Most of this country's weakened state is self-inflicted, from continuing on the same obsolete policy paths after the fall of the USSR. Once communism was proven to be the garbage that it is with the collapse of the Soviets, crippling it's ability to be an offensive threat, there was no longer any need to keep foreign economies propped up. The policies of free-trade which have undermined this nation should've been phased out.
Russia is only a threat so far as it provides tech & resources to China. Like Japan, I think they've figured out that the only way to avoid being eaten by the Dragon in the future is to be it's buddy, and eventually it's pet.
You don't have the slightest friggin idea what you're talking about, do you?
Did Communism Fake Its Own Death in 1991?
American Thinker ^ | January 16, 2010 | Jason McNew
In a bizarre 1984 book [New Lies for Old], ex-KGB Major Anatoliy Golitsyn predicted the liberalization of the Soviet Bloc and claimed that it would be a strategic deception. ..."
"Golitsyn's argument was that beginning in about 1960, the Soviet Union embarked on a strategy of massive long-range strategic deception which would span several decades and result in the destruction of Western capitalism and the erection of a communist world government."
"Golitsyn published his second book, The Perestroika Deception, after the Soviet Union was dissolved in 1991. This book contained further analysis of the liberalization, in addition to previously classified memoranda submitted by Golitsyn to the CIA. The two books must be read together to get a complete picture of Golitsyn's thesis."
http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/01/did_communism_fake_its_own_dea.html