the soviet union, getting them involved in bombing campaigns, in the balkan states, to try and bring security to that area and to define nato, notjust as a counterpoint to the warsaw pact, but as an alliance that could endure after the fall of the soviet union and i think it is very clear right now that nato has found its role again, and nato expansion, these are in front of nato, the borders there were defined by work that madeline albright did in the 1990s and foreign policy that she set the us on course on. we can speak to nathalie tocci, an italian political scientist and an international relations expert. hello. i was just reading today that she was the first person, the first senior us official to meet vladimir putin when he came to power and she wrote a note back to washington saying, putin is embarrassed by what happened to his country and he is determined to retrieve and restore
and i say that in the context of the sale or barter of u.s. secrets is now one of the central engines of the cuban economy. whether that s political secrets, economic secrets, military secrets, every country has interest in the united states. and cuba, their ability to steal secrets, they outperform almost every nation in the world. the cubans are so good for several reasons. at the start of the cold war, the russians and all the warsaw pact allies saw the cubans as useful partners that would not draw attention like they would. the russians, the poles, every service in the world trained the cubans. cuba exploited the perception that they re not a threat because it lowers their cost of espionage, and it gets them more clients because situations that would be hard for the chinese or russians to do, cuban agents can do easily.
making process, the soviet union controlled most of the decisions, and the soviets used it to crush dissent across eastern european nations, including hungary, the former czechoslovakia and poland. the warsaw pact disbanded in 1991. nato has grown significantly over the past 70 years from 12 member states originally to 29 member states today and recent additions include several former warsaw pact nations, including poland, and the former soviet states of estonia, latvia and lithuania which brings nato, which is in the yellow here, right up against russia and that s upset russian president vladimir putin who has long tried to divide and undermine the nato alliance. nato s main mission is the security and defense of its member nations. article 5 of the north atlantic treaty says an armed against one or more in europe or north america shall be considered an attack against them all. this triggers a joint defense by
soon to be 30 members to strengthen nato s collective defense. let s talk about if russia were to get aggressive and do something. russia moved into ukraine, not a nato country, one that was thinking about strengthening its relations with the west, and for people in poland or in these former warsaw pact countries, that is the kind of thing that worries them, because they still have a memory that goes back to the cold war and world war ii in which russia was expansionist. absolutely right. so what we do by sending a strong message of deterrence and that s what a strong u.s. force presence, a nato force presence on nato s eastern border sends a clear message to the kremlin, don t even think about it. it will be met with overwhelming strength. we respect the territorial integrity of nato. that s the message that it sends so a strong deterrence is actually built to ensure stability. now, let s be clear. there may be a response by
these projects at no cost to the united states. the polish government will pay for this. just before the news conference, the two leaders watched an f-35 joint strike fighter fly over the white house in honor of poland s decision to buy more than 30 of these war planes. now, let s talk a little bit about why this is relevant. poland lies on nato s eastern edge and it plays an important role in the military alliance. i want to take a look at the military alliance. nato stands for the north atlantic treaty organization. it was created by the north atlantic treaty which was signed in washington on april 4, 1949. this alliance was designed to be a check on the former soviet union s expansion into europe. now, six years later, the soviet union, this is this was back then, the soviet union and its eastern european allies, established their own political and military alliance called the warsaw pact. after poland s capital where the treaty was created and signed. the alliance organized its