Let's follow up on your logic: Given that Christianity was not Greece's first religion, why aren't Christians traitors to the cultural heritage? Most of what made Greece "Greece" happened well before Christianity took root there.
Suppose I am a Greek, DNA proves it, and I am proud of my heritage but my family never adopted what was then a new religion, Christianity. Why am I less Greek than you?

For the record, I am a Catholic and genetically Greeks are our closest relatives, but I am not Greek. And no, my family had nothing to do with the fourth crusade.

Yes, Greek atheists, Bhuddists, and Muslims are in fact less 'Greek' because they are turning their back on their own cultural heritage, and Greeks who adopt Islam are also traitors to their country, to God, and to their culture and heritage.

If you think I meant to say that 'Eastern Orthodox is "it"' because Greece is the cradle of civilisation, then perhaps you need to learn how to think coherently.

Take your insults and hateful personal attacks elsewhere.

and how did "Eastern Orthodox Religion" influence Plato, Archimedes and Aristotle? Are Greek atheists, Buddhists or Muslims less "Greek"? Nope. So stop trying to tie religion with Greek's past. The fact that Greece was the cradle of civilization does not mean that Eastern Orthodox is "it."

Good point.

I am not commenting on the probability of the outcome, but am considering the necessity from Russia's viewpoint on pursuing such a path.

Further, the New England establishmentarian and English psyches are reflexively and deeply anti-Russian; the continental Europeans not equally and inflexibly so.

Additionally, we are discussing a game playing out over the long-term.

Finally, what the many (small) European countries believe or believe not is utterly irrelevant because we live in a world where big power politics counts. Russia and Germany are the big and growing powers of continental Europe. The small countries will follow where they go, one way or another, should those two powers get fed up and tell the US to stop meddling and leave their continent.

I dont think EU states are going to fracture and join an alliance with as the European Psyche is historically anti- Russian perfect example is the European/US installation of communism in Russia. Also politicains in theses countries are members of globalist organisations like Council on Foreign Relations which is anti-Putin.

I won't claim that my guess is ironclad; it is a guess based on the interpretation of events and an application of strategic thinking.

I would think other reasons also drive the decision to provoke Russia, but I believe they are secondary. Yes, their is the "yankee" cultural reflexive anti-Orthodox sentiment. But there is also a reflexive anti-Catholic sentiment (certainly not as pronounced as the former, but it exists none-the-less).

And, yes, I agree that the oversized government and her contractors will always need boogey-men to slay in order to justify growth in numbers and spending, but why not stick to the more easily fabricated boogey-men that are in reality small to non-existent threats (say, North Korea, or the nebulous and ubiquitous "evil doers") rather than create an actual and powerful enemy (Russia) unless you have a real objective to accomplish other than the presence of a symbolic boogey-man?

No, it's not simply creating the illusory "other" in this case. Russia, with actual and potential capacity for economic growth, combined with an independent mode of thinking, represents a real and growing threat to global Anglo dominance. If continental Europe, particularly Germany, sways her way, the Washington-New York-London axis will be considerably diminished in their capcity to "call the shots". And this scares the snot out of the Anglo elites who control the spread of democracy and freedom (Anglospheric military hegemony), free-speech (Anglospheric media), and free trade (Anglospheric currency, trade and banking).

"In reducing Russia to a land-locked Muscovy from without and subverting it from within, “the West” is acting irrationally and to its own detriment. It appears like it cannot help doing so, as if Samuel Huntington’s notion of ‘civilizational blocks’ determines Western attitudes to the Orthodox East...
...their survival, let alone revival, was scarcely imagined but a decade ago, except on Western terms, as faithful imitation of, and absorption in, the postmodern, post-Christian, postnational “West.” "

This is the exact opposite of what Huntington advocated. Huntington says that the Orthodox world is different from the West, and attempts to assimilate it into the West is a Bad Idea. Conversely he's not against inter-civilizational cooperation, eg the West and Orthodox civilisations cooperating to help survive the Islamic threat. Huntington wants the West to act in its own self interest, which may mean cooperation or confrontation with other civilisations, depending on how aggressive and universalist they are. Currently the two aggressive & universalist civilisations are Islam and the West - but Islam is gaining power and the West is in relative decline, a bad position for a Western global jihad. Huntington wants the West to be more particularist, less universal, and more realistic.

Admittedly at one point in Clash of Civilisations he does say the West/USA should 'constrain China', which does not follow from his prior argument. His argument is Paleocon, but there are neocon/neoliberal influences that can make it unclear and have even allowed wild misperceptions, such as the idea that he believes in the West 'transforming' Islam, or Russia, or China. No, no, no.

"US government would like to corner Russia such that it is forced into a more aggressive stance vis-a-vis the US and western Europe. Why this is so is a key question..."

I'm afraid the answer is much less rational than the one you propose, bearing more resemblance to the hostile relations btwn Oceania, Eastasia, and Eurasia in Orwell's *1984*.

The American elite class needs the American people to see Russia -- or whoever -- as the enemy, so that it never occurs to the American people that their real enemy may reside a bit closer to home...