Outlaw,

You missed the point. And that point is the importance of the word 'potential'. Since the nuances of history often escape you, I'm going to lay out in simple terms:

In 1991, there was the potential for Russian integration in the US-centric democratic-capitalist international model. This momentum actually carried through into the early years of the Putin administration as well. There was, as has now materialized, the potential also for an aspiritional nationalist-realist Russia as well. Unlike other states that experienced the 'shock therapy' of overnight transformation from command economies to free enterprise, the security institutions of Russia more or less remained intact even as the political institutions disappeared. And unsurprisingly, this institution collectively entrenched itself in the new way of doing business. They were helped in this matter because of the weakness of Yeltsin, who was like a tame and drunk Milosevic (remember, it was Yeltsin's agitation for an independent, nationalist Russia from the USSR that ended the possibilities of reforming or keeping the Union together the same way that Milosevic's Serbian nationalism destroyed Yugoslavia). In the early phases of the 'collapse', the full extent of it was not immediate evident. Initially, only the Baltic states wanted to exit the USSR, and the senior leaders in the other republics had planned to reform the Union Treaty and keep the rest of the state together. Between Yeltsin's agitation and the KGB coup attempt, that project failed.

Now, as I've explained to you before, the Soviet (and Russian Empire) state models were not based on the West's Westphalian model. An entirely different political tradition informs Russian political experience. That tradition is 'empire' - the domination of the periphery by the economic/political/military center. Historically, the 'center' was Moscow/St. Petersburg (the Russian core), with the periphery extending as far as Poland, Georgia, and Turkmenistan. Crimea for example had been a part of the Russian empire since the 1780s (that's over 200 years in case you didn't count).

So - that takes us to the continuity of history. When the Soviet Union collapsed and from it emerged 20+ new countries, this was not simply or only the end of a system of government or a particular state. It was also a rapid contraction of an empire that had stood for several centuries. When the state disappeared, the history did not, and neither did the embedded ideas and aspirations that were reinforced by that history. New systems, ways of thinking, and political relations were introduced. When one takes a long view of Russian history and also understands the historical Russian claim to great power status reaching as far back as Peter I, then yes, it is a 'humiliation'. It's like the host country of the World Cup failing miserably in competition.

And that takes us full circle to today. The risk aversion of states is affected by the difference(s) between their perceived and ascribed status. The Russian elite have for many centuries perceived Russia as a great power - the end of the USSR did not also end that perception; it offended it. Russia's ascribed status is no longer a superpower for all the reasons debated in this forum and elsewhere. It's that discrepency - the yearning to restore Russia's 'place' - that makes states less risk averse. And this has been evident in Russia's policies since Putin came to power. That's not surprising.

What's most interesting about state status, however, is that elites also tend to measure their current status with some mythologized height of power - in the Russian case, this would be the Soviet Union. So despite all the economic progress Russia has made between 1991 and 2014, it is still insufficient because it does not compare to how Russia's perceive the power and stability of the USSR (whatever the factual accuarcy of their perceptions). Now we can discuss all day long what you perceive to be the moral bankruptcy of Russia and Russians, but it won't do us any good in actually resolving the problem of a "revanchist, revisionist, disruptive" state.