Submitted by Michael Snyder via The End Of The American Dream blog,

Russians view the United States much more unfavorably today than they did during the end of the Cold War era. As you will read about below, an astounding 81 percent of all Russians now view the United States negatively, and only 13 percent have a positive opinion of this country. In all of the years when Russians have been surveyed on their attitudes toward the U.S., they have never been this negative. But of course Americans generally do not view the Russian people unfavorably.

So why is this happening? Well, it all comes down to the actions of the Obama administration. The Russian people are convinced that U.S. organizations organized, funded and armed the rebels that violently overthrew the democratically-elected Ukrainian government. And once it was overthrown, the Obama administration immediately recognized the rebels as the legitimate government of Ukraine. And now most Russians are convinced that the U.S. government is trying to promote a similar revolution inside Russia. In recent years, the Russian people have become increasingly nationalistic, and at this point they view U.S. meddling in their affairs as a direct threat to their way of life. Even while most Americans are extremely apathetic about what is going on over in Russia, an increasingly large chunk of the Russian population is angry enough to go to war.

Anti-American sentiment inside Russia has grown so strong that even the mainstream media is starting to report on it. For example, the following quote comes from a recent article in the Washington Post…

Thought the Soviet Union was anti-American? Try today’s Russia. After a year in which furious rhetoric has been pumped across Russian airwaves, anger toward the United States is at its worst since opinion polls began tracking it. From ordinary street vendors all the way up to the Kremlin, a wave of anti-U.S. bile has swept the country, surpassing any time since the Stalin era, observers say.

For the recent survey that I mentioned above, Russians were asked this question: “What is your general attitude toward the United States?”

81 percent of Russians responded negatively, and only 13 percent had a positive response.

That is the most negative that Russians have been toward the U.S. since polling began back in 1988.

And this could potentially be just the beginning.

For a moment, I want you to imagine a scenario. I want you to imagine how the U.S. government and the U.S. population would respond if the Russians organized, funded and armed rebels that overthrew the Canadian government. And then imagine how the U.S. government and the U.S. population would respond if the Russians started shipping heavy military vehicles and sophisticated military equipment to those rebels after they had established a new pro-Russian government.

I can just see it now – people everywhere would be screaming “Red Dawn” and warning of imminent war with Russia.

Well, the truth is that Ukraine is Russia’s most important neighbor, and the two nations have ties that go back for thousands of years.

When we meddled in Ukraine, we poked Russia right in the eye, and now we have a very angry Russian bear to deal with.

For much more on how angry Russians are at this moment, please see my previous article entitled “This Is How Much Russians Hate America“.

And if Barack Obama decides to start sending heavy military vehicles and equipment to the government in Kiev, that is going to escalate things to a completely new level.

If you do not think that could happen, you should consider what the Washington Post is reporting…

President Obama said Monday that he is considering providing Ukraine with lethal weapons to defend the country against Russian aggression if diplomatic options fail.

Of course it is not just Obama that is thinking this way. In fact, there is lots of pressure on Obama from both sides of the aisle to arm the Ukrainians…

The pressure on Obama from the Republicans, but also from his own political camp, is intense. Should the ceasefire in eastern Ukraine not hold, it will likely be difficult to continue refusing Kiev’s requests for shipments of so-called “defensive weapons.” And that would represent a dramatic escalation of the crisis. Moscow has already begun issuing threats in anticipation of such deliveries. “Any weapons deliveries to Kiev will escalate the tensions and would unhinge European security,” Nikolai Patrushev, secretary of Russia’s national security council, told the Russian newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda on Wednesday.

In the end, I believe that this is going to happen. And when it does, all hell is likely to break loose.

If you believe that cooler heads will somehow prevail, you should consider what is already happening. At this point, U.S. tanks and military vehicles have already rolled into Latvia…

Latvia has confirmed more than 120 armored units, including tanks, have been delivered by the US. According to the Latvian Ministry of Defense, these include M1A2 Abrams tanks and M2A3 Bradley armored vehicles. The move to deploy yet more tanks and armored vehicles was welcomed by Latvian Minister of Defense Raymond Vejonis.“The presence of our allies (US and NATO) in Latvia is a confirmation of solidarity and security in the region,” Vejonis said in a statement on Twitter.

How would we feel if Russian tanks were rolling into northern Mexico?

And many in Europe seem to be quite hawkish these days as well. For instance, the president of the European commission says that an EU army is needed to deal with the potential Russian threat…

The European Union needs its own army to help address the problem that it is not “taken entirely seriously” as an international force, the president of the European commission has said. Jean-Claude Juncker said such a move would help the EU to persuade Russia that it was serious about defending its values in the face of the threat posed by Moscow.

All of this posturing could ultimately lead to something far worse than the Cold War.

If we keep pushing Russia, we could someday end up with a real war on our hands.

But don’t just take my word for it. Just consider the following excerpt from a recent article by Stephen Lendman…

Ukraine is ground zero. Ongoing conflict risks the unthinkable – direct US confrontation with Russia risking nuclear war. Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev warned Ukraine’s conflict could “unavoidably lead to a nuclear war..” Nuclear arms expert Steven Starr warned about things headed recklessly toward this possibility. Nuclear expert Helen Caldicott believes US/Russian confrontation risks nuclear war. Things today are more dangerous than any previous time in the post-WW II period. Former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark said “(n)othing is more dangerous than the aggressive US/NATO troop movements right on the borders of Russia.”

To most Americans, the threat of nuclear war with Russia is a joke. Most people in this country believe that it could never possibly happen.

But an increasing number of experts are starting to wake up and realize that if we stay on this road that it could be a very real possibility. For example, author Daniel Estulin had some very interesting things to say during one recent interview…

The United States and its European allies are seeking to overthrow the Russian government by escalating the confrontation with Moscow up to the “threshold of a thermonuclear war,” an author in Madrid says. US President Barack Obama is orchestrating a regime change to topple Russian President Vladimir Putin, said Daniel Estulin, author of The True Story of the Bilderberg Group. The US and Britain have “reactivated a policy of threatening tactical nuclear warfare against Russia and China to force them to submit to the crumbling transatlantic financial empire,” Estulin said during a phone interview with Press TV on Wednesday. “That submission will not happen, however, as the Russian leadership has repeatedly made clear,” he added.

For much more on a potential war with Russia, please see my previous article entitled “While Obama Guts The U.S. Military, Russia Prepares For War“.

But before a shooting war happens, Russia will attempt to use other means at their disposal to hurt us if we start shipping military equipment to the government in Ukraine.

So let us hope that does not happen.

If the Obama administration backs off, things may have a chance to cool down.

However, if the Obama administration publicly announces that we will be arming the new Ukrainian government, that will be an absolutely critical moment for U.S.-Russian relations. Once that happens, there will be no turning back.