Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in December 1991, every U.S. president has entered office seeking to improve Washington’s relationship with Russia — and every single one of them has left that office years later having failed to accomplish the objective. Bill Clinton was once chummy with Boris Yeltsin until NATO expansion, U.S. airstrikes in Iraq and the wars in Bosnia and Kosovo grated on their personal chemistry. George W. Bush was doe-eyed when he looked at Vladimir Putin, only to learn after Russia’s invasion of Georgia that the ex-KGB agent wasn’t the genuine, democratic reformer he…
