What was it that Churchill said about Russia? No matter. It’s easiest to think of Russia as having a geopolitical case of penis envy. It has never gotten over the fact that the Soviet Union dissolved (for the most part).
I agree. I will say that handled with a lot more finesse, I think we could have brought Russia on board with the West. The U.S.S.R. fell and we ignored it. That was the wrong thing to do IMO. We didn’t have to let Russian leaders dictate Western policy, but we could have tossed them enough bones to let them have dignity.
When that school was attacked, we could have gone out of our way to express how much we identified with the Russian people in their time of sorrow. We let that moment pass without capitalizing on it the way we should have.
Old historic reasons aside, Russia does have a lot more in common with Eastern Europe than it does with China.
We could play up some of their domestic victories in WWII. There’s a lot we could do without giving Russia anything tangible, and the West could bump up trade too.
It’s a shame we haven’t capitalized on this more IMO.