Good point. I guess it should have read 'few forsaw the retrograde in the relationship.' What I mean was that, I think a lot of folks saw the Russian's internat

Good point. I guess it should have read 'few forsaw the retrograde in the relationship.' What I mean was that, I think a lot of folks saw the Russian's international ambitions as dwindling massively after the fall of the Soviet Union and that they'd focus on improving their domestic situation. I think most of us expected something akin to the decolonization that took place after WWII, which vastly dimished the power of old European powers.