WI: US Has To Deal With A Continuing USSR

A great deal of Cold War fiction was the US having to actually deal with and be friends with the Soviet Union. And how great it would be that we'd mature to become friends and understand each other. That didn't pan out in the long term. For a short time in the 1980s and early 1990s, yes. But we basically declared victory with the collapse of the Soviet Union and never achieved introspection as the futurists assumed we'd certainly have to. I always felt this was rather sad and robbed us of that maturity.

What if we had to deal with a situation where the Reagan late 80s end of the Cold War occurred, but we had to continue dealing with a standing Soviet Union?
 
A great deal of Cold War fiction was the US having to actually deal with and be friends with the Soviet Union. And how great it would be that we'd mature to become friends and understand each other. That didn't pan out in the long term. For a short time in the 1980s and early 1990s, yes. But we basically declared victory with the collapse of the Soviet Union and never achieved introspection as the futurists assumed we'd certainly have to. I always felt this was rather sad and robbed us of that maturity.

What if we had to deal with a situation where the Reagan late 80s end of the Cold War occurred, but we had to continue dealing with a standing Soviet Union?

Given the degree of Cold War thinking even in OTL's 90s when Russia was absolutely out for the count and not a competitor anymore, I have serious doubts that the US could ever stop itself from fighting the Cold War so long as the USSR is a remotely functional state.

I could maybe see the US accepting a state of "coopetition" between them and the USSR where both states had strictly defined spheres of influence and mostly got along well (while still being deeply paranoid of each-other. The US political class actually seeing the USSR as a friend is not something I can ever see happening, unfortunately.

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