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Notes -
Soviet Union was a military behemoth that expressed constant interest in taking over Europe and Asia as well as projecting power into Africa and Latin America. A very substantial chunk of western intellectual classes and almost entirety of the new world third world leaders were sympathetic to its ideology to some degree. It was ruled by people who were capable of sanctioning deaths on the order of tens of millions and had almost total political control of their population.
NATO existed to defend the remaining tiny stretch of capitalist Europe against this.
In comparison what’s Russia? A rump state that staged a couple half failed interventions in its generally pretty messed up barely seceded neighbours, and spent the last 3 decades trying to integrate with neoliberal global markets.
England, Italy, France, Germany or even Turkey feels no serious threat from modern Russia. Therefore the “alliance” just lingers on as a braindead useless entity.
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