It isn't American military power alone that worries Russia's generals, it's the fear that American military power could empower Russia's people to challenge the Russian state:
What the generals and the Kremlin are really scared of, though, is ordinary Russians. They are afraid their own people will knife them in the back if the U.S. tries regime change.
The author makes a mistake in taking Kremlin boasts about the quality of their weapons and military at face value.
So I do think they fear our military rather than feel they have the threat we could theoretically (but in practice we have zero interest in invading Russia) pose checked. But the Russians are correct to worry that in their growing dictatorship that their own people will tire of being repressed, poor, and expected to be distracted by glorious "victories" abroad against Russia's enemies (but don't mention the Chinese!).
The Russian leadership in the military and the Kremlin could end that supposed threat from Russia's people by being less of a-holes to their own people, but instead the Russians decide to also be a-holes to NATO and America in particular (and also Sweden and Finland), in addition to attacking Georgia and Ukraine.
I am really puzzled that the Russian leadership is worried about the loyalties of their subjects even though after 1991 most non-Russians once in the USSR are no longer part of their country; yet the solution is to get buffer zones of non-Russians to protect Holy Mother Russia? How does that even make sense in their paranoid world view?
And if the Russian generals and the Kremlin are worried now about the loyalty of Russians, just wait until their people discover just how badly Putin is effing things up royally.
But perhaps that is why Russia wants to build the Berlin Cyber Wall around their country. Can't have people finding out from "wild" foreign news sources about how Putin is sabotaging Holy Mother Russia, eh? Given Russian paranoia, how long would it take for a lot of people to think Putin is part of a foreign plot?
#WhyRussiaCan'tHaveNiceThings
