"We had a lot to fear from the Soviet Union. We face no such threat from Russia."
I'm not so sure. In hindsight, I think we may have jointly hyper-ventalated ourselves into some ridiculous standoffs and imaginary threats. In the end, they didn't want to fight any more than we did. That's not to say that Stalin wasn't an a**hole to his people, but unfortunately, that's not our business.
Prior to the communist takeover, the United States and Russia were great friends. Hell, Buffalo Bill Cody even escorted the Russian prince on a wild west excursion. I think our peoples have a lot more in common than we don't, and I say again, it's idiotic that we're enemies.
The Soviets were attached to an ideology, effectively a religion, that made them by default enemies of everyone. That was a religious war.
The degree of hate vs everyone else everywhere in those years, held by the communist true believers in every nation and by the state apparatus of the communist states, is hard to understand here and now, but it existed and was a major factor.