The collapse of the Soviet Union was gleefully welcomed by the US and its allies in the European Union while the small states looked at it with trepidations. They thought that the security threat posed to the European countries by the Soviet Union was over. The Russian Federation under Boris Yeltsin would play the second fiddle to the US in the world affairs. At the time, no analyst predicted the rise of Russia as a major player in the world power politics within a decade or so. The uni-polar world as it emerged after the collapse of the Soviet Union came to be dominated by the remaining sole superpower, the United States of America. Historically speaking, Russia has always been breathing over the neck of Europe. It has always been problematic for Europe with an overmastering ambition for grandeur and scarce resources – material, technological and political – to sustain its superpower status. It was particularly so during the past three centuries when the Tsarist Russia was rapidly expanding its territory annexing one after the other territory from Baltics to Caucasian and Central Asian regions, triggering a century-long Great Game. The Bolshevik Revolution in October 1918 that created the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics or USSR bringing Russia at a par with the US and creating a balance of power in international order was a cataclysmic event in the world power politics. This equilibrium in the past bi-polar order sustained world peace and security for over seven decades until 1990. In the beginning of the 20th century, Russia was the largest industrial power and the agricultural producer in Europe. But in terms of per capita gross domestic product, literacy and longevity, it stood far behind the United Kingdom, Germany and Japan. There are three recorded occasions when the Russians felt exalted as a nation. In 1700, Peter, the great, defeated King Charles X11 of Sweden reducing his country to a weak, insecure and satellite state and implanted the Russian power on the Baltic Sea posing a threat to the entire Europe. The victory proved a harbinger of the Russian influence and interest in the Baltic States. With minor twists of history, this Russian political and strategic interest in Baltics further deepened over a period of almost three centuries and continues to be so, even today. Though the Russian leaders have been long living with an obsessive and delusional ambition of grandeur, the country never had the capability of garnering the requisite elements of power – political, economic and military The Napoleonic wars wreaked havoc on European continent from the Mediterranean shores to the frozen steppes of Russian in the late 18th and the early 19th century. The French strong man spared no country in the European continent with his formidable forces humiliating armies, killing civilians and burning cities. Though made of flesh and blood, this ferocious warrior relished riding his horse and witnessing streams of human blood flowing under his hawkish gaze. As his Foreign Minister Talleyrand, had put it, “Napoleon was intoxicated with his victories and his power and rule over vast lands of Europe”. Napoleon himself had once remarked, “Ambition is never content even at the summit of greatness”. He suffered the pain of humiliation for the first time when his grand Army was defeated at Leipzig by the coalition forces in 1813 and within a year forced Emperor Napoleon to abdicate. He was sent packing to Elba. This place did not prove too strong to hold him for many days. He escaped from the prison within three months, recaptured power and prepared for a final showdown with his nemeses at Waterloo where, to his misfortune, a crushing defeat was awaiting him at the hands of a grand coalition force under the British warrior, the Duke of Willington. This war sealed his fate forever in 1815. The young and handsome Russian Emperor, Alexander First, was part of this coalition power. He had the unique privilege of leading the delegation of the victorious powers to the residential quarters of Emperor Napoleon and negotiating his honorable surrender with his wife, Josephine. This was the second occasion that the Russians genuinely felt proud of the grandeur of their country standing shoulder to shoulder with the British Kingdom. The third occasion in their history that the Russians could genuinely view as a grand moment of rejoice and pride followed from the defeat of the maniacal Hitler at the hands of Joseph Stalin in 1940 ending the Second World War in which 27 million innocent Russians had lost their lives, and bringing East Germany under the Russian suzerainty. This not only saved Europe from further destruction and bloodletting, it gave a freehand to the Russian leader to consolidate the Soviet Union. Gradually, the countries of the Eastern Europe including Poland, Hungary, Romania, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Ukraine and Belarus were turned into satellite states or Soviet Socialist Republics by threat of use of force. The small Baltic States of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania were annexed into the Soviet Union. This allowed Russians to emigrate and settle in the Eastern European, Caucasian, Central Asian and Baltic States enjoying power and pelf. This glorious period lasted for five decades before crumbling in 1990. Though the Russian leaders have been long living with an obsessive and delusional ambition of grandeur, the country never had the capability of garnering the requisite elements of power – political, economic and military- to achieve the coveted status of a secure superpower. It lost the war of Crimea in 1853-56 which upended the post Napoleon glory of the Russians. This triggered cross purpose intellectual, social, economic and political movements and brought enormous pressure on the Tsars for political and economic reforms. Russia also lost the Russian-Japanese war of 1905 and the First World War. These successive defeats weakened Russia enormously and caused widespread discontent among the masses shaking the imperial foundations of the country and expanding and strengthening the support base of the Bolsheviks. The Soviet Empire established by the Bolsheviks remained in constant contest with the Western world for over 7 decades keeping the European continent on tenterhooks. To be concluded The writer was a member of the Foreign Service of Pakistan and he has authored two books