Thank you for your well thought out response. I still think that there was no path to cooperation without a buy out. Even though both sides ostensibly were against the leaders of their opponents, Reagen would say were against the communist regime not the russians and kruschev would say they’re against the imperialist capitalists not the americans, how that was interpreted by the average person was just anti-american, anti-russian sentiment. In the 90s Russians either saw westerners as their cold war enemy or the carpet baggers looting their country.

The only way to win the Russians over would be a marshall plan like foreign aid package that would buy they’re loyalty. Stalin refused it in the 40s for ideological reasons but I doubt Yeltsin would turn down free money. It’s just that there was no political will in the west because there lingering antagonism towards Russia and the idea that liberal capitalism would solve all their problems. They will shell out huge sums for military aid for Ukraine, which again is justified, but if they had sent an equivalent sum to what we are sending now to Ukraine to Russia in the 90s I don’t think we’d be in this mess.