The aim of every Class A meglomaniac with global ambition.

The two most notable attempts, by Napoleon Bonaparte and Adolf Hitler, failed, although several hundred centuries earlier the Mongols successfully invaded (or rather "passed through") what would become Russia. Poland, Sweden, Germany, China, Japan and an International "anti-Bolshevic" Western Alliance have all invaded Russia with varying degrees of success/failure.

Why is invading Russia so popular?? It's the geo-strategic equivalent of squatting in an industrial fridge-freezer which is incidentally already occupied by a drunk Abominable Snowman.

Yet Russia is so suicidally seductive to the meglomaniac. It's like Mount Everest is to climbers, why invade Russia? Because it's there! It's big, and even if you fail you'll go down in the history books as a (mad)man of great ambition. In fact actually succeeding in conquering Russia would be a bit disheartening for the discerning maglomaniac: once conquered you couldn't really do much with it: the Russians would have ensured that they burnt down every last house, shed and tree, and slaughtered every horse, goat, chicken and grasshopper in the land. And then you've got to try and get Russia working!? No thank you!

I occasionally use the phrase "And Then We'll Invade Russia" to finish off the list of wild, unrealistic, immoral (but nevertheless fun) achievements I hope to complete with my partner-in-crime before our Russian-winter induced deaths.

Invasion of Russia became an even worse idea with the advent of nuclear weapons, and probably won't be invaded for a long time - well at least until the Bush Administration takes care of Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Libya, Saudi Arabia, France, etc, etc, first.