Europe is not threatened by Russia. It generally knows how to negotiate energy deals with it, even if it is done on a quasi-national-champion per quasi-national-champion basis (I'd note that no other practical alternative to negotiating with Gazprom has ever been proposed). It can cohabitate with it on most international issues.
Russia is the big bogeyman created by the militaro-industrial complex to generate the appearance of a need for US "protection." (Note: I'm not saying Russia is not authoritarian, just that it's not really dangerous to Europe. Relations with the "near abroad" (the FSU) are dominated by oligarchic issues as much as anything and Europe is better off not getting involved in issues it doesn't understand or care about). In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
Many in Eastern Europe would argue that security dependence on the US is no illusion, but brute fact in the face of Putin's reassertive Russia. Yet, as US Defense Secretary Robert Gates recently attested: "As someone who used to prepare estimates of Soviet military strength for several presidents, I can say that Russia's conventional military, although vastly improved since its nadir in the late 1990s, remains a shadow of its Soviet predecessor. And adverse demographic trends in Russia will likely keep those conventional forces in check."5 Even after recent major increases financed by surging energy prices, Russian defence spending is still significantly lower than that of the EU member states as a whole. In fact, even on the basis of purchasing power parity, last year's Russian defence budget was roughly equivalent to those of the UK and France combined. Europe as a whole continues to spend twice as much as Russia on defence.6
Whatever the details, the implication is that Russia is NOT a threat. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
On energy, we mostly need to get out of our insane current neolib policies to eliminate the notion of that energy threat (or reframe it as the larger threat of depletion to deal with it as such). In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
