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

The map which appears under the 'Current Status' section has as one of its sub-headings 'Accession protocol signed' and its associated colouring. That used to apply to Sweden but is now redundant. How do we get rid of it? Mrodowicz (talk) 13:45, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

If you click on that map and view in on Commons, you will see that it has since been updated. That update will be reflected here and everywhere else on Wiki shortly. Ergo Sum  13:55, 8 March 2024 (UTC)
Thank you - this has indeed been fixed now. Mrodowicz (talk) 07:56, 9 March 2024 (UTC)

@Patrickneil: Regarding this revision, it leaves out some important details. The spot where you placed the source I added was actually the original spot I was going to add it, with a different sentence, but it seemes better to go into the preceding paragraph with a what-because-why flow of information (ie first paragraph discusses what happened to give rise to this perspective, next paragraph goes into the subsequent consequences of this perspective/these assurances being made). The preceding paragraph discusses the actual assurances, ie Baker's famous remark, with the subsequent paragraph mentioning that the view these assurances were offered is not baseless. The source I provided covers numerous other statements than Baker's (Bush, Genscher, Kohl, Gates, Mitterrand, Thatcher, Hurd, Major, and Woerner), and establishes: "Thus, Gorbachev went to the end of the Soviet Union assured that the West was not threatening his security and was not expanding NATO."
The article would benefit from going into more depth on this particular point. It does say the Soviet understanding wasn't baseless, but the reasons why should be expanded on further in the preceding paragraph (which I originally added the source to). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Entropyandvodka (talk • contribs) 

This "Soviet content" might be placed to the end of sections about Cold War or German reunification. We also need a separate section on Russia–NATO relations where all such matters can/should be described. These relations is a separate subject and an important one. My very best wishes (talk) 22:25, 14 May 2024 (UTC)
Have the claims in this ASEAN Post article and similarly in this EuroWeekly article regarding the US Assistant Secretary of State for Europe and Canada Raymond Seitz saying:

We made it clear to the Soviet Union, in the 2+4 talks, as well as in other negotiations that we do not intend to benefit from the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Eastern Europe. NATO should not expand to the east, either officially or unofficially.
been addressed? Thx, Humanengr (talk) 04:09, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

First off, I want to say that this topic, and specifically Klaus Wiegrefe's article in Der Speigel, have been discussed here several times. Here's some links to previous discussions in the archives: 2014, 2017, 2021, January 2022, February 2022, March 2022, and July 2022. Some of this reply is copy/pasted from earlier comments, because I do think the issue is a bit repetitive, though I understand that other editors have very strongly held views on this NATO promise issue. I just don't see a long term historic impact on the topic this encyclopedia article is covering. It has only merited revisiting in the last ten or fifteen years as it became more of a talking point in Russian propaganda, which is fine, and we do note in the article.
In those past discussions, we raised Wikipedia's policy on undue weight, and I made this analogy that, if a car drives by, the Wikipedia article about it shouldn't say "A car drove by and Jack, a respected car enthusiast, said it was probably black, but Mike, whose friends claim they saw the car, said it was red. But Jane says Jack has an astigmatism, and Mike has a dealership that sells red cars, so can't be trusted." The Wikipedia article can just say "a car of uncertain color drove by." We don't need the back and forth, instead, we start the section by noting the issue "has long been a matter of dispute among historians and international relations scholars." Wiegrefe is an opinion piece writer who writes interesting articles about German history for Der Spiegel, but does have a POV. I don't think the article they wrote about these meeting notes from thirty-four years ago needs its own paragraph. Yes, the Assistant Secretary of State for Europe and Canada was telling his colleagues about his concerns, but he is not NATO, nor is Juergen Hrobog, nor was the 2+4 Treaty made with NATO, nor does it mention NATO, nor does the Soviet Union still exist. History has moved on.
Focusing on this idea of a broken promise betrays a perspective that I think Putin wants you to have and that the article should avoid, one of a bipolar world with countries like a grand Risk board, seeing enlargement as NATO "advancing" rather than as individual countries that elected, and generally continue to elect, politicians in favor of maintaining a common military alliance. If Ulf Kristersson, in 2024, had said "wait, stop everything, thirty-three years ago a mid-level Washington bureaucrat recorded thoughts they had about NATO and the Soviets, so therefore Sweden simply cannot join NATO despite it being the policy platform that Swedish voters elected me on" then yes, the article would have to discuss that memo. Until that happens, these conspiracies are very tangential and don't need to be platformed by multiple paragraphs. Thanks--  Patrick Neil, oѺ∞/Talk 16:17, 23 January 2025 (UTC)
If the position of Klaus Wiegrefe is added, then from my perspective the position of M. E. Sarotte who published quite a lot regarding NATO enlargement in scientific journals and books must also be more prominent in the article. She argues, the Two Plus Four Agreement legally permits NATO enlargement and when the Soviets signed the documents, they surrendered their legal rights.
The secretary [James Baker] and Genscher were able to break the impasse by using an idea Zoellick had floated earlier in the day: a written addendum to the treaty. Put more precisely, the formal treaty would continue to state, as Moscow wanted, that foreign troops would be neither stationed nor deployed east of the 1989 inner-German dividing line. However, deployed would be defined—per the new addendum, or “agreed minute”—solely at the discretion of the government of a united Germany. That minute served as written confirmation that foreign NATO troops could cross the Cold War line after all. As Zoellick explained afterward, “we needed to secure that possibility because, if Poland were eventually to join NATO in a second step, we wanted American forces to be able to cross East Germany on their way to be stationed in Poland.”The idea satisfied the other signatories as well. All parties consented to add the “agreed minute” to the treaty just in time for the signing to go ahead after all. Some later reproductions of the treaty mistakenly dropped the minute altogether, mistakenly assuming it was trivial.  It was not. The Western allies even insisted that all parties sign under the minute as well as under the treaty, so the final, official document bore two full, identical sets of typed titles and handwritten signatures. Shevardnadze signed both of the relevant pages, thereby surrendering Soviet legal rights, setting the slow withdrawal of Soviet troops in motion, and allowing, after completion of that withdrawal, NATO’s foreign forces to cross the Cold War line at the discretion of the German government.
Sergey Radchenko who also published in scientific journals regarding NATO enlargement agrees to her point.
We know, for instance, that while Baker did indeed utter the words about NATO not going ‘even one inch’ to the east, this referred to the specific context of German reunification. More importantly, no agreement was reached on this occasion or later. Indeed, as historian Mary Sarotte notes, what the Soviets ultimately agreed to was precisely the opposite – they permitted NATO's enlargement to the east.
--Jo1971 (talk) 17:24, 23 January 2025 (UTC)
Indeed, those are all fine arguments that could be made if we wanted to have a debate about whether or not NATO or representatives of NATO or someone made promises or if NATO should or could have been bound by them. It is interesting, but very academic. My position is that we don't want to have an open debate within this article's prose. Let's fill as many talk pages as folks need, but this article's text needs to be concise and accurate and not juxtapose of statements in a way that give any minority viewpoints undue attention and space. --  Patrick Neil, oѺ∞/Talk 18:10, 23 January 2025 (UTC)