China has been a clear threat since the 1990s. The US utterly failed to recognise it as a strategic danger.
Russia could have been Westernised with a little more effort, and turned into an ally and partner. (Which is not to say it would have been easy, but it would have been possible.)
Instead Russia was neoliberalised, turned into a mafia economy with huge concentrations of wealth on top of raging poverty, and its imperial pretensions were tolerated for two decades.
Ukraine and Russia are both direct US foreign policy failures.
Sadly I think that's why nothing better happened to Russia; everybody was comfortable with having a strongman to deal with and oligarchs to take money from. Even to the extent of overlooking crimes like the Salisbury poisonings and the airliner shootdown. It's a common pattern in US partner states.
Most of the former USSR and Yugoslavian states have sought freedom, although there are questions about Serbia, Hungary and to a lesser extent Poland.
Russia could have been Westernised with a little more effort, and turned into an ally and partner. (Which is not to say it would have been easy, but it would have been possible.)
Instead Russia was neoliberalised, turned into a mafia economy with huge concentrations of wealth on top of raging poverty, and its imperial pretensions were tolerated for two decades.
Ukraine and Russia are both direct US foreign policy failures.