The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was founded in 1949 as a means of collective security for the defense of the West against the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc. With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, NATO seemed to have lost the main reason for its existence. While the nations of the former Eastern Bloc expressed interest in participating in NATO operations or even joining them, Russia constantly felt uncomfortable. When evaluating the response to NATO expansion in the 1990s, did Russia act offensively or defensively? JL Black presents a series of primary accounts from the years encompassing the expansion of NATO to give the reader an idea of ​​exactly what the Russian government was thinking at the time. It seems clear that NATO expansion has led Russia to act defensively to protect its strategic interests. Analyzing the history of Russia, Black emphasizes that Russians have always faced the problem of being surrounded by the West. This is what led Russia to turn to “marginal” nations for collective security support. Black also shows how during the Kosovo crisis, NATO overstepped its limits in terms of the extent to which it could solve the problem. Finally, NATO expansion was the cause of the increase in Russian military spending in the late 1990s. Historically, Russia has often found itself in a strategically difficult situation. Due to its enormous size, its borders are always at risk of invasion by the countries surrounding it. At the beginning of the 1700s it was the Ottomans and Swedes who invaded the Russian borders. This would be followed by an invasion by Napoleon, a defeat in the Crimean War, and resistance to Russian expansion into the Balkans in the late 1800s (JL Black, Russia Faces NATO Expansio...... middle of paper ... ...use like China and India to create a new Asian bloc to counterbalance the West While their support for these nations certainly harms the security of the West, Russia had no choice after NATO took all the former Soviet republics under its wing undermining Russian influence overstepped their limits during the Kosovo crisis, leaving Russia in trouble due to their once formidable influence on the UN Security Council, denied by NATO's unilateral movements. Finally, the military reform of the late 1990s was defensive in nature as it was intended to be a deterrent to NATO's expansion. Historically, they want collective security and fear isolation the vulnerability that takes away their sphere of influence in Europe and also leaves them in one corner of the map, forcing them to take. a defensive position.