Abstract: This article challenges the post‑2014 Russian claim that NATO enlargement systematically ignored Russia’s legitimate security interests. Drawing on Vladimir Putin’s own speeches and interviews from 2000–2004, combined with primary documents such as the 1997 NATO–Russia Founding Act, it demonstrates that Moscow repeatedly accepted Alliance enlargement, deepened institutional cooperation, and even contemplated Russian membership. The analysis further argues that the eventual estrangement between Russia and the West was driven less by external military encirclement than by Russia’s internal economic stagnation and rent‑dependence. As fossil‑fuel revenues became the cornerstone of authoritarian stability, Western decarbonization policies threatened the economic foundations of regime endurance—reframing the West in Moscow’s discourse from a partner to an existential danger. The “broken promises” narrative thus emerges as a retrospective legitimation strategy masking an internal crisis of political economy rather than a genuine reaction to NATO behaviour.
Problem statement: How can we explain Russia’s transition from pragmatic accommodation of NATO enlargement in the 1990s to its later framing of NATO expansion as an existential threat to the Russian state?
So what?: Western governments and institutions should not accept Russia’s claim of an existential NATO threat at face value but ground their Russia policy on historical facts. Policy, public diplomacy, and strategic communication should consistently highlight that Moscow once accepted NATO enlargement and actively sought deeper cooperation. On this basis, relations with Russia can be shaped more realistically and made more resilient to propagandistic threat narratives.
The West as a Threat?
The narrative that Russia’s security interests were consistently dismissed by the West has become the cornerstone of contemporary Kremlin rhetoric. Since the annexation of Crimea in 2014 and, more dramatically, Russia’s full‑scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Russian officials have framed NATO enlargement as the outcome of Western deception that allegedly violated informal assurances and ignored Russia’s legitimate security interests.[1] This “broken promises” narrative is now central to Moscow’s justification of its use of force, depicting NATO’s post‑Cold War expansion as an aggressive encroachment that left Russia with “no other choice” but to respond militarily. In December 2021, this narrative culminated in two draft treaties on “security guarantees” submitted to the United States and NATO, in which Moscow demanded not only a legally binding end to further enlargement—especially to Ukraine and Georgia—but also that NATO withdraw all troops and military infrastructure stationed in member states that had joined the Alliance after May 1997. These drafts underscore that Russia was in effect calling for a rollback of NATO’s post‑Cold War posture in Central and Eastern Europe and a de facto restoration of a Russian sphere of influence.[2]
This article is grounded in rentier state theory and the concept of authoritarian legitimation.[3] It examines how regimes that rely on redistribution rather than representation seek to maintain political stability through a combination of material benefits and discursive strategies. Building on this framework, the article argues that external threats are often actively constructed or amplified to compensate for declining domestic legitimacy, particularly when the provision of material benefits becomes unsustainable. In this context, narratives of insecurity serve as a key mechanism for reinforcing regime cohesion and justifying authoritarian governance.
Between Accommodation and Partnership
The end of the Cold War created a strategic paradox. NATO’s survival implied institutional continuity, yet its enlargement risked alienating Moscow. The 1997 Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and Security between NATO and the Russian Federation sought to resolve this tension by codifying the principles of partnership.[4] The document begins unambiguously: “NATO and Russia do not consider each other as adversaries” and commit to “building together a lasting and inclusive peace in the Euro‑Atlantic area.”[5]
Contrary to later claims of betrayal, the Act recognised both NATO’s right to adapt—including the admission of new members—and Russia’s concern about military infrastructure near its borders. Moscow secured declaratory assurances that “in the current and foreseeable security environment, the Alliance will carry out its collective defence and other missions by ensuring the necessary interoperability rather than by additional permanent stationing of substantial combat forces.”[6] In effect, NATO promised not to base large combat forces in new member states, but it did not rule out enlargement itself.
Some analysts argue that the Russian leadership understood enlargement as inevitable, focusing instead on constraining its military consequences.[7] The Founding Act thus institutionalised Russia’s influence within Euro‑Atlantic security through the Permanent Joint Council, a structure later replaced by the NATO–Russia Council. In short, rather than marginalising Russia, NATO offered it an enduring consultative role—an offer Moscow initially embraced.
Putin’s Early NATO Policy
Vladimir Putin’s arrival at the Kremlin did not initially signal a strategic rupture. Coming to power amid economic recovery and Western goodwill, he sought to redefine Russia as a reliable partner rather than a revisionist outsider. In his March 05, 2000, interview with BBC journalist David Frost, Putin was directly asked whether Russia might one day join NATO. He replied: “I don’t see why not. I would not rule out such a possibility–but I repeat–if and when Russia’s views are taken into account as those of an equal partner.”[8] This was not a throwaway line; it reflected a genuine openness to institutional integration. In October 2001, after meeting NATO Secretary General George Robertson, Putin reiterated that Russia did not see NATO as an enemy and that cooperation was the main focus: “Have the Western leaders heard our signals about our readiness to see closer cooperation between Russia and NATO? We have a feeling that these signals have been heard.”[9]
The 9/11 attacks further accelerated engagement. Russia provided logistical support for NATO operations in Afghanistan (e.g. overflight rights, use of LOC, etc.) and shared intelligence on counter‑terrorism.[10] In May 2002, the Rome Declaration established the NATO–Russia Council, a body with equal‑status seating. Putin stated during the Meeting: “(…) we remember that the relations between Russia and the North Atlantic Alliance have a spotty history. We have traversed a long path from confrontation to dialogue, from confrontation to cooperation.”[11] In a 2003 BBC interview, he told David Frost once more: “I must say we highly appreciate the decision that was taken, I mean the creation of the Russian NATO council (…) So we are happy with the way our relations with NATO are developing and we think they play a significant part in the modern system of international security.”[12] At this stage, the Kremlin’s discourse centered on co‑management and equality, not antagonism. The notion of “ignored interests” was absent; the partnership was imperfect but structurally functional.
Acceptance of Enlargement and the Baltic Question
NATO’s 2004 enlargement—adding the Baltic States, Slovakia, Slovenia, Bulgaria, and Romania—is often retrospectively framed as proof of Western overreach. Yet Putin’s own contemporaneous remarks suggest otherwise. In a February 10, 2002, Wall Street Journal interview, he acknowledged each state’s right to choose its alliances: “Every country has the right to choose the way it ensures its security. This holds for the Baltic states as well.”[13] He went further, characterising NATO itself as defensive: “Secondly, and more specifically. NATO is primarily a defensive bloc. I can only repeat what I have said several times. The enlargement of the bloc is supposed to improve international security and the security of its member countries.”[14]
That Putin voiced these positions two years before the enlargement effectively contradicts later claims of existential threat. Research on Russia’s Baltic policy during this period supports this interpretation. Mike Winnerstig’s Reluctant Rapprochement study demonstrates that Moscow pragmatically accommodated the new security environment—expanding trade, maintaining diplomatic channels, and calibrating its military posture to avoid escalation.[15] In other words, Russia responded with adaptation rather than confrontation. It was only later, under conditions of domestic constraint, that the Kremlin reread enlargement as an intolerable affront.
The Political Economy of Authoritarian Stability
While strategic discourse remained cooperative, Russia’s internal transformation after 2000 sowed the seeds of future animosity. The country emerged from the 1990s crisis with an economy overwhelmingly dependent on hydrocarbon exports. Between 2000 and 2008, the share of oil and gas revenues in federal income rose to nearly 50 per cent.[16] The resource windfall allowed Putin to construct what political economists have described as a rentier social contract: citizens received material benefits in exchange for political acquiescence.[17]
Under this arrangement, rising energy prices financed welfare expansion and quasi‑redistributive policies while sustaining elite patronage networks. Authoritarian durability was achieved through resource redistribution rather than institutional legitimacy. Yet this model contained inherent fragilities. As Bobo Lo and Daniel Treisman have argued, dependence on volatile commodity markets constrained modernisation and incentivised centralisation.[18]
By the late 2000s, two trends eroded the economic foundation of Russia’s regime. First, maintaining social stability became more costly as inequality and security spending expanded. Second, global climate initiatives and Western energy diversification undermined long‑term demand for fossil fuels.[19] The West’s Green Shift thus posed an existential challenge—not through NATO tanks but through decarbonisation. The logic was simple: if the Kremlin’s authority rested on hydrocarbon revenues, a world moving beyond fossil energy threatened not Russian territory, but regime solvency.
In this sense, Western policies aimed at climate sustainability and market liberalisation were reinterpreted by Moscow as acts of geopolitical aggression. The anxiety was less about military encirclement than fiscal exhaustion. As scholars of authoritarian resilience note, rentier systems often externalise internal tensions by reframing economic vulnerability as foreign hostility.[20] For Putin, who had built legitimacy on consumption and stability, the prospect of shrinking resource rents required new ideological scaffolding.
From Rentier Anxiety to Revisionist Narrative
The mid‑2000s, therefore, marked a discursive transition. As the domestic economy stagnated and Western institutions pressed for political liberalisation, the Kremlin increasingly fused internal and external insecurity. Putin’s description of the Soviet collapse as the “greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century” stemmed from his 2005 state‑of‑the‑nation address, where he framed the dissolution of the USSR as both a strategic setback and a “genuine drama” for tens of millions of Russian compatriots left outside the Federation’s borders. Building on this narrative, Putin’s 2007 speech at the Munich Security Conference presented NATO enlargement and U.S. “unipolar” dominance as direct outgrowths of that catastrophe, denouncing the U.S.‑led order as “inherently destructive” and warning that continued Western expansion would provoke a new arms race and harden Russia’s resolve to defend its sovereignty.[21] The “Humiliation Thesis,” portraying the 1990s as a period of Western deception, filled the legitimacy vacuum left by fading prosperity.[22] This thesis became a mobilising tool for both elites and the public.
This evolving narrative reframed NATO not as a potential partner but as a symbol of Russia’s post‑Soviet decline. By converting socioeconomic weakness into geopolitical grievance, Putin turned vulnerability into a source of political agency. The myth of “ignored interests” proved politically potent because it linked elite fears of losing privilege with popular memories of post‑Soviet chaos. The West’s normative power—its attraction rather than its armies—became the real perceived threat.[23]
By 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea, oil prices had halved since their 2012 peak, domestic growth had stagnated, and protest movements were emerging.[24] The mass protests that followed Russia’s fraud‑tainted 2011–2012 election cycle deeply unsettled Putin, who publicly blamed the United States and other Western actors for bankrolling the demonstrations and attempting to orchestrate a “colour revolution”–style regime change in Moscow.[25] In the Russian strategic debate, Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov’s 2013 article “The Value of Science Is in Foresight” must be read against this backdrop: far from laying out a novel doctrine of “hybrid war,” it primarily articulated Moscow’s perception that Western political technologies—information operations, NGO networks, and sponsorship of oppositions—had become the main instruments for destabilizing adversarial regimes from within.[26]
In this context, the Kremlin’s redefinition of NATO enlargement as an existential affront served multiple functions: it justified militarisation, curtailed political pluralism, and re‑anchored the social contract through patriotic mobilisation.[27] Economic decline was thus cloaked in the language of encirclement.
The Return of State Violence and Strategic Isolation
The internal shift toward coercion was mirrored in Russia’s external posture. Between 2010 and 2020, national expenditures on internal security nearly equalled those on defence, indicating the regime’s increasing reliance on repression. At the same time, Russia’s foreign policy adopted a pattern of risk‑accepting behaviour—Georgia (2008), Crimea (2014), Syria (2015), and full‑scale war against Ukraine (2022)—that substituted symbolic victory for sustainable development. Each operation produced short‑term geopolitical gains but did not address underlying economic weaknesses.
In December 2021, Moscow tabled two draft “security guarantees” treaties demanding that NATO not only close its door to Ukraine and other post‑Soviet states, but also withdraw allied forces and infrastructure from all countries that had joined the Alliance after May 1997—effectively rolling back nearly a quarter‑century of enlargement in Central and Eastern Europe. When these maximalist terms were rejected, the Kremlin repackaged the rejection as proof that the West sought to “encircle” Russia, a claim that set the stage for Putin’s February 2022 address announcing the invasion of Ukraine.[28] In that speech, NATO enlargement reappeared as the rhetorical centrepiece: the West; he reiterated “the fundamental threats which irresponsible Western politicians created for Russia consistently, rudely and unceremoniously from year to year. I am referring to the eastward expansion of NATO, which is moving its military infrastructure ever closer to the Russian border.”[29] This marked a significant change in the narrative: the same leader who, in 2000, had responded “Why not?” to the idea of joining NATO now characterised the Alliance as posing an existential threat to Russia. The transformation, however, cannot be explained by NATO policy changes alone. Rather, it reflects a regime trapped by declining rents, unable to reform, and reliant on external confrontation to preserve internal cohesion.
Myths of Encirclement and the Economics of Power
The empirical record of the early 2000s—Putin’s invitation to partner, Russia’s membership in the NATO–Russia Council, and the open acceptance of Baltic accession— contradicts the claim that Western actors ignored Russia’s security concerns. Instead, the roots of estrangement lie in the domestic political economy of Putinism.[30] As the rentier social contract weakened, the Kremlin recast external relations to justify increasing authoritarianism.
The “broken promises” narrative thus operates less as diplomatic history than as regime ideology. It allows the Russian leadership to interpret Western energy transitions, democratic norms, and market openness not as systemic evolutions but as deliberate assaults on Russia’s sovereignty. In effect, NATO’s expansion became a metaphor for the West’s normative magnetism and economic transformation—phenomena that the Kremlin could not control, yet on which its own survival paradoxically depended.
Putin’s early statements—“Why not?”, “I don’t rule it out,” and “Every country has the right to choose the way it ensures its security,” stand as documentary evidence against today’s mythology. They illustrate that Russia’s confrontation with the West was not preordained, but chosen, as the regime’s economic base eroded and coercion replaced prosperity as the foundation of stability.
If Western policymakers wish to counter Russian revisionism effectively, they must recognise that Moscow’s aggression is driven less by NATO’s material posture than by the Kremlin’s domestic imperatives. Sustainable deterrence requires addressing how economic modernisation, energy transition, and information transparency undermine the resource‑authoritarian model itself. The deeper contest between Russia and the West, therefore, is not about borders—but about the viability of two incompatible systems: one predicated on rent and repression, the other on diversification and openness.
[1] Cody Schuette, “Russian Disinformation on NATO Expansion and the War in Ukraine,” Journal of Strategic Security 16, no. 4 (2023): 34–56, https://doi.org/10.5038/1944-0472.16.4.2125.
[2] Steven Pifer, “Russia’s Draft Agreements with NATO and the United States: Intended for Rejection,” Brookings Institution, February 21, 2022, https://www.brookings.edu/articles/russias-draft-agreements-with-nato-and-the-united-states-intended-for-rejection/.
[3] Walker S., “Rentier State Theory 50 Years On: New Developments,” Frontiers in Political Science 5 (2023): 1120439, https://doi.org/10.3389/fpos.2023.1120439.
[4] NATO and Russian Federation, Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and Security between NATO and the Russian Federation, May 27, 1997, https://archives.nato.int/uploads/r/null/1/3/137932/0329_NATO_and_the_Russian_Federation-Founding_Act_1997_ENG.pdf.
[5] NATO and Russian Federation, Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and Security between NATO and the Russian Federation, preamble, 5.
[6] NATO and Russian Federation, Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and Security between NATO and the Russian Federation, sec. IV, 10.
[7] Elias Götz, “Explaining Russia’s Opposition to NATO Enlargement: Strategic Imperatives, Ideas, or Domestic Politics?” in NATO and Euro-Atlantic Security after the Cold War (Washington, DC: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2019), 481ff.
[8] Vladimir Putin, interview by David Frost, Breakfast with Frost, BBC, March 5, 2000, http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/audio_video/programmes/breakfast_with_frost/transcripts/putin5.mar.txt.
[9] Vladimir Putin, “Press Conference after a Meeting with NATO Secretary General George Robertson,” October 3, 2001, http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/copy/21350.
[10] Roy Allison, “Russia’s Strategies in Afghanistan and Their Consequences for NATO,” NATO Defense College Research Paper no. 69 (Rome: NATO Defense College, 2011).
[11] Vladimir Putin, “Speech at a Meeting of the NATO-Russia Council,” March 28, 2002, http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/21611.
[12] Vladimir Putin, interview by David Frost, Breakfast with Frost, BBC, June 22, 2003, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/breakfast_with_frost/3010956.stm.
[13] Vladimir Putin, “Interview with the Wall Street Journal,” February 11, 2002, http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/21498.
[14] Ibid.
[15] Mike Winnerstig, Reluctant Rapprochement: Russia and the Baltic States in the Context of NATO and EU Enlargement, FOI-R–0808–SE (Stockholm: Swedish Defence Research Agency, 2003), 23, https://www.foi.se/rest-api/report/FOI-R–0808–SE.
[16] Clifford G. Gaddy and Barry W. Ickes, “Russia after the Global Financial Crisis,” Eurasian Geography and Economics 51, no. 3 (2010): 281–311, https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/05_russia_financial_crisis_gaddy.pdf.
[17] Kirill Rogov, “What Is Behind the Myth of Putin’s ‘Contract’?” SCEEUS Guest Report, 2024, https://sceeus.se/en/publications/what-is-behind-the-myth-of-putins-contract/.
[18] Daniel Treisman, “Is Russia Cursed by Oil?” Journal of International Affairs 63, no. 2 (2010): 85–102, https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w15667/w15667.pdf.
[19] Andrei Movchan, “Decline, Not Collapse: The Bleak Prospects for Russia’s Economy,” Carnegie Moscow Center, March 2017, https://carnegie.ru/publications/?fa=67865.
[20] Benjamin Smith, “The Resource Curse and the Politics of Oil,” in A Critical Assessment of the Rentier State Model, Working Paper (Leeds: School of Politics and International Studies, University of Leeds, 2008), https://www.files.ethz.ch/isn/57566/WP20JDJ.pdf.
[21] Leon Aron, “The Putin Doctrine: Russia’s Quest to Rebuild the Soviet State,” Foreign Affairs 92, no. 3 (2013): 18–24.
[22] Lilia Shevtsova, “Humiliation as a Tool of Blackmail,” The American Interest, June 2, 2015, https://www.the-american-interest.com/2015/06/02/humiliation-as-a-tool-of-blackmail/.
[23] Olga Malinova, “Legitimizing Putin’s Regime: The Transformations of the Narrative of Russia’s Post-Soviet Transition,” Communist and Post-Communist Studies 55, no. 1 (2022): 52–75, https://doi.org/10.1525/j.postcomstud.2022.55.1.52.
[24] World Bank, Russian Economic Report No. 28: Reinvigorating the Economy (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2012), https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2012/10/08/russian-economic-report-28.
[25] Nick Amies, “Russia, US Clash over Russian Election Protests,” Deutsche Welle, December 9, 2011, https://www.dw.com/en/russia-us-clash-over-russian-election-protests/a-15589210.
[26] Valery Gerasimov, “The Value of Science Is in the Foresight,” Military Review, January–February 2016, https://www.armyupress.army.mil/portals/7/military-review/archives/english/militaryreview_20160228_art008.pdf.
[27] Alexander Baunov, “Russian Ideology After Crimea,” Carnegie Moscow Center, September 22, 2015, https://carnegie.ru/2015/09/22/russian-ideology-after-crimea/ihzq.
[28] Wolfgang Richter, NATO–Russia Tensions: Putin Orders Invasion of Ukraine, SWP Comment 16/2022 (Berlin: Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik, 2022), https://www.swp-berlin.org/publications/products/comments/2022C16_NATO-Russia_Tensions.pdf.
[29] Vladimir Putin, “Address by the President of the Russian Federation,” February 24, 2022, http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/67843.
[30] Anne Applebaum, Putinism: The Ideology, LSE IDEAS Strategic Update (London: London School of Economics and Political Science, 2013), https://www.lse.ac.uk/ideas/Assets/Documents/updates/LSE-IDEAS.
