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> I'm not sure England was able to project that kind of power that far inland for a lot of that time.

Yes, I thought about that too. Perhaps Friedman meant how Britain dealt with immediate competitors for naval dominance.

> The Holy Roman Empire, for example, was fairly close to Russia compared to England, and both sides of that deal had a vested interest in keeping England from interfering with their trade,

…That’s not how empires think. One part of feeling like you rule an empire is indulgence in the thought that your country is self-sufficient (even if it’s not possible in reality). And if you would lack something you would look into the memo:
 1) get angry;
 2) expand.
Charles V was an European. He’s grown up in the centre of Europe. Which means, in the clay pot with snakes. And that probably was what made him think of Ivan IV as no less dangerous ruler than himself or his immediate neighbours. And this was the mistake, because the mindset of Russian tzars was different. They were not surrounded with “quite similar and evil neighbours”, they were mentally on the stage when civilisation is fighting off outlanders. Mongols, Swedes, Livonians were all aliens. And “the like” were the principalities of feudal Rus, which eventually ended up with two contestants: Novgorod and Moscow, and Moscow thus absorbed everything that was “alike” to the Russian world. There was retained some similarity to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, but since 1200s the difference have got stronger, and after they sided with other western powers against Russia, there was less and less similarity with each century. Ivan IV seemed to be sincerely respecting Charles V and sought an alliance, because (among other reasons) “enemy of my enemy is my friend”, and the Ottomans posed a serious danger to both. But alas. Perhaps, Charles V followed Gracian’s advice and thought that one should better have people dependent on you rather than liking you.

> I think there's a lot of uncertainty in the continuity also: it seems like a stretch to draw a connection between England hundreds of years back and people setting foreign policy in the US nowadays, Clinton and Nuland.

What Friedman said, what he was pointing to, is that “the best way to defeat an enemy fleet is to not let it be built”. This sounds pretty much like common sense. Like “divide et impera” or the Gracian’s expression mentioned just above. If one western empire gets atop several others, or remains alone, would it seem improbable to inherit common ideas? If you were a large country and you had an entire fleet of warships able to control the oceans, what would you do with it? Certainly not selling it to India for scrap metal.

> I can see trying to contain Russian expansion (as trade with Europe is a bigger deal to the US than trade with Russia), but there's a lot of weird provocation that doesn't make a lot of sense.

Hm? Like what, for example?

> China's a bigger threat than Russia at present: Russia doesn't like the water, but China's started building aircraft carriers. A long way from Kissinger's strategy, these people right now seem more interested in antagonizing Russia

Ah, that’s what seems strange? Hmm, I have some ideas, pick any or all:
 - Russia is a pie (a large amount of resources), which, if divided and absorbed, may become the trump card in the forthcoming confrontation with China. 140 million people with nukes and city-sized arms factories. Also 1/6 of land with gas, oil, vast areas with common and rare minerals.
 - the West is sick of making business with Russia, because since the fall of Russian empire, the western investors got pwned twice: during the time when Soviets nationalised the factories and later when Putin got rid of Western owners, and presented free money-producing factories to his oligarchs.
 - centuries-old anti-propaganda that was portraying Russia as bad, wrong, savage, inferior, incapable, demonic and barely human – sans the short times when they were allied with Russia. Even if people understand, that what’s said about someone whom they did never see, it leaves an imprint in their attitude – in the absence of things that serve as a counterweight.
 - they’re just tired of playing pretend since the Cold war long ended, and somehow, Russia is still not subdued and raped by Procter & Gamble capital.
 - they actually think that Russia is easy to break (and then be theirs) that it’s almost defeated, and all they need to do is but make the last few pushes a little stronger. Press the attack.

> She looks familiar.
Hitomi Yoshizawa. *insert Yandex joke here*
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