The Budapest Memorandum 1994 After 30 Years:
Non-Proliferation Success Overshadowed by NATO Blowup Then, Russian War on Ukraine Now

Clinton calls Yeltsin before departing for Poland and the Baltics several days before they would meet at the G-7 summit in Naples. The purpose of this call is to allay Yeltsin’s worries about the U.S. president’s meetings with Russia’s former allies, among whom the Poles, in particular, have been pushing for early and fast NATO expansion. Yeltsin asks him to mention the issue of Russian minorities in the Baltics. Clinton summarizes what he intends to tell the Poles on NATO, but his wording is very careful. Instead of talking about NATO expansion, he quotes himself from back in January 1994, saying that “NATO’s role will eventually expand” but setting no timetable. It is somewhat misleading, because Clinton tells his Russian counterpart: “I would like us to focus on the Partnership for Peace program so that we can achieve a united Europe where people respect each other’s borders and work together.” To Yeltsin, this sounds exactly like what he heard in October 1993 from Warren Christopher and Strobe Talbott—Partnership for Peace rather than NATO expansion. Clinton also notes that their partnership is working well—another theme that Yeltsin is eager to hear. However, Clinton’s understanding of the word “partnership” seems to be very different from Yeltsin’s.

Vitaly Kataev served as deputy head of the defense industrial department of the CPSU Central Committee during the Soviet Union and remained in his position as presidential adviser on nuclear and defense issues in the early 1990s. A top-level expert on nuclear missile complexes, he sends this memorandum to Yeltsin explaining the details of missile production in Ukraine and the “precarious condition” of nuclear warheads remaining there. He emphasizes that it would be impossible for Ukraine to continue missile production on its own in the current situation and that they would not be able to properly maintain the warheads, some of which were entering the end of their service time.

Kataev summarizes Ukraine’s predicament in three concise sentences: “Ukraine does not have specialized facilities, including the material and technological base, for the processing and production of nuclear warheads. Ukraine cannot create such conditions independently. In accordance with the non-proliferation of nuclear technology regime nobody has the right to provide Ukraine this kind of assistance.”

Kataev suggests that instead of bargaining with Ukraine about the price Russia was willing to pay for the warheads, the Russian military leadership should present Ukraine with full information on the warheads remaining on their territory and their terms of service: “It would be advisable to stop asking Ukraine to transfer the nuclear warheads to Russia: after some time Ukraine itself will be asking us to do this, and it will have to pay for this transfer.”

On the second day of the Washington summit, after discussion of the whole spectrum of security issues, Clinton reassures Yeltsin again about NATO expansion in this “one-on-one” with Strobe Talbott as notetaker. Clinton follows the script proposed by Mamedov through Talbott pretty closely, asserting that he has never said that Russia could not be considered for membership, and that “when we talk about NATO expanding, we are emphasizing inclusion, not exclusion.” Clinton says that his priority is European unity and security, that he would not spring any surprises on Yeltsin, and that it would take years to bring East European countries up to the requirements and for other members to say yes. Most importantly for Yeltsin, the U.S. president reiterates that “NATO expansion is not anti-Russian; it’s not intended to be exclusive of Russia and there is no imminent timetable.” Talbott contrasts the position of German Defense Minister Volker Ruehe, who said “never” to Russian membership in NATO, to that of Defense Secretary William Perry. Yeltsin says “Perry is smarter than Ruehe” for saying, “we are not ruling it out.”

For historians and analysts of national security decision-making, this document and its context provide much to digest. At the top of the memo is a process notation that the Secretary of State’s “night notes” get passed to President Clinton first thing in the morning without any cover note or commentary and that “the President always reads them on the spot.” Thus, Christopher kept sending them. On the substance, the text is misleading, by saying “Yeltsin accepted this approach” (on NATO). More accurately, a reader of the memcons, telcons and letters would say that Yeltsin never really accepted NATO expansion and that his queries about Russia as a potential member show his continued skepticism.

This remarkable phone call between Presidents Clinton and Kuchma looks forward to Kuchma’s state visit to Washington in November, a reward for his leadership in the Ukrainian parliament (the Rada) towards nuclear non-proliferation. Kuchma reiterates that “I’ll do everything possible – and even impossible” to ensure ratification of Ukraine’s joining the NPT as a non-nuclear state. On Clinton’s part, he offers real dollars: $130 million in Nunn Lugar funding, over $100 million in balance of payments support, and more. One resonant phrase comes from Kuchma: “I am grateful for your position on Russia. In today’s conditions, we cannot avoid dealing with them.”

This text sent just a month before the Budapest meeting contains multiple examples of Russia’s quest for an equal partnership with the U.S. on global security issues. Yeltsin writes: “There should exist a basic understanding that Russian-American partnership constitutes the central factor in the world’s politics.” The documents show that this was not Washington’s understanding. Most interesting in the context of the Budapest meeting is the page and a half about Ukraine, in which the Russian president describes “very good mutual understanding, including in personal terms, with President Kuchma.” Yeltsin touts a forthcoming bilateral Russian-Ukrainian treaty, which Russia two decades later violated with its invasion of Crimea. And Yeltsin says he sees the Budapest Memorandum as “a really milestone document which would cover all the concerns of Ukraine which is fraternal to us.” Out to the side, Strobe Talbott puts question marks at the passage where Yeltsin writes “there are too many ‘caverns’ in the draft” and especially “in Ukraine’s western flank where Ukraine has its own problems.” In fact, it would be the eastern flank where Russia would foment a war in the Donbas starting in 2014.

From beginning (“Boss”) to end (“Cheers, Strobe”), this highly informal letter to the President from his Deputy Secretary of State and his former Rhodes Scholar roommate at Oxford, puts the reader in the room during the process of the highest-level decision making. Clinton’s domestic advisers did not want him spending any more time on foreign affairs, especially given the Newt Gingrich led mid-term elections in 1994 where Republicans took back the House of Representatives after 40 years of Democratic control. Talbott intervenes with what he calls “out-of-channels, direct-approach special pleading on behalf of one side in a debate going on among your advisors” about attending the Budapest OSCE meeting. Talbott says “You gotta go.” At stake are the “intimately related, immensely important” issues of European integration and NATO expansion: “You’re committed to both these goals; reconciling them is tough but doable.” The Budapest blowup would show, not so much.

This remarkable transcript, found in the GARF archives in Moscow, gives candid Russian Foreign Ministry analysis of the state of relations with Ukraine just before the Budapest meeting. Of particular note is the report that Ukraine’s debts to Russia for oil and gas “amounts to more than 5 billion dollars, and it continues every day due to the fact that the supply of oil and gas and other goods continues, payment does not happen, and this debt continues to grow.” The deputy foreign minister also remarks that the total aid amount for Ukraine from the Winnipeg conference of the G-7 ($370 million) was far less than what Russia was providing ($640 million) in delaying current debt payments. A final note mentions a key red flag for Russia, that the Russian language should be continued as a state language in Ukraine.

Two days before the NATO meeting in Brussels, Clinton gives Yeltsin more reassurance about their partnership and the process of NATO expansion. The letter states: “I would like to reassure you now that what the NATO allies do at the upcoming North Atlantic Council (NAC) session in Brussels will be fully consistent with what you and I discussed in the White House during your visit.” Clinton tells Yeltsin that the conversation at the NAC will be not about the list of potential new NATO members or the timetable but about working out a “common view on precepts for membership,” which will be subsequently presented “to all members of Partnership for Peace who want to receive it.” Expanding NATO would be “intended to enhance the security and promote the integrity of Europe as a whole” rather than “being directed at any country.” The letter notes that now, after Ukraine’s Rada has ratified accession to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, which will allow full removal of nuclear weapons from Ukraine, Clinton is ready to meet with Yeltsin and the presidents of Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan and to provide security assurances to those countries. The careful distinction is between the “guarantees,” which Yeltsin said he was ready to sign, and the word “assurances” that the U.S. insisted on using.

In this very short letter on the eve on the CSCE summit in Budapest and the day before the NAC meeting, Yeltsin reiterates what he thinks is a common understanding regarding CSCE and NATO based on his conversations with Clinton in Washington and subsequent correspondence. CSCE will play a key role in European security, and it needs more than a cosmetic renovation—a transformation into a “full-fledged European organization with a sound legal base.” On NATO: “We have agreed with you that there will be no surprises, that first we should pass through this phase of partnership, whereas issues of further evolution of NATO should not be decided without due account to the opinion and interests of Russia.” Yeltsin warns Clinton very specifically that “[a]doption of an expedited time-table, plans to start negotiations with the candidates already in the middle of the next year will be interpreted, and not only in Russia, as the beginning of a new split of Europe.” Yeltsin’s and Kozyrev’s information from Washington and the European capitals certainly included rumors of an expedited schedule of NATO expansion.

The NAC communiqué on December 1, 1994, announcing a study of requirements for NATO accession to be completed in 1995, must have sounded to Yeltsin like exactly what he was warning against. The study would be finished in November, just before the Duma elections, contributing to Yeltsin’s growing electoral vulnerability. In Brussels, Kozyrev, upon reading the language of the communiqué, refused to sign the Partnership for Peace documents, concluding that the communiqué proclaimed that “partnership is subsidiary to enlargement.” He also relayed his understanding to Yeltsin in a phone call. Now, two days before the start of the Budapest summit, all Clinton’s efforts to mollify and reassure Yeltsin are on the brink. In a last-ditch attempt to preserve peace and calm at the summit, Clinton sends his Russian partner this letter, hoping to persuade him that this was simply a misunderstanding of the NAC communiqué on the part of Kozyrev. Clinton says he was “surprised and disappointed” by the foreign minister’s actions. The letter emphasizes that since the Clinton-Yeltsin meeting in Washington, “we have adhered assiduously to the principles on which you and I agreed: no surprises; high priority on maintaining—and strengthening—the U.S.-Russia partnership; and careful, inclusive deliberations taking a full account of the opinion and interests of Russia”—but clearly this is not how it felt in Moscow.

Immediately responding to the U.S. president’s letter, Yeltsin writes: “I cannot agree with your appraisal of this document,” meaning the NAC communiqué. He believes that the present misunderstanding requires more specific explanations. Clinton’s restatement of their understandings achieved in Washington is very important for Yeltsin, and a broader U.S.-Russian partnership is his top priority. He wants the president to provide “assurances that enlargement rather than partnership is not being emphasized now.” He also wants to engage in dialogue on “specific obligations and security guarantees for Russia and NATO.” In the Russian view, the only acceptable way to enlarge NATO is if the alliance is effectively rendered “new and transformed through partnership.” The American delegation to Budapest, in the absence of Strobe Talbott, missed the warnings here.

This revealing memo from the Talbott files illuminates several extraordinary storylines from the NATO debates inside the Clinton administration. First, apparently Talbott predicted that the Partnership for Peace (so strongly favored by the Pentagon rather than NATO expansion) would eventually replace NATO or be NATO’s successor; and his boss, the Secretary of State, rebuked him. Second, Talbott still criticized the prevalent rhetoric about Partnership for Peace as “a kind of holding room for members-in-waiting of NATO” on multiple grounds. Third, Talbott warns that the U.S. may be “prejudging a pessimistic answer to one of the great questions of our time: Is Russia on the road to eventual full integration with the West? Or is Russian imperialism just in remission?” Fourth, Talbott justifies the NATO expansion rationale after and “if those bad forces were to gain the upper hand in Russia”; yet NATO expansion preceded and arguably encouraged that upper hand. Ultimately, Talbott went along with the presidential decision for rapid expansion of NATO, only holding off until after the U.S. and Russian presidential elections in 1996, but this memo makes exactly the succinct case that Secretary of Defense William Perry and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs John Shalikashvili were supporting for the Partnership for Peace as an alternative to NATO expansion, precisely because P4P included Russia and Ukraine.

In this prescient and very carefully worded NODIS cable, Ambassador Thomas Pickering gives his analysis of Kozyrev and Yeltsin’s behavior and their reaction to the NAC communiqué. He cites several causes that explain the blowup; among them Kozyrev’s personal sensitivities, domestic opposition, and the feeling that the U.S. is pushing harder for NATO expansion than other NATO countries (and harder than they have admitted to the Russians). He points correctly to the strong opposition to NATO expansion across the entire Russian political spectrum and the support that tough speeches have received at home. The Russian leadership perceived that the U.S. was telling different things about NATO expansion to its Western allies and Russia (true). Pickering’s recommendations are not to pick a fight with Yeltsin but to give him assurances and mend fences during the upcoming Gore visit to Moscow—telling Yeltsin explicitly that there would be no decisions on expansion before the Russian election in June 1996 and no new members before the end of the century.

This immediate follow-up cable to Document 10, above, provides specific advice for preparing Gore’s visit and his meeting with Yeltsin. It is based on a candid conversation with Georgy Mamedov and the latter’s previous long conversation with Kozyrev. Pickering thinks “it would be particularly important to lean as far forward as we can in reassuring Yeltsin that we envisage no actual decisions on new members before June of 1996, and no formal entry of new members until considerably after that.” Clinton should send Yeltsin a letter listing specific assurances and follow up with a personal message with the vice president. Gore’s visit would be the best chance to get the NATO discussion on “a workable track.”

Nick Burns sends this very sensitive and candid memo to Talbot personally by courier. Talbott missed Budapest because of his involvement in the crisis in Haiti, was partially blaming himself for the blowup, and now has to pick up the pieces. The memo is based on Burns’ revealing conversations with Clinton on the plane and back in Washington. Burns describes Clinton as feeling “really pissed off” that Yeltsin had “showed him up” with his public criticisms of U.S. policy and says that “his anger grew when we returned to Washington” and saw how events were being treated in the news. National Security Adviser Tony Lake said Clinton “did not want to be used any more as a prop by Yeltsin.” At the same time, the memo shows Clinton’s sincere desire to do it right and his search for a way to square the circle—expand NATO and preserve a great relationship with the reforming Russia. Clinton wonders “whether or not we should try to be more frank with the Russians” about the U.S. vision on expansion and its timetable. Importantly, even while being mad at Yeltsin for “dumping on us in public,” Clinton understands that “we must also deal with Russia’s real and legitimate security concerns about NATO expansion.” Burns expresses doubts about Talbott’s Mamedov channel because he did not give the U.S. any warning of what Kozyrev and Yeltsin were planning to say. Talbott’s note in the margin suggests Mamedov did not have that information himself.

This letter, initially drafted by Nick Burns, extends the hand of reconciliation to Yeltsin but does not go as far in specific assurances as proposed by Pickering in his earlier cable (Document 10). Clinton lays out his vision of a “unified, stable and peaceful Europe in the next century.” Still, the letter deemphasizes NATO expansion as a Clinton administration priority by putting it after “strengthened CSCE” in the list of U.S. priorities. To outline an appealing scenario, the letter lists all the Western institutions that Russia would become a part of, including the World Trade Organization, the Paris Club, and the G-7. Clinton states: “Our common aim should be to achieve a full integration between Russia and the West—including strengthened links with NATO—with no new divisions in Europe.” The letter expresses Clinton’s view that the U.S. has adhered scrupulously to the pledge of “no surprises.” He is appealing to Yeltsin to keep their trusting relationship and to discuss this “most difficult issue that you and I will confront together” confidentially rather than publicly.

Greatly relieved by the successful visit to Russia by Vice President Gore, Clinton sends this letter to Yeltsin reiterating his “strong commitment both to the U.S.-Russia partnership and to the goal of a stable, integrated and undivided Europe” and restating the September commitment that “the future development of NATO will proceed gradually and openly.” Having left this “rift” behind, the U.S. and Russia can now concentrate on substantive discussions about the “most important and sensitive question” of European security. Clinton pledges that he will “continue to take the lead to ensure that a strong Russian economic program is accompanied by large-scale Western support.” And above all—what Yeltsin wants to hear most—the letter is filled with occurrences of the word “partnership” and praise for what this partnership had achieved so far. In other words—a lot of nice generalities but no candid or specific message on NATO expansion. The great irony of this letter is that it was sent just three days after Defense Secretary Perry found out at the December 21 debriefing session with Gore that the president was committed to a rapid expansion of NATO right after 1996, rather than taking the much slower route through the Partnership for Peace, which was Perry’s preferred option.