I agree and it seems funny that 'intell' is often governed by what we want or not want to find. I remember when Patty Murray went to Iraq on a fact finding mission she was branded as being a traitor for supporting Saddam. Sometime intell. is based on telling people what they want to hear.

Russia went to war with Japan in 1905 and lost badly. The Czar was told no more wars but he got the country involved in WWI. That was his end and instead of continuing the fight against the Germans they fought themselves. In WWII they were again losing and without massive aid from the US they would have lost again. After the fall of the Soviet Union technicians went into the country to evaluate their equipment and many said it was pure shit. One made a comment, and we thought this was a super power!!? It is a huge country with half the population of the US. It is cold with few, if any, warm water ports. It's greatness only lies in it's ego and craziness of it's insane dictators.

@JackPedigo crazy dictators require the cooperation of a significant number of crazy citizens, Trump being proof that we escaped a similar fate and are not out of the woods yet. Russia is a huge country, but made up of many cultures. Just as Iraq and Libia needed heavy handed dictators to rule those separate cultures through fear, Russia with a Democratic government could easily fracture. Same with China. All countries have histories of warfare, both internal and external. External enemies are often used to avoid internal conflicts. I think that is much of what is going on now in Russia