Of course we can take the high ground. The Soviet Union you're talking about was a mass murdering criminal regime. Russia today is still a KGB/FSB state, with a super majority of its government posts and major industries under the direct control of former or current members of the intelligence service that has a long history of committing mass murder, that has cheated on every arms treaty it has ever signed, including on their nuclear missiles--which is why Trump left the INF treaty.
If the Russkies don't want us posting troops in Turkey or Germany or Poland, then they should stop obviously preparing for WW3, and should stop arming and supporting every communist and totalitarian regime on planet Earth from China and North Korea all the way to Iran and Cuba and Venezuela.
Trump left the INF Treaty to give us the ability to deal with the real threat, China. If the treaty existed, we couldn’t base short range theater nukes on our island bases and in Korea and Japan.
Try to keep up.
Germany is likely to not allow US troops to help stop an invasion of Poland and the Baltics to protect themselves from nuclear attack. Same goes for the French.