Vladimir Putin has made it his goal to weaken or destroy the NATO military alliance. However, his actions only continue to make it stronger. And earlier this week, Russia expressed a new - yet old - complaint: NATO is getting too involved in the conflict with Ukraine. In fact, it was the possibility of Ukraine joining NATO which triggered Russia’s invasion in the first place. To truly understand the geopolitics of this current conflict is to understand the long and brutal history of the Soviet Union, the creation of NATO and the Warsaw Pact.