Posted originally on Aug 21, 2025 by Martin Armstrong |  

Congressman Matt Gaetz proposed a radical peacetime solution – allow Russia to join NATO. “Before you suggest I’m crazy for thinking about NATO and Russia as partners, the idea has been floated by foreign policy thinkers on the right and left for some time,” Gaetz added.

“In 1997, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee held a hearing on NATO expansion. President Clinton’s secretary of state, Madeleine Albright, reflected on groundbreaking cooperation between NATO and Russia.” The concept never came to fruition as NATO decided that encircling Russia was of paramount concern, and partnering with its greatest enemy was of no interest to the neocons who WANT war. “Michael McFaul was President Obama’s ambassador to Russia. In 2006, he wrote an article entitled, ‘Why a Democratic Russia Should Join NATO,’” Gaetz went on. “Again, this reinforces that NATO membership is an earned reward, not an entitlement, but why not give Russia a chance to earn it?”

McFaul’s piece on Russian NATO membership was published in July 2006. But you must read between the lines, as the ambassador was suggesting more than mere integration. “In Russia, they are represented by the corrupt bureaucracy and advocates of authoritarianism who believe that greater contact with the West restricts their power and diminishes their wealth. In the West, and especially in the United States, they are represented by policymakers and analysts who believe that Russians do not value democracy, Russian leaders are imperialists, and Russia therefore can never be considered part of the West,” McFaul wrote.

He continued to say that the West was not threatening to Russia, nor are “Russians genetically disposed towards autocracy nor historically destined to remain imperial.” Yet, under the leadership of Vladimir Putin, the West refuses to consider Russia a true democracy because it upholds nationalist views. Russia refuses to bend the knee to the globalist world order and, therefore, is considered an “unqualified member of the West.” A regime change would alter the West’s perspective, as the West has long sought control over Russia. McFaul suggested that European leaders should outline a framework for Russia to join the European Union to become fully integrated into the West “even if it takes chunks of centuries.” Again, Russian NATO membership is contingent on Russia becoming a Western globalist world order member.

Obama’s Russian ambassador then went on to state that Russia must establish closer relations with other globalist organizations such as the United Nations, the OSCE, and the Council of Europe. Furthermore, Russia was to support the United States in its war in the Middle East and establish a “regional security organization, not unlike the CSCE that the United States and the Soviet Union anchored when first formed in 1974.”

Russia would never agree to join NATO. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was founded in the aftermath of the last World War to counter Russian influence, despite Russia being an ally during wartime. NATO incorporated Eastern bloc countries of the former Soviet Union to weaken Russia’s global influence in a move that humiliated the Russian people. Even after the Cold War, NATO continued to encircle Russia and expand eastward to assert dominance.

Former Russian President Boris Yeltsin was cautious about NATO expansion but agreed to join the Partnership for Peace in 1994 to maintain diplomatic relations with the West. Yeltsin then signed on to the 1997 NATO-Russia Founding Act that stated Russia and NATO would not consider each other adversaries. NATO promised not to place nuclear weapons in new member states. Both sides agreed to increased transparency and cooperation. Every promise imploded in 2014 after the annexation of Crimea, the installation of a faux Ukrainian government, and the lie that was the Minsk agreement.

“Take care of Russia,” were Yeltsin’s final words to Putin before relinquishing power. Not only is Putin protecting Russia against foreign influence, but he is keeping the true hardliner oligarchs who wish to recreate the glory days of the USSR at bay. However, both the hardliners and NATO have been impatiently waiting for a misstep from Putin since he took office. Russia does not want to become a vassal state of the West. NATO was formed to combat Russia and now acts as a retirement home for neocons who want to see Russia destroyed before they take their final breaths.