PIF, you might say I spent most of my life involved in areas directly related to dealing with Russian, Chinese, Israeli, French, British, N. Korean, Japanese, any other foreign military or intelligence adversary. I was an airborne infantryman assigned to the 82d Abn Div at age 17. We trained several months a year on Soviet doctrine. I worked a year in the US Army Regional Studies Detachment in 97-98, a required masters degree level course a select few Special Operator’s in SOCOM. I retired from the foreign service 38 years after becoming a paratrooper.
One thing I know as a professional is the Russian army and Russian diplomacy.
You might drink the Biden kool-aid but not me, and I say that respectfully.
During the 60s:
Did you ever have a’ polite’ conversion in Russian with KGB agents?
Did you ever have to watch the clock when a certain Russian radar became active and count the next 15 seconds which you might live or might die?
Did you ever have to face 4 Russian Shock Armies and 35,000 tanks less than 12km away?
Did you ever have to listen, record, translate Russians dying, on the ground and in space?
Did you ever see people trying to cross from East Germany being machine gunned, torn apart by attack dogs?
Did you ever see the clean up of 20 Russia kids machine gunned for the ‘crime’ of listening to Western music?
Whatever you think you know, you don’t. Dealing with Russians directly is not a textbook exercise.
Soviet Doctrine - you trained; I lived it.
So presumably you knew how weak their military really was. Why didn't you ever blow the whistle on all of the fake stories about how powerful they were? Was your pension that important?