I agree - I wrote an article last year showing how in his own words, rebuilding the USSR had always been Putin's plan. That, and the fact that Russia had been a world power for so long and then disintegrated was crushing to the Russian psyche, and of course they long for the days when they were a world power instead of having a GDP lower than Italy's.

But my point is, if we'd reached out in a timely fashion with something akin to the Marshall Plan, Putin may never have taken power at all.