First, Russian bombers are drilling in Venezuela. Big deal. They'd be intercepted long before they reach the US. So, they aren't the threat of the missiles in Cuba. Let's not overreact to the situation.
Second, many here are evaluating the situation as if the Kremlin (be it occupied by the tsars, commissars, or Putin & Co.) is thinking along the same lines as Paris, London, Berlin, or even Rome. To me th basic characteristics of Americans are our optimism and our trust of our fellow man. On this point, I don't care if you're a God fearing Primitive Baptist preacher or a Earth loving mother in law of Karen and Beth. We all have these two characteristics in common if nothing else.
The cold hard fact is these aren't the basic characteristics of Russian culture pessimism and paranoia are. The basis of Kremlin actions since before the days of Ivan the Terrible has been paranoia. You'd think that way to if you had to deal with the ravenous wolves Moscow has been historically surrounded by: Mongols, Tartars, Turks, Swedes, Poles, Teutonic Knights, Germans, et. al.
Third, the Kremlin's paranoia leads it to a glacis mentality. Better Berlin gets destroyed than Warsaw, better Warsaw than Minsk, better Minsk than Moscow.
Fourth, Moscow has never stopped being the capital of the Russian Empire. Yes, the US has imperial tendencies. But they are spelled with a small "i" not a capital. One of its rules for How The World Operates is if a territory was under Russian sovereignty for any period of time, Moscow still gets to call the shots in that piece of geography. N.b the glacis principle.
Fifth as for the "defensive" nature of the anti-missile systems, the Russian missiles pointed at the US are located such that they go over the Arctic not over Poland. Further, the Russians have enough missiles in their inventory to overwhelm any systems put into Poland.
Now, do we worry about Moscow or Tehran?
