The United States and the USSR defined and prioritized their identities based on what these nations believed to be the ultimate goal of the other, regardless of whether that vision was exact. This vision of collective security received a major shock and reformulation (and is still ongoing today) when, just before the fall of the Soviet Union, a Soviet diplomat declared to his American counterpart: "We (the (Soviet Union) are about to do a terrible thing to you, we are going to deprive you of an enemy (lipshutz). The question of who we are was asked again; Is the need for an enemy essential to the definition of a nation as a