The Russian-American relationship since the collapse of the USSR is a litany of lost opportunities and lack of vision. The latter is rooted in an ostensible "values gap" that has effectively cast relations with post-communist Russia into another a long succession of "strategies of containment," to use historian John Lewis Gaddis' classic phrase.

Change will not come until we stop thinking of Russia as the USSR, and treat Russian democracy with the respect it deserves, so that it can finally resume its rightful role as an integral part of the West. Sadly, it appears that the task of finally bringing Russia back into Europe will be left to future generations, less burdened by the memory of the Cold War.

Comments prior to 2007 are available at my web site archive: www.npetro.net/4.html.