"The only differences I see now is that the surrogates du jour are the Radical Islamist and their Jihad on the world and the fact that the Communists went broke because of Communism. That, however, did not slake their thirst for power and control. It just caused them to adopt another ruse."
I wouldn't put too much on thinking that Radical Islam is their surrogate du jour. If they think so or if they were truly involved they've released the equivalent of a biological weapon, i.e, a weapon that has a habit of biting you in the butt after you've launched it.
Communism (Marxism) was destined to go broke because it was a fool's ideology. However, don't discount Ronald Reagan's contribution to speeding up the death of that system.
Modern day Russia is basically this: Laments loosing the "Empire" part of the Soviet Union, but NOT the communist part, the GULag part, the stagnation, the oppression and repression. Frankly, they miss their "Tsarist" empire. They're still fairly new at getting used to NOT being a real world power, so they appear to try to fight at a higher weight class than they should. They've incorrectly wagered that the US is too bogged down in Iraq and won't counter moves to our detriment.
We lost a lot of ground during the Clinton years and there has been a mixed message coming out of the current Administration on Russia. Time to refocus.