How the US needlessly alienates Russia

Most Americans have forgotten the fact, but the first government to offer assistance to America after 9/11 was not Britain or France or Germany or even kindly Sweden. It was Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Moscow’s reward for this support has been to see its interests ignored at every turn. Slowly over the last seven years, relations with Moscow have been poisoned with a new push for NATO expansion, recognition of Kosovo’s independence, and the plan to deploy missile defense installations in central Europe. To the extent that Moscow is now engaging in Great Gamesmanship with Washington over influence in Central Asia, it is a function of a needless rivalry that Washington has stoked.

From Daniel Larison.