ABSTRACT
Russia has always included a strong defensive strategy along with its policies of aggressive expansion. Geography has been a major contributor to the expansionist policies of Russia since the arrival of the earliest Slavic people. Its vast empty stretches have also worked in its defenses. Russia's policy of building barriers was in force in both the western and eastern borderlands. Soviet Russia formalized and solidified its alliances with the occupied countries in May 1955 when it established the Warsaw Pact (WP) as a counterweight to the US-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Russia claimed that the pact's function was to be collective self-defense of the member states against aggression by an external military. For centuries, Russia's defense strategy in Asia involved territorial acquisitions and establishment of bases in the acquired territories and in countries it considered to be necessary for defense; that expansion was never designed to open markets for Russian exports.
