asserting, “I am convinced that there is nothing they admire so much

Yes, yes. It’s hard to not notice. There are 2 factors actually. One is good old habit of projection, as expected. It was there long ago, and it only gets worse. Especially among the mainstream of nu-Puritans (but the opposition on the level of Moon of Alabama is far from immune).

The other is complementary selection on the other side. Or perhaps self-selection. With whom (on the outside) are the puppeteers likely to deal the most? With their own puppets, plus opportunistic shoe-shiners and petty criminals. Duh. Which is surely a part of why the Brits got so high on their delusions of ubermenschness.

some of which then became part of the USSR, as it increasingly began to resemble the old Russian empire.

“Resemble” in what properties? I thought the widespread de-industrialization have started after USSR fell, huh. Especially in the Western parts. Or resemble the old Russian empire in being a glorified British resource colony?

In 1949, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was formed by an association of European and North American states, for the defense of Europe and the North Atlantic against the danger of Soviet aggression. In response, most of the Communist states of Europe—under Russian leadership—formed the Warsaw Pact in 1955, a treaty for military defense and mutual aid. The pact was supposed to be made of iron.

That’s just silly, as he would know if he have read “Inside the Soviet Army” by Viktor Suvorov, at least. He is comparing an actual mechanism with a dust cloak of a larger mechanism. One may argue which structure could be better for what purpose, since obviously neither was self-contained anyway, but talking about a decorative cover as if it was the important part in itself is, ah, not an evidence of keen analysis.

Since then the Russians have watched anxiously as NATO has crept steadily closer, incorporating countries that Russia claims it was promised would not be joining: the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland in 1999; Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, and Slovakia in 2004; and Albania in 2009. NATO says no such assurances were given.

With those three little words one instantly knows Tim Marshall’s disposition.

U.S. Secretary of State James Baker’s famous “not one inch eastward” assurance about NATO expansion in his meeting with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev on February 9, 1990, was part of a cascade of assurances about Soviet security given by Western leaders to Gorbachev and other Soviet officials throughout the process of German unification in 1990 and on into 1991, according to declassified U.S., Soviet, German, British and French documents posted today by the National Security Archive at George Washington University (http://nsarchive.gwu.edu).

The documents show that multiple national leaders were considering and rejecting Central and Eastern European membership in NATO as of early 1990 and through 1991, that discussions of NATO in the context of German unification negotiations in 1990 were not at all narrowly limited to the status of East German territory, and that subsequent Soviet and Russian complaints about being misled about NATO expansion were founded in written contemporaneous memcons and telcons at the highest levels.

The documents reinforce former CIA Director Robert Gates’s criticism of “pressing ahead with expansion of NATO eastward [in the 1990s], when Gorbachev and others were led to believe that wouldn’t happen.”[1] The key phrase, buttressed by the documents, is “led to believe.”

President George H.W. Bush had assured Gorbachev during the Malta summit in December 1989 that the U.S. would not take advantage (“I have not jumped up and down on the Berlin Wall”) of the revolutions in Eastern Europe to harm Soviet interests; but neither Bush nor Gorbachev at that point (or for that matter, West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl) expected so soon the collapse of East Germany or the speed of German unification.[2]

…

From: https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/russia-programs/2017-12-12/nato-expansion-what-gorbachev-heard-western-leaders-early

Simply put, the Russians were pwned by America’s vastly superior propaganda. Had they only had Jews in charge of that part of their state functionary, the Soviet Union may have survived unto the present day.