>>63862339>I mean the Big Bad Enemy faction really SHOULD be the PRC but they still want the Chinks' money, so Russia is still being written like what we thought the Soviet Union was before the wall fell.Yeah this is kind of where we ended up. Back during the CW and then in the 90s, the USSR was at least still a plausibly capable serious enemy, peer in at least a few respects even if the US pulled firmly further and further ahead by the late 70s and 80s, and simultaneously back then it was also basically zero economic market since both sides economies were quite isolated. China also was still mostly a non-market.
Now Russia is a basket case and China is clearly the direct peer opponent, but unlike in the CW there isn't a big iron curtain between us, China is simultaneously a huge economic market/player even while being geopolitically hostile in many respects. But nobody else on the planet is plausibly a major opponent either in a "realistic" game, you have to bring in aliens or fantasy invasions or something. So Russia gets shoved into the role even as it loses any even vague veneer of plausibility due to how utter shit they are and getting worse.
