Throughout 2022, implied or explicit Russian military threats to Europe by Russian politicians or media figures have become so common as to be almost ubiquitous. In many ways, this is a continuation of long historical pattern dating back to the cold war, when much of Western Europe lived in fear that, at any moment, the Soviet army may come storming West with a phalanx of metal and manpower. For many European leaders, the assumption long was that only the USA could serve as a meaningful counterbalance to the Soviet threat. Even with the end of the cold war, NATO wargames and academic papers alike have often modeled scenarios where Russian forces maul NATO opponents, occupying the Baltic States or Poland in short order, demanding an American response.