People don't realize that all these "evil" states that are around are given their power by the US/NATO serving as a unifying boogie man. Russia has power with non-western countries because western foreign policy has been horrible over the hundreds of years. If you're really anti-russia, you also have to be anti-NATO. I do not like what I know about Russia, but they're only truly powerful as the counter end to NATO. If NATO disappeared overnight, Russia would become less powerful, not more powerful. It's like the second Americans left Afghanistan, the Taliban is already starting to show cracks.