Watching Jack Cafferty on CNN taking emails on China and Russia having joint mil exercises. Most are highly alarmist, such as "worst case possible!"

A strange calculus: Russia's military collapses and is barely left standing after the Soviet Union falls (remembering that's the country that lost the Cold War). When it exercises with the PLA, the Russians come away deeply unimpressed.

This 2 + 2 = maybe 2.7 on a good day, and this is the worst case possible?