Pay particular attention to the eminent historian John Erickson’s assessment of the misapprehension by the West of the Soviet Union’s legitimate strategic defense interests, a principal tenant of the enduring Cold War conflict. The central foreign policy stance of the USSR since the days of Lenin (and we may now say which has continued in the post-USSR Russian Federation under Vladimir Putin): protection of the political and territorial integrity of the Russian nation-state against potential invaders or attempts of absorption of its territory.

The Best of Charles Burris