Old enough to have lived through every event you referenced.
We were not terrified and the Soviet Union ultimately dissolved faced with the expense of keeping up with us.
Soviet Union was much stronger with the resources and men of the slave started of Eastern Europe.
Exactly why those nations don’t want Russia to return, they were slaves.
Only an idiot would let Russia retake that empire and threaten Western Europe.
Once again, the Soviet Union had an EMPIRE and a huge army and navy. They didn’t dare get into war with the West. They collapsed and didn’t fight us. The general’s coup against Yeltsin failed, we supported Yeltsin and they didn’t attack us.
Putin attacked because Biden stepped out of the way.
I tend to question your honesty or sanity if you lived through the Cold War and weren’t terrified. Only an idiotic megalomaniac would slaughter his own people in an unwinnable war. Like Hitler in his bunker or Tojo watching the inferno envelope the entirety of Japan, death to millions before we dishonor our ruling strongmen. No one is “letting” Russia do anything. The point is, short of an American nuclear strike no one can stop them. Remember the “that’s Lt. Col. Vindman to you!/corrupt US State Dept./NSC/American Democrat Party Ukrainian shit show we saw on parade in the “impeachment”. Those leeches were overturning governments and using the Ukraine as a steal as you go bank. The thing that ticks me off about running Biden’s new batch of corrupt scum out of Ukraine, they’ll bring their talents back to DC for you and me. Putin attacked because Trump and the Bakken Oil Fields were no longer in play. Had Putin tried this with Trump, Trump would have destroyed Putin and the Russian economy with a flood of Dakota oil.