It is difficult to see a stable, liberal Russian democracy that America can and should respect without either changing its borders or massively empowering its non-ethnic Russians and peripheral regions. That’s the sort of power and wealth transfer that usually takes civil war or unconditional surrender to achieve.
Like in the US and UK and Australia and New Zealand and Canada?
EDIT: RESPONSE TO BELLOW
Over 14% of Texans live in poverty, and moreover, "twenty-three percent of all persons in the Texas-Mexico border counties are living under the Federal Poverty Line, and 25 percent of persons in the border counties lack health insurance." [0]
[0] https://www.dshs.texas.gov/hiv-std-program/hiv-dashboard/tex...
On the peripheral front, absolutely. Texans and Alaskans are rich and powerful off their oil, and have the power to tell Washington to go screw itself in major respects. (Similar for Albertans.)
Ethnic tensions are more complex, and on this unexpectedly Putin represents the liberal front, but both American tribes and Canadian First Nations have more legal autonomy than e.g. Siberia. (Chechnya being an unfortunate model exception.)
In the end, China may succeed where America failed. Where America saw a potential democracy, Beijing sees a spigot of resources with a contained military with which Moscow cannot create trouble outside its own borders. That may be the least-worst solution for the time being.
EDIT: Yes, Texas isn’t a utopia. No, this isn’t evidence of Washington having an imperial relationship with Austin. There are disagreements, of course, but both sides can and do force the other to back down.
