Flashback ’97: Sen. Biden Says NATO Expansion Would Spark War With Russia

In 1997, then-Senator Joe Biden (D-Del.) warned that the expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) would result in “vigorous and hostile” action by Russia in Europe.

“I think the one place where the greatest consternation would be caused in the short term, for admission – having nothing to do with the merit and preparedness of the countries coming in – would be to admit the Baltic states now, in terms of NATO-Russian, US-Russian relations,” Biden said during an event held by the Atlantic Council, NATO’s de facto think tank.

“And if there was ever anything that was going to tip the balance, were it to be tipped, in terms of a vigorous and hostile reaction, I don’t mean military, in Russia, it would be that,” he continued, adding that Russia would be pushed into an alliance with China and even Iran.

At the time of Biden’s remarks, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland were actively seeking to join NATO.

They later did join NATO in 1999.

Notably, ex-Russia ambassador William Burns – now Joe Biden’s CIA director – admitted in a 2008 security cable leaked by WikiLeaks that NATO expansion to Ukraine would result in a war with Russia and a civil war in Ukraine.

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A Surprising Explanation Of Russia’s Invasion From A Former Top-Level CIA Official

surprising op-ed in MSNBC arguing that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was likely “preventable” if the US and NATO had merely tried to take a path of muscular diplomacy and potential compromise appears to have slipped passed the mainstream media censors and gate-keepers. 

Since the start of the Thursday Feb.24 invasion, the prevailing narrative concerning Russia’s motives has been largely limited to an ultra-simplistic hollywoodwesque story that goes something like this: one day a big bully and monster named Putin decided he wanted to invade and kill people in a neighboring country, and that he further wants to “resurrect the old Soviet Union”. 

But in a refreshingly realist op-ed piece, MSNBC political columnist Zeeshan Aleem exposed the self-serving Washington narrative which was intended more for the consumption of masses as false. Aleem points to a much more complex and nuanced reality, reminding the public of what should be obvious to any student of history – that the top diplomats and US officials who oversaw post-Soviet negotiations with Russia over Europe’s security order in the 1990’s knew full well that if NATO ever got expanded up to Russia’s borders, it would be suicide. It was predicted decades ago that war would be triggered in such a scenario.

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The War From TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome)

Hear us out here. The Donald himself is the approximate casus belli of the World War III prelude now raging in Ukraine, reminding us once again that sometimes history morphs in the strangest ways.

But the truth is, Trump single-handed generated such a deep, intense and irrational wave of TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome) in the Imperial City that Washington – berserk with anti-Putin hysteria – essentially shoved Cool Hand Vlad right over the brink.

To to be sure, before Trump came down the escalator in June 2015 Washington was already rife with Russophobia. But that emanated chiefly from the war-loving neocons of the GOP and the porkers and bag carriers for the military industrial complex, including the vast array of think-tanks and NGOs whose livelihoods depend on military threats, real or imagined, to America’s security.

But what turned the Washington of these failed proponents of the Afghan, Iraq, Syria and Libya invasions into an implacable and aggressive foe of Russia’s legitimate security interest in its own backyard was the utter, absolute and unremitting demonization of Vlad Putin himself by the Dems and incumbent Washington political class, which bought hook, line and sinker the hoary RussiaGate story.

That is to say, America was allegedly besmirched and defiled by the election of Donald Trump in November 2016 to such a ghastly degree that the man who single-handedly made it possible–Vlad Putin – deserves a place in the pantheon of historical evil-doers right up there with Adolf Hitler and Attila the Hun.

That’s right. The everlasting blot of the Trump presidency never, ever could have happened, according to the RussiaGate narrative, save for Vlad Putin’s nefarious and sweeping interference in the 2016 election. So this evil needs be avenged and the most effective avenue now consists of raining smack right in Putin’s face on the Ukrainian frontier.

As a result of the Dem establishment’s raging, unquenchable quest for revenge, however, the normal balance of power within the Imperial City and the national security Deep State has been upended.

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