The difference between Russia and the US is that Russia will learn from their mistakes—the US just doubles down.
No, the problem here is that America does learn from our mistakes. We get better at things and our weakness is in assuming that they don’t need constant improvement. They do.
In Russia it is impossible to learn from mistakes because the act of pointing out a mistake is immediately labeled anti-Russian treason. Thus no one challenges the various orthodoxies of Russian institutions. People tend not to like getting shot thus they keep their silence.
See, you can’t learn from a mistake until you admit you made one.