My understanding of Mearsheimer is that he says the Russian people feel betrayed. That they feel their country suffered the highest losses during WWII, much hig

My understanding of Mearsheimer is that he says the Russian people feel betrayed. That they feel their country suffered the highest losses during WWII, much higher than those of the other allied countries. And that the Russians were cheated again after 1989 about NATO not expanding. I’m not even sure he is saying Russia is so powerful, or they we shouldn’t underestimate their strength. Only that we shouldn’t underestimate their resolve: That, from their point of view, NATO expansion is an existential threat. And that this interpretation of the Russian point of view made the Ukraine invasion predictable, whereas the other interpretations did not. Demonstrating, as this article seems to be doing, that Russia is, in fact, not that powerful, and actually also didn’t influence the outcome of WWII as much as people think, did not really address those points.