I'm not sure the average Russian would have seen the situation much differently. Look at the people today who decry chinese investment in the US economy? I'm n

I'm not sure the average Russian would have seen the situation much differently. Look at the people today who decry chinese investment in the US economy? I'm not even saying those people are wrong. All it takes is for one person or group in the country to poke us enough to the point where we feel the need to strengthen our security posture there (read: add more troops) and then some terrible situation like Abu Ghraib completely destroys any credibility we have with the local population and it just spirals into disaster. I simply have no faith left in our government's ability to execute even a completely peaceful operation like the marshall plan (and similarly what we did in Japan).