I'm sort of joking about Putin. But he is rather an archetype of Russian nationalism, no?

For maybe a couple decades, it seemed possible that the Cold War was over. But I guess that was an illusion.

It doesn't help that we (the US) continued to improve our weapons systems - both offensive and defensive - as if the Cold War were still going on.

Which is sort of my point.

I couldn't tell from what you wrote what you regarded as the source of the illusion.

Since you earlier pointed to Putin's grudges, I thought you meant that Russia's new weapons development programs (post-2000) broke the illusion.

Sorry to be unclear.

When the USSR collapsed, the US could have been gracious. Although there was some show of that, overall the US was aggressive, vindictive and disrespectful toward Russia. From what I've read, Yeltsin took it very hard, and drank himself to death.

And then his protégé Putin came to power. Whose family had died during the siege of Leningrad, and who had watched his mentor drink himself to death.

At that point, Cold War II was ~unavoidable.