The US has endured some hard lessons in that role, Scowcroft said. NATO expansion into what was once the Soviet sphere of influence and the 2002 US withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with Moscow led to a souring of US-Russian relations “that could have been avoided,” he said.
“One of the mistakes we made, and it was gradual, was that we forgot that for Russia this [the end of the Cold War] was a very different kind of experience and however we try to say ‘it’s a new era, it’s a bright era for everybody,’ for the Russians it was deep humiliation,” Scowcroft said. “It wasn’t done to humiliate the Russians at all. It was done for worthwhile purposes, but it ignored very important factors that have risen to haunt us now.”
Scowcroft said the powerful US position in the world is comparable to the Roman Empire, but that times have changed and “we found that you can’t use that power the way you used to. It doesn’t work and I think we are still very much on the learning curve.”
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