Sick thought: what if John Birch was right?

[Wounded Bear]

9. There are threads that run through Russian history...

that still ring true in many ways, especially concerning their relations with Western Europe, and by extension the US.

They have always been a bit jealous of the West, and have always wanted to be thought of as a "great power." Certainly, there is fear embedded in there, too. They still remember the German invasions of WWI and II, and fought the reunification of Germany until the bitter end. In their minds, NATO and the EU are the new manifestation of Western threat to their power.

Layer all that over with the current basically criminal gangster mentality and this is what you get.