The United States enjoyed a period of friendly relations with Russia in the first years following the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991. U.S. presidents George Bush and Bill Clinton engaged in productive summit meetings with Russian president Boris Yeltsin. The United States and its allies gave billions of dollars in loans and assistance to Russia as the onetime center of world communism sought to reform itself into a capitalist democracy. The United States also provided assistance to Russia to help dismantle its nuclear weapons. The governments of the United States and Russia successfully negotiated and signed the START II (Strategic Arms Reductions Talks) agreement in 1993, which called for both countries to significantly reduce their nuclear weapons arsenals. The two countries agreed in 1994 to “de-target” their nuclear missiles aimed at each other. Russia lent its...