Just to make matters interesting...

Looking back, the resurgence of Russia as an active menace should not have been surprising. The country had a long history of autocratic rulers and the people in some ways preferred them. They liked the status and power that came with rulers like Putin. Putin was really an unreconstructed Communist. He would have liked to reconstitute the Soviet Union, at least the borders and the status as world power. All that was percolating alongside the American presidential campaign in the late summer of 2008.