The US needs Russia, cannot tackle China alone.

Lisa Dickey has been visiting Russia for over 30 years and has written about what she found during 3 visits, 10 years apart, in 1995, in 2005 and in 2015. At her first visit in 1995, four years after the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991, she found the country in a terrible state. The economy was in depression, the inflation rate was over 200% and the GDP was down 30%. The new Russian ruble introduced in January 1992 at 125 to the dollar, by December 1993 had fallen to 1,247 to the dollar. It fell to 5,960 to the dollar by 1998 and in August of that year Russia was forced to default on its debt of $40 billion. After World War II the US embarked on a plan to rebuild Europe, including Germany, at a cost of $12 billion to the US, famously known as the Marshall Plan. In the case of Russia, an ally during the war, as opposed to Germany, the US chose to mock the drunken antics of Boris Yeltsin and advised shock therapy which wiped out the savings of ordinary Russians and imposed severe hardship. When Yeltsin died in 2007 the Times magazine wrote that "in the US, Boris Yeltsin will be more fondly remembered as the man who turned the menacing Russian bear of Cold War fear-mongering into a warm and cuddly creature, supine, pitiable and willing to perform in exchange for scraps". Such contempt led to the rise of Vladimir Putin. When she visited in 1995 Dickey found Russians admiring the US but when she visited next in 2005 Russia had changed. High oil prices had improved the economy so that people had a much better lifestyle. The Russian economy was hit again in 2014 when western countries imposed sanctions on Russia. But this time Russia did not take it lying down. Instead it imposed its own sanctions on the European Union, causing losses of $100 billion Euros, and on US politicians. The collapse in the price of oil in 2008 and again in 2015 hurt the economy badly. It has hardened to $53 per barrel recently. However, Putin had a popularity rating of 82% in July 2016. People blamed the West instead. Probably with justification. The war in Ukraine, following an armed coup against an elected president, engineered by the West, has resulted in a de facto division of the country, with Russia recognizing rebel enclaves as independent republics. The same happened to Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which have become independent of Georgia. All calculations changed when Russia joined the war in Syria, decisively turning the advantage towards the regime of Bashar al-Assad. The new president of the US, Donald Trump is right to call for better relations with Moscow and Putin, as opposed to the slimy trickery of Obama. China and its allies, Pakistan and North Korea, are the biggest dangers to world peace and the US will need Russian support if there is a stand-off with China. Just as vilifying Russia was a mistake vilifying Trump is an equal mistake. Respect the bear, it may cuddle again.