The Russians have been invaded with disasterous consequences many times. WWII was one of those. Stalin had appeased Hitler for quite a while hoping to avoid a war.

After WWII they were faced with American troops and weapons on their borders. The set up a series of Eastern European satellites to keep them at least that far away. Their ground forces were enormous, and while they naturally had an offensive capacity the purpose was primarily defensive. It's true they made mischief around the world politically, as did the US.

And then they became far more worried about the Chinese than the US.

When nuclear weapons and delivery systems came along they realized the only defense was to be able to match the offense. So they did that.

Their surface navy, a powerful navy being necessary for any large-scale offensive war, was pathetic. No aircraft carriers to speak of, for instance, and no fighters able to operate from carriers against other fighters.

Conservative argue this point, but the Cold War was mostly optional, and enriched the military-industrial complex Eisenhower warned about and which warning we didn't heed.

Arf