re: Hypothesis
What we are seeing is a rewrite of history.
They did it to Saddam. He was a powerful and feared dictator. We were told our armies wouldn’t have a chance against his million man army. Now we are hearing that he was just a two bit toothless dictator, and we told you so the whole time.
But the USSR was harmless. Would have stayed within its boarders if the US was not around. That the US had nothing to do with keeping it in its borders. That is one hell of a historic rewrite.