When the Soviet Union collapsed, their leader was Gorbachev - by Soviet standards a peaceful man who was not willing to get as violent as would have been necessary to hold the country together. When the Soviet Union collapsed, our leader was Reagan's successor, G. H. W. Bush, a man they respected because they had respected Reagan. War was not an option.
Today, their leader is Putin, a strong man with (for now) high popularity and respect in Russia. Today, our government's leader is Barack Obama, the weakest, most anti-American threat in our country's history. Russia's decision on war will be based exclusively on Russian interests; any interference by the United States is certain to be ineffective. Objective circumstances matter, and those circumstances don't get more extreme than our current leadership crisis.
The Lithuanians might beg to differ on that.
I was a shortwave radio enthusiast back in the day, and I remember in the last days of the Soviet Union, Radio Moscow was desperate for money and basically loaned their airwaves to anyone who would pay.
I remember some real weird religious cult had a show on Radio Moscow, some guy in broken English saying something about the “Divine Truth.”
Well, it turned out, that “cult” was Aum Shinrikyo, who was responsible for the deadly Sarin attack in the Tokyo subway a few years later.
Yep. Hence my two year old tag line.
Recent situation has no analogy with 1980s.
First of all there isn’t any ideological confrontation between the West and Russia this time unless you count gay, abortion, pot and minor religious and cultural issues as such.
Reagan had his reasons to push harder and try unconventional approaches to a Cold War which was already in process for decades.
Obama and the rest of American political class has not such reason to restart this war in a hot form.
The only reasons why it happens right now are out of proportion narcissism of current American leader, his habit to see foreign policy as an extension of domestic and solving any problem by rules for radicals as he did since Chicago community organizing. Combined with senile section of Cold Warriors in Congress who still has a secret hidden dream to pull a major Cong’s trick it creates potentially the most dangerous international situation since late 1930s for NO GOOD REASON at all.
I believe Snowden was an embarrassment for a regime but it is illegal in Russia to extradite asylum seekers.
Gay and lesbian issues are important for Obama but he is not a Russian leader to be involved in Russian LGBT issues.
Syria was another embarrassment and had a potential to become an all-out catastrophe but it is not Russian tradition to betray allies.
Obama went ape after the last thing because it made him look like a pussy in face of Saudis who did the bidding.
People here say Russia is an empire but does it lecture US to violate American law to extradite known terrorists who did more damage than Snowden but still harbored only to bring things like Boston bombing? Does Russia lecture US on cultural issues? Has Russia demanded America to stop supporting Saudis based on their human right violations, like Obama demand Russia on Syria to give way to his fellow murdering terrorists?
Maybe it is Obama who are imperor, not a Russian leader?
Do you really think his ago worth such an escalation?
Russia is not only Putin after all. There are responsible middle class which is mostly Pro-Western and cares more about economy than politics, but there are a set of demons, including communists, nationalists and the same senile Cold Warrior cohort seeing a thermonuclear war in their wet dreams.
Needless to say that economy war doesn’t help the middle class which is shrinking giving way to said demons.
Putin is barely a major factor here. He might try to run on the wave or step down or be overthrown - does it really matter?
Do you want to have a Russian version of John McCain on top there, supported by Russian version of local russophobic posters, who believe they have the reason to hate all things American?