It seems to me that there are two different questions:
1. Do current events prove that Romney was right in 2012? I think you’ve effectively made the point they do not.
2. Was Romney right in 2012? As you point out, Romney wasn’t predicting anything like the current invasion of Ukraine (or even the earlier actions in Crimea and eastern Ukraine) — but he was making a case that Russia was the US’s top geopolitical foe because Russia consistently sided with bad actors and US opponents. I don’t think failure to predict other Russian misbehaviour shows he was wrong in that assessment at the time! If anything, I think subsequent worse behaviour by Russia, whether or not specifically predicted by Romney, tends to show he was right to be concerned about the behaviour he did identify, and was more right than Obama and others dismissing the concerns as outdated cold war thinking.
It seems to me that there are two different questions:
1. Do current events prove that Romney was right in 2012? I think you’ve effectively made the point they do not.
2. Was Romney right in 2012? As you point out, Romney wasn’t predicting anything like the current invasion of Ukraine (or even the earlier actions in Crimea and eastern Ukraine) — but he was making a case that Russia was the US’s top geopolitical foe because Russia consistently sided with bad actors and US opponents. I don’t think failure to predict other Russian misbehaviour shows he was wrong in that assessment at the time! If anything, I think subsequent worse behaviour by Russia, whether or not specifically predicted by Romney, tends to show he was right to be concerned about the behaviour he did identify, and was more right than Obama and others dismissing the concerns as outdated cold war thinking.
I think a danger to what specifically would be helpful. It certainly is not vying for economic hegemony.