I agree with your comments.
I will say that people tend to lean towards the area that offers them the most potential.
The United States has failed to reveal the potential of the West to improve the lives of Russians.
IMO, it’s that simple.
We don’t need to go overboard. We can move in that direction reasonably and calculatedly, but it helps nobody for Russia and the United States (and the greater ‘West’) to have friction, unless the diabolical China.
Bush should have held summits with Putin. We should pursue it once we have someone with an IQ over that of a nine year old in the White House again.
Yes, there is room for more peaceable relations between the two countries, but we should always be wary of them. In fact, be wary of everyone.