Russia is still aggressive and expansionist. It is still very dangerous. the more things change the more Russia stays the same(backwards). It is true that back in the days most major countries wanted to expand their borders and were frankly imperialist if that’s what you are getting at. The problem with your point is that virtually everyone has moved away from taking over other countries to expand their borders except Russia. They still cling to this and other outmoded concept and as such are dangerous and they are a threat to the rest of us.
We thought that with the fall of Communism Russia would not go back to their old ways. But they are still the same evil empire that they were in Ronald Reagan’s day. Most of us do not want to go back to that.
Amnesty, Jim — Russia’s problem is the “stab in the back myth”
Just as Germany surrendered in WWI without foreign troops on its soil, the Russian soviet empire collapsed without losing a military war.
Just as the ordinary German couldn’t understand the loss and that they had really lost but the generals were sparing them the hell of 1945, the ordinary Russians thought and think the same.
Germany needed a crushing to realize that war is not the only way to primacy, Russia unfortunately seems to need this to give up its imperialist mindset