> The revolutions in Georgia and Ukraine of 2004-5 fed Putin’s “dark paranoia” that the Kremlin was threatened by a western plot to topple his regime. The Kremlin has subsequently revelled in escalating conflicts with the western powers as a marker of Russia’s newly regained stature on the world stage.

The US has spent a generation pushing first the Soviets, then Russia, back into a very tightly confined sphere of influence. There is no obvious limit to the amount of harm the US has been wishing on Russian interests.

It is a remarkably cycloptic perspective call such fears 'paranoid' or to paint Russia as some sort of aggressor. Russia isn't the one with military bases set up in North America. Russia isn't cutting people off from the global trade network or invading every other country in Western Asia. They are a relatively neutral country on the world stage in terms of aggressive foreign posture, even accounting for this article.