NATO was founded to confront the threat that the USSR represented 60 years ago. But the Warsaw Pact, the Soviet Union’s “anti-NATO” alliance of socialist countries, was dissolved in 1991; communism imploded the same year, with Russia caught ever since in a struggle to build a market economy and define a new global position for itself.
在此次会议上，最重要的问题并没有被讨论，那就是北约和俄罗斯的关系问题。北约是60年前为了抵抗苏联而成立的。作为苏联对抗北约的社会主义军事联盟“华沙条约组织”早在1991年就已经解散。以此同时，共产政权也土崩瓦解，俄罗斯开始拥抱市场经济，并开始重新寻找自己的定位。