In a sane world, US foreign policy in the wake of the Soviet collapse would have been deeply concerned with ensuring Russia was stable, but instead, we elected arguably the most corrupt, greedy President in US history, and his main concern was how to steal as much Russian wealth as possible.
But, even then, once Putin took charge, we should have done things like, oh, i don't know, not accuse Russia of stealing our 2016 election and installing a puppet government, daily beating the drums of war because some Washington faggots were mad that their turn at the trough got cut short.
I am hardly Putin's #1 defender here, but seems like ever since HW left office, Washington has been determined to make the absolute dumbest possible choices it could make in any given situation. And I'm not saying Gulf War I was brilliant, just that it wasn't as stupid as humanly possible, which has been the operating strategy for 30 years now.