Everyone needs to think of Putin as the modern equivalent of the Czar. Let me state the historically obvious the Czars were not democrats! If you look at history from our nations founding until now through most of that history we had cordial relations with Russia. This relationship was not based on any notions of “shared political values”. People would have laughed at you even you if hinted that was needed. The period of 1918 to the fall of the USSR should be viewed as an anomaly in our relations with Russia. We can and should go back to previous relationship. Nations don’t have “friends” they have periods of time where they have overlapping “national interests”. We need to stop anthropomorphizing the relations of nations.
There will be periods where our and Russia’s interest overlap there we should partner. Where they don’t we can compete or ignore. Yes there are places and problems in the world that we should ignore no matter how many pictures of massacres, starving women and children the media shoves into our living rooms.
Very well put, very accurate, concise, some of the best advice/opinion I have read here in a long time.