For those who want better relations between the United States and Russia, there are two very good articles that you should read. Providence: A Journal of Christianity & American Foreign Policy published a historical sketch of the religious roots of Vladimir Putin’s thinking and Russian politics. The article by Matt Gobush is available online as The Religious Sources of Russian Conduct. It is excellent. We can’t hope to understand Russia and Putin without understanding their self-conceptions, and it is critically important to understand the religious dimensions of these.
As Niall Ferguson points out about Henry Kissinger’s approach to foreign policy, the study of history is “a guide to the self-understanding of other states.