Money graf, NYT, 2/5/1997, by Kennan:
“The view, bluntly stated, is that expanding NATO would be the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-Cold War era. Such a decision may be expected to inflame the nationalistic, anti-Western and militaristic tendencies in Russian opinion; to have an adverse effect on the development of Russian democracy; to restore the atmosphere of the cold war to East-West relations, and to impel Russian foreign policy in directions decidedly not to our liking … I think the Russians will gradually react quite adversely and it will affect their policies. I think it is a tragic mistake. There was no reason for this whatsoever. No one was threatening anybody else. This expansion would make the founding fathers of this country turn over in their graves.”
https://www.nytimes.com/1997/02/05/opinion/a-fateful-error.html
See related:
https://www.russiamatters.org/analysis/george-kennan-russia-insights-and-recommendations
The mutual security treaty draft proposed in December 2021 to the United States by the Russians:
https://mid.ru/ru/foreign_policy/rso/nato/1790818/?lang=en
Kennan’s famous “Long Telegram”, from the post-WW2 beginnings of the first Cold War:
https://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/116178.pdf
