Ish. How much do you know about the Russian cultural psyche?
I'm not disagreeing that the paranoia around American<->Russian relations isn't massively overblown, but I think you underestimate the aspirations of the Russian ruling class, and the degree to which the working class would bend to those aspirations if called upon (forced to).
I'm Bulgarian, I know a lot of Russians, I've been raised with the Russian culture during communism, and I've been living 16 years in California. Russia is a powerful country, but I think China is a much bigger threat to the US than Russia!
I'm not disagreeing that the paranoia around American<->Russian relations isn't massively overblown, but I think you underestimate the aspirations of the Russian ruling class, and the degree to which the working class would bend to those aspirations if called upon (forced to).