WHATEVER Russia's motivation may have been, defensive or aggressive, the imposition of communist regimes in post war eastern Europe, and the attempted communist political takeovers of France and Italy which followed, evoked a defensive reaction that culminated in the creation of the North Atlantic Alliance in 1948-49.
Even though, through a political miscalculation, Ireland accidentally remained outside this alliance, the sense of imminent threat was felt as acutely here as elsewhere in western Europe.
Indeed, it was intensified here through the deep seated rejection of communism by the predominantly Roman Catholic population.
Soon after this, the victory of communist forces in China reinforced the threat thus generated.
For what appeared as a tightly knit communist duopoly, newly armed with nuclear weapons, was seen thence forward to control central Eurasia, from the Pacific Ocean to the Baltic and Black Seas.
The superficial ideological solidarity of this intimidating duopoly masked a fundamental faultline, however. This was, and remains, the Russo Chinese border, winding across half of Asia.
In the late 17th century the Manchus (a non Chinese people who from their homeland in the north east had recently conquered China) blocked Russia's Pacific coast expansion south of the 54th parallel and took control of Mongolia in the mid 18th century they extended their western frontier to include not only Sinkiang but also part of Central Asia, the south eastern corner of what is now Kazakhstan and half of Kyrgyzstan.
These areas were and remain predominantly Muslim and their population was restive under Chinese rule.
BETWEEN 1853 and 1881 the Russians moved into Central Asia, pushing the Chinese out of the corner they had occupied during the previous century, and forcing them to cede a huge area along the Pacific Coast running down to and beyond Vladivostok. This brought the Russians 800 miles south of the frontier fixed 170 years earlier.
Finally, between 1912 and 1921 Russia brought Mongolia into its sphere of influence and annexed a small part of it.
The three centuries old history of this disturbed frontier, together with the size and growth rate of China's population, and the emptiness of much of the Soviet China border, made it highly improbable that the solidarity of the post 1949 Eurasian communist empire would survive for long.
So it turned out. And for the past 40 years, despite both states being ruled by communist governments for most of this period, there have been tensions, occasionally frontier violence, between these two superpowers.
Not only Russia but also the two post Soviet Central Asian states of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan (parts of which were under Chinese control as recently as 150 years ago) undoubtedly fear China.
For all three are under populated compared with much of China. In the case of Siberia there is a drift of people back towards European Russia.
These states fear this demographic situation could evoke a westward population movement from China into their territories.
These fears may, of course, be unjustified, for there have been no signs of Chinese expansionism or aggression the Chinese government seems to have enough to do in developing the economy of its vast country, which houses one fifth of the world's population.
But history and geography are the most powerful and enduring long term determinants of relations between states. Beside these two factors, the attitudes and behaviour of particular governments often take second place in determining the course of events.
Now this deep seated Sino Russian tension may have more significance for us in Europe than we realise.
For in the long run and in view of the existence of a further potential threat to Russian security from Islamic fundamentalism along the southern borders of the former Soviet Union, this tension must draw Russia towards a new and closer relationship with Europe.
I tested this hypothesis recently by asking a Russian expert how he would rate the potential threats to Russia from the west, south and east.
Unhesitatingly he replied that the threat from the west was the least worrying that from the south was more so and that from the east was the most serious.
In this century, since they became aware of a potential eastern threat as a result of the sinking of their fleet by the Japanese at Tsushima in 1905, the Russians have been understandably concerned about the danger of having to fight on more than one front simultaneously.
And of the three potential threats, only one is capable of being resolved.
For a democratic and prosperous Europe could become a serious and reliable partner in a way that, from a Russian perspective, neither fundamentalist Islam nor massive China could ever become.
But for such a constructive partnership to develop, the United States and western Europe, through NATO, would have to deploy all their diplomatic skills.
For on the one hand the countries of eastern Europe are pressing for a NATO enlargement that would offer them a security they have never experienced, so far as Russia is concerned. And on the other hand Russian politics is highly unstable.
Thus the Russian economy is still in chaos and has yet to reach a point of recovery. The Russian army of 45 divisions is demoralised. Its half starved soldiers' pay is long overdue and its officers demoralised.
Such a political system and such an army are ill placed to assess rationally Russia's long term strategic interests and are bound to be highly sensitive to anything that might appear to them to be a threatening, expansionist NATO.
Until recently the west's response to this crucial challenge has been uncertain and ill judged. It seems to expect Russia to acquiesce in a new status quo in the creation of which it has had no part.
And western refusal to take seriously the somewhat crude Russian proposal for a pan European security pact based on the Organisation for Security and Co operation in Europe and including the creation of a European Security Council was unwise.
BUT there are signs of a serious western attempt to address the problem of creating, a genuine partnership with Russia.
In a seminal speech in Stuttgart eight weeks ago, the US Secretary of State, Mr Warren Christopher, offered Russia a formal "Charter" that would create between NATO and Russia standing arrangements for consultation and joint action, with the OSCE as an essential instrument.
The Russians, who are examining this proposal, will want to see the OSCE strengthened and are likely in this context to revert to their idea of a European Security Council.
All this is to be discussed between NATO, the countries of eastern and central Europe, and Russia at a NATO summit next year.
There is thus a possibility of a Europewide partnership evolving, in which Russia would participate equally, providing a zone of stability throughout western Eurasia similar to that which developed in western Europe after the last war and which now constitutes the European Union.
It is to be hoped that Irish non membership of NATO will not preclude our constructive participation in what may become the ultimate guarantee of peace in the part of the world in which we live.
In the meantime the Partnership for Peace, of which we could be the tardiest member, will continue to provide the framework within which mutual trust can develop, for example through joint military exercises involving Europe's largest state together with the remainder of our continent.