Airstrip One
Completely Effed
JFK was involved in a chess match that involved nightmarish stakes. Yes, the Soviets were hesitant to use their nukes but tensions between the two countries were amped-up to the point the prospect of nuclear war was quite real.
I prefer not to make that mistake with Putin. Especially, not over some half-baked theory about 'Russians stealing an election'. Or that *he might* do this or that thing in the Baltics or whatever.
We have plenty on our plate with NK---who have actually threatened to nuke us. The Iranians are threatening to start WWIII in the Middle East. Radical Islam.
Russia? Give me a break. The last thing we need is to go looking for enemies when we already have as many as we can handle.
We don't have to go looking for Russia to be our enemy - Russia is our enemy, whether you care to acknowledge it or not. Russia is also substantially more dangerous than either NK or Iran. Physically, Iran can only harm us by destabilizing the region and thus hurting us economically. NK can at least hit the west coast, although that is still largely theoretical, still.
Obviously, radical Islam remains our primary enemy. It's not as dangerous as Russia, China, or NK, but it's obviously engaged in hostilities against us, and has no sense of rational self-interest to deter itself.
