In a word, threatened. While US policy and that of the
West during the Cold War was one of containment, and didn't threaten the Soviets
directly, you have to remember that Russia had been invaded by Germany twice in the last
half century, so the formation of the NATO alliance with hundreds of thousands of troops
and eventually nuclear weapons made them feel insecure, and rightfully so. They formed
the Warsaw Pact alliance in response to NATO, pure and
simple.
I think the Soviets were less threatened by our
ANZUS alliance (Australia-New Zealand-US) or the alliance with Japan, but it did pose
more of a threat to China and to communist expansion in the region which the Soviets
supported.
No comments:
Post a Comment