Understanding the Russian mindset

I usually avoid posting here as I see far more intelligent people on this forum. Since you asked for conjecture... I'd recommend Caspian Report's video [1] first. Secondly, if we look at Cuban missile crisis, US had a strong reaction to missiles around them. I see the Russian reaction pretty similar. They do not want NATO expansion and they do not want missiles in Poland. [1] ▶ this video

>>Russia is wasting its time being an agitator. They could, with time, integrate with the west and coexist That's a fundamental failure to understand the Russian character, their geographic position, and their legitimate security concerns. Caspian Report's video on the subject has a few errors but is overall a good summary.[1] We've had bilateral military training exercises with the Russians in the past.[2] Their military used to be focused on the Caucasus and the largely-Islamic Chechen insurgency. They were restructuring their military towards a brigade-based organization to facilitate fighting those sorts of small wars. But they were faced with continual expansion of NATO eastwards, contrary to a tacit agreement (if not necessarily formalized) with the US. I think the straw that finally broke the back of Russian paranoia was the establishment of Anti-Ballistic Missile sites in Poland, to protect against non-existent Iranian missiles that would supposedly target Europe.[3] Things came to a head in 2007. [4] After that, the Russians began to re-align their military to discouraging another high-intensity war with the west -- in the past 250 years, all three of the existential threats to the Russian nation have been invasions from the west (Napoleon, WW1, WW2). All of that is why they eventually reconstituted the Guards Tank Army[5]. And all of that is why they are currently painted as an "agitator". [1] ▶ this video [2] link [3] link [4] link [5] link

That's never going to happen if Europe and Russia aren't allowed to integrate their economies further. Until they do, geography will dominate[1] and NATO and Russia will continue to press each other. 1. ▶ this video