Analysis of NATO Expansion Consequences

W-- In April 2008,

at the Bucharest NATO summit,

which is where the decision to expand NATO into Georgia and into

Ukraine was made,

uh, a catastrophic decision. We're gonna look back on that over

the years as one of the

biggest foreign policy mistakes, uh, the West has ever

made. But at that meeting in April 2008,

both Nicolas Sarkozy, who was the French prime minister

or the French president at

the time,

and, uh,

Angela Merkel, both of them adamantly opposed

moving to bring Ukraine into NATO.

And Angela Merkel very smartly said

afterwards that the reason she opposed bringing

Ukraine into NATO was she understood that

Putin would view it as a declaration of war.

You wanna think about that statement.

Merkel is saying that she understood that Putin would view it

as a declaration of war. Well, you know what's happened.

She was right. But what did Merkel do?

She caved to Bush. George W. Bush was in his last year

as president. He was pushing very hard to bring Ukraine

into NATO.

And instead of fighting him tooth and nail, which is

exactly what she should have done, she should have stood up to him, she

caved, as did Sarkozy, and now we have this disaster on

our hands