Comment by autoexec
16 days ago
> Regarding Russia, nobody really cared at all till it was absolutely impossible to ignore.
Regarding Russia, people have cared since the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917. The fear of communism and concerns about Russia grew until the red scare in the 1920s, through the cold war, and continues to do this day. There has never been a single point in your life when "nobody really cared at all" about Russia.
America's concerns over Russia died down a lot from what it was after the collapse of the USSR but never really went away. That said, if Putin hadn't been doing his best to fan the flames America would probably still be focused on the middle east as their new favorite boogeyman.
People were wary of Russia as an aggressive imperialist state both before and after Russia was communist.
Fear of communism is almost an orthogonal issue, and it has more to do with fear of insurrection and revolution.