Indeed it is not controversial. Even the USSR's last foreign minister Shevardnadze (1985-1991) and Russian Federation's first foreign minister Kozyrev (1990-1996) have said that they find nothing wrong with the way Eastern Europe joined NATO. According to Kozyrev, the fatal mistake in international relations was not applying enough pressure on Russia to transform it into a modern European country, as other nations did on their own while seeking protection from Russia.
I ask Kozyrev about a debate that has roiled the American foreign policy establishment in the leadup to this war. Did NATO go too far? On the contrary, he thinks it didn’t go far enough.
“Unfortunately, there are many wishful thinkers especially in academia here and intellectuals who have ties to Russia. They go to Valdai [a Russian think tank forum]. They consume caviar and vodka and are treated like kings by those who exist solely to manipulate them. This argument about NATO is just propaganda fed to Americans who then regurgitate it in their opinion and journal essays. The only real analysts who come here from Russia are dissidents. The rest are front people, just like in the Soviet Union, and they manufacture Western champions of the Putin regime, chumps and useful idiots.”
Eastern European countries that joined NATO were not, contra a lot of heated rhetoric on the subject, simply gobbled up by it. “They wanted to be in NATO, and at first America and its partners didn’t want to take them in. But they had no choice, because they couldn’t deny membership for qualified liberal democracies. The same way they can’t deny it for Ukraine.”[1]
Kozyrev is still alive and even has social media presence:
Maria Popova: The "Ru is afraid of NATO attack/encirclement" argument has been conclusively falsified for a while now.
Kozyrev: That is precisely what I was saying from the late 1980s. NATO presents no threat to Russia but provides free-of-charge security along its western borders. Putin's tyranny hates NATO as a tool for protecting democracies.[2]
I get the feeling the post is mostly venting; but I will pick you up on this point. It isn't remotely controversial - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enlargement_of_NATO.