soo, just to chime in, i get your whole point, and i agree with you. i’m just gonna propose another explanation why the other user behaves like a tankie:

• the collapse of the sovjet union scarred many people psychologically. in its core, the sovjet union was a noble project with a bad execution, and it’s like, if you’re working for something, and can’t accept that it fails. it’s like the love of your life leaves you or sth, some people never get over it. some of these people then think that it was because of america’s constant military threats etc that made the sovjet union fail. anyways, these people then end up thinking “well, if we had more military power, then we’d have been successful”. and that drives them to become tankies.

meanwhile, the sovjet union failed for complex geopolitical reasons that had basically nothing to do with military power. so the tankies are wrong, but they’re wrong because they’re deeply hurt themselves, not because they’re inherently evil people.