On the contrary, I think that the Russians have been doing a *very* good job at relations (they /did/ warn us about the Boston bombers) considering the bunch that we have in high office. — Given the patience they’ve shown, I have no problem “playing nice” with them. (Besides, we have enough enemies w/o going out of our way to make more.)
i agree that we dont give them much to work with (obama, hillary, kerry) but they have never had any intention of being friendly with the west after the soviet collapse. one area we do share a common threat is islamic extremists however, russians are historically paranoid of the west and get great pleasure out of tweaking us whenever the opportunity presents itself. To name a few issues: Missle defense, Iran, Syria, Snowden, European gas pipleines. its clear their interests are not the same as are interests and that is fine. We arent trying to make them enemies, they do that all by themselves. But, my point was the idea that simply caving to them on missle defense and they would jump in our camp was sophmoric. that was our first gesture back when the “reset” stuff started if you recall.