A Broken Promise?: ‘The Gorbachev-Baker Conversation’ and the Meaning of NATO’s “one inch to the east”

In the ‘Gorbachev-Baker talks’ held in Moscow on February 9, 1990, J. Baker's statement to Gorbachev that NATO would not expand “one inch to the east” has sparked controversy. Researchers who evaluate NATO's eastward expansion as a policy failure interpret Baker's statement as a diplomatic commitment not to expand NATO into Eastern Europe, which NATO violated by expanding into Eastern Europe. However, such interpretations are closer to a “myth” when examining the situation at the time of the “Gorbachev-Baker talks”. In fact, this “talk” was part of the overall process in which the United States, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and France continued to contact and negotiate over the acceptance, process, and international and military nature of a unified Germany. In the process of making the “one inch” statement, Baker first restricted NATO's deployment to “West Germany”, from which we can see that the “one inch to the east” that NATO would not enter refers to “East Germany”, not “Eastern Europe”. At the time, the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact was still intact in Eastern Europe, and Soviet troops were stationed in East Germany, so it was not a situation where Baker could throw out NATO's Eastward expansion as a concession to Gorbachev. In this sense, it is appropriate to see the “East” in the “Gorbachev-Baker talks” as referring to “East Germany”, as confirmed by Gorbachev in a clear tone.