The Cold War

Nato could have been abolished when the soviet union collapsed. But he then went on to say, but the united states would have continued to be powerful and have allies. Is there a plausible or helpful counterfactual history of the last 30 years in which russia's rise was avoided? I am very sceptical about the idea that this was about nato, because it conflates two processes. One, an unnecessary encouragement by america, in particular, of the spread of nato at the end of the cold war. It conflates that which was real with the fear of countries in eastern europe. They were vulnerable. Different fears, different countries, different degrees