The intensity of Americans' conviction of their nation's exceptionalism has led the US to grossly misinterpret - sometimes deliberately - the causative factors of key events of the past two centuries. Accordingly, the wrong conclusions have been derived, and very wrong lessons learned. Nowhere has this been more manifest than in American military thought and its actual application of military power. Time after time the American military has failed to match lofty declarations about its superiority, producing instead a mediocre record of military accomplishments. This book illustrates the extent to which Russian economic, military and cultural realities and power are no longer what American "elites" think they are by addressing Russia's new and elevated capacities in the areas of traditional warfare as well as cyberwarfare and space. -- From back cover.