ABSTRACT

Much controversy exists over the making of Europe’s security architecture after the end of the Cold War, specifically how and why the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation [NATO] emerged as the preferred solution to the continent’s security conundrum, and where this development left Russia. These questions have puzzled historians and political scientists. Crucially, they also continue to resonate politically, as the Ukraine crisis of 2021/22 shows. For more than 15 years, the Vladimir Putin government has propagated the view that Western governments reneged on binding pledges made to Moscow in 1990 during German unification diplomacy that NATO would never expand beyond Germany into Central and Eastern Europe, or even what had been theSoviet space. As well as accusations of Western betrayal, Russian leaders have also talked of an expansionist American agenda, all of which supposedly culminated in ‘nothing, but [the wilful] humiliation’ of Russia. Existing scholarship has largely fixated on Russo-American ‘Great Power’ relations. By exploring the competitive co-operation within the Boris Yeltsin-Bill Clinton-Helmut Kohl triangle, this article depicts the push-and-pull factors within and between East and West, and especially inside the Alliance, as these three leaders set out to secure a post-Wall Europe together that was far more complex and multi-layered than hitherto appreciated.

摘要

冷战结束后欧洲安全架构的构建存在很多争议，特别是北大西洋公约组织 [NATO]如何以及为何成为解决欧洲大陆安全难题的首选解决方案，以及这一发展对俄罗斯的影响。这些问题一直困扰着历史学家和政治学家。至关重要的是，它们还在政治上继续引起共鸣，正如 2021/22 年乌克兰危机所显示的那样。15 年多来，弗拉基米尔·普京政府一直在宣传这样一种观点，即西方政府违背了 1990 年德国统一外交期间对莫斯科做出的约束性承诺，即北约永远不会扩展到德国以外的中欧和东欧，甚至是曾经的苏联空间。除了指责西方背叛外，俄罗斯领导人还谈到了美国的扩张主义议程，据说所有这些都最终导致俄罗斯“没有什么，只是[故意]羞辱”。现有的学术研究主要关注俄美“大国”关系。通过探讨鲍里斯·叶利钦-比尔·克林顿-赫尔穆特·科尔三角关系中的竞争性合作，本文描述了东西方内部和之间，尤其是联盟内部的推拉因素，因为这三位领导人着手确保一个比迄今为止所理解的更为复杂和多层次的后墙欧洲。