becoming a full name of nato and scaling back of protections in surrounding countries. the russia using this specter of invasion as a geopolitical bargaining chip of sorts or is it worse than that? he manufacturing his own reason, a fake pretext for an all-out war there? a moment of crisis similar to the cold war. the washington post wrote, the soviet unit collapsed 30 years ago this month, an event that opened up vast new possibilities for freedom and self determination in europe but whose geopolitical sequences putin openly lamented. he seems bent on reversing them, quite possibly by force and sooner rather than later. joining us now, ben rhodes, frormer national security