The Russians, the terrorists, and NK - oh my. Everyone must hand over a very large chunk of your paycheck to the defense industry or they bad guys going to come get all of us in our sleep!
I'm not disagreeing that the paranoia around American<->Russian relations isn't massively overblown, but I think you underestimate the aspirations of the Russian ruling class, and the degree to which the working class would bend to those aspirations if called upon (forced to).