For all its faults, Europe is still better than the U.S. (where I have lived my whole life). I have no doubt that a more unified, independent Europe (with or without Russia) would be a good thing for the world.

To my mind, one of the great questions of history is this: Why has Russia, at least in the modern era, never been comfortable with itself as a nation? It has always been a strange, confusing land that as a nation-state has been sure it must be a great power even though the only sources of power it ever had were lots of land and people. Then came WWII and it roused itself to great military heights, which it used to impose itself on eastern Europe, but it still lacked the broader, deeper development that is necessary to sustain a military establishment of that kind. Then it got nuclear weapons. That gave it the power to threaten the entire world, but with little power to act intermediately beyond its (vast) immediate neighborhood.

Today as ever, Russia has enough power to be a threat to peace on a large scale, but not enough to impose itself on hardly any nation, much less all of Europe. Could Russia precipitate a full-scale European war? Yes. Could Russia possibly win such a war? No.

Yet, Putin insists Russia should be treated as a 'Great Power'. That is Russia, as always.

I'm not saying Russia should be bullied and like it. I'm saying Russia should accept what it is: a huge nation of moderate power (other than its nuclear capacity) for asserting itself in the world.