In looking at the history of Russia, so far we've examined the country's gargantuan size and the actions of Stalin leading to Nazi invasion in World War II. Let's skip most of the war and talk about the afterward.
In order to understand the post-war world order, we need to look at what happened as the conflict ended. After Stalingrad (Aug 1942-Feb 1943), Soviet soldiers pushed the Germans back west. After D-Day (June 1944), the western Allies (American, British and more) pushed east. Eventually they met in the middle, in Germany in 1945. Along the way western Europe was liberated, including France, Belgium, the Netherlands and west Germany, all of which formed self-determined governments following the war. Eastern Europe, including east Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria, found themselves overrun by the USSR, who wasn't just going to leave. Hitler was gone, the Nazis were defeated and the shooting war had stopped. But it only set the stage for a long standoff. At least one U.S. General thought we should've kept marching east right then. Patton may have been right but no one else had the stomach for that after the biggest war in history.
Events of the late 1940s necessitated a defensive alliance in the eyes of democratic western Europe. In 1948 the Soviet Union blockaded Berlin, a city surrounded by East Germany but had been divided into sectors controlled by the Allied powers. The Berlin Airlift, a stunning logistics operation, successfully supplied the portion of Berlin under western control for over a year until the USSR ended their attempt to take the city in full. Before 1950 Soviet aligned governments had seized control in the eastern European nations including a coup d'etat in Czechoslovakia overturning democratic elections. Fear of the continued spread of Soviet communism in West Germany, Italy and France led to closer ties with the United States and adoption of the Marshall Plan to rebuild western Europe.
While these events were ongoing, several western European nations had already committed to a joint defensive alliance. The Treaty of Brussels in 1948 joined Britain, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Belgium. But even combined these countries weren't strong enough to withstand a potential attack from the USSR. Discussions began with the United States and in 1949 the North Atlantic Treaty was produced. The idea was that if any of the signing countries were attacked all remaining countries would respond, likely by declaring war on the aggressor. While not called out by name the Soviet Union was clearly the reason for the treaty and the organization it created, called NATO. It established a complicated command structure as well as rules ('articles') for how it would work. One result was a standardization of the associated militaries, from terminology to munitions and more. At the start, the treaty was signed by 12 nations: Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the United Kingdom and the United States. This deal worked the U.S. because it didn't require a massive permanent commitment of troops to the European continent. None of the western democracies wanted huge standing militaries either. Instead they would stand together to deter the Soviet threat. Official policy was 'containment.'
This was the beginning of the Cold War and the threat was real. The Iron Curtain had closed. The Korean War (1950-53) was a significant test. The Warsaw Pact countered NATO after the addition of West Germany in 1955. What made the Cold War especially terrifying was the rapid development of nuclear weapons. The first atom bombs were dropped on Japan in 1945 during WWII. Though the Manhattan Project had been extremely secretive, Soviet spies kept Stalin updated and their own testing soon began. The first Soviet atom bomb explosion was in 1949, much earlier than American scientists thought possible. In 1952 the United States tested its first thermonuclear (or hydrogen) bomb, with substantially greater results. The Soviets had something similar, which was portable, in 1953. In 1954 the United States detonated its largest payload bomb, called Castle Bravo, at 14.8 megatons. In 1961 the Soviets detonated the largest payload bomb in history, the Tsar Bomba, at 58(!) megatons. The countries continued to pour resources into nuclear capabilities and delivery methods. While the Americans remained ahead, both countries created weapons far beyond anything the world had ever seen before, able to destroy cities in an instant and cursing people outside the immediate blast to a horrible death from radiation. This was when the Doomsday Clock and mutual assured destruction entered the public consciousness.
In Europe, against this backdrop of the potential end of humanity, the Western Bloc (NATO) faced the Eastern Bloc (Warsaw Pact). Deterrence of such a result was the goal, but any time opposing forces faced one another there was understandable fear of escalation and nuclear war. It wouldn't have taken much and the specter of such an event lasted for decades. I'd love to talk about some of the Cold War flare-ups (the Hungarian Revolution, construction of the Berlin Wall, the Cuban Missile Crisis...) but there isn't time for that today.
What's most interesting to me, and most on-topic, is the continued addition of countries to NATO since its creation. After the original 12 in 1949, Greece and Turkey came aboard in 1952. As mentioned earlier West Germany joined in 1955. In the 1960s, seeking its own way during the Presidency of Charles de Gaulle, France removed itself from NATO's command structure but didn't entirely withdraw from the alliance. With the exception of the addition of Spain in 1982, membership was stable from 1955 until the fall of the Soviet Union. With the Cold War largely remaining cold and NATO never being utilized in a large-scale confrontation, it seems the alliance worked.
After the breakup of the Soviet Union eastern Europe changed quickly. In 1990 East Germany re-unified with West Germany and Lithuania declared independence. 1991 was big. The other two Baltic states, Estonia and Latvia reappeared on the map. Yugoslavia, a Communist country not part of the Warsaw Pact, began to break up itself. Ukraine, Moldova and Belarus all became separate entities. In 1993 Czechoslovakia split into the Czech Republic (now Czechia) and Slovakia.
You'd think that with the Soviet Union no longer in existence, the purpose of NATO was extinct. And in some ways that was the feeling. The scale of NATO's command structure and operations decreased. There was an increased focus on political and humanitarian efforts. But it was still primarily a defensive military alliance and for many of eastern European countries it wasn't enough to be free from Moscow, they overwhelmingly favored entering NATO. The Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland joined in 1999, within the decade. In 2004 came Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. Besides Slovenia, which broke off from Yugoslavia, these were all countries previously part of the Soviet Union or a member of the Warsaw Pact. They all joined NATO within 15 years of having the option to do so. What does that tell you?
There's been more since 2004 and it's continuing today. Four other countries that used to be part of Yugoslavia have joined: Albania and Croatia in 2009, Montenegro in 2017 and North Macedonia in 2020. After the invasion of Ukraine, Sweden and Finland, who both long desired to remain neutral, appear to be on the fast track right now. This is notable for, among other things, the long border Finland shares with Russia. Whatever you think of this, Russia is not handling it well.
More than 30 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, NATO is still growing. It's growing because Russia is still feared (even as a shell of its former self it still has nukes) and the concept of a unified defensive alliance against it is appealing. Closer ties to the west appears to be a draw as well but not the primary one. Considering the Russian attempt to reclaim lost Soviet 'glory' in Ukraine this all seems justified. It's pretty easy to see why these countries wanted in and it's hard to blame them. Remember, no one can force a nation to enter NATO, they join because it's what they want.
George C Scott was amazing as Patton!