>> sabre-rattling coming, frankly, largely from the West

Uh, the Western democracies have started to do wars in Europe for territory? :-)

After Soviet fell, the NATO forces (and the neutral countries) in Europe melted away; the US/Canadian units in Germany went home and so on. This changed after Russia started to rebuild and do wars.

Edit: This was about the new "sabre rattling". Long, long after the Balkan horrible tragedies. (And I'd really argue if the "West" rattled any sabers there, but it isn't relevant anyway.)