IN his letter that appeared at TheStar.com.my on March 3, political scientist Dr Chandra Muzaffar doesn’t condemn Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, the use of cluster bombs, kill lists, and whatnot (“Ukraine: Understanding the concern of the other”). Instead he feels the invasion is reasonable based on his interpretation of historical facts.
Dr Chandra is correct that US President George HW Bush told Soviet Union President Mikhail Gorbachev in the 1990s that Nato (the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) wouldn’t expand. This was done to make an already volatile situation, the collapse of the USSR, less volatile. It did not mean that Nato would never expand.
