“Used to be” is not “is”. The USSR was an ally. As everyone is pointing out here, there’s no going back. Given that, and as much as I preferred the old order, we have only forward to go.

If there were a path back, there’d be a point. But in this discussion, everything has already happened. There’s not much point in saying “if you hadn’t”. Well, Trump did. Having done what he did, nothing to do now but to go full bore.

Now that we are on a war footing, potentially with our erstwhile allies who have no interest in renewing the alliance given present conditions, the only path to preserve US control is aggression.