Former communist Warsaw Pact members Bulgaria, Romania and Slovakia; the former Soviet Socialist Republics of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania; and the former Yugoslav Socialist Republic of Slovenia join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.  This is perceived by the Russian Federated Republic as a farther threat to its national security.

       NOTE: In 1990 President Mikhail Gorbachev, of the Soviet Union, provisionally approved the merger between the socialist Federal Republic of (West) Germany and the formerly communist Democratic Republic of (East) Germany with assurances from Republican (fascist/socialist) President George Herbert “Read my lips, no new taxes” Walker Bush that NATO would expand no farther to the east.

       [added 12/17/2023]