alt Hacker News>It worked quite well between France and Germany 50 years earlier.
France and Germany were democracies under the umbrella of the US rule acting as arbiter. It's disingenuous and even stupid, to argue an economic relationship with USSR and Putin's Russia as being the same thing.
Yes I agree it was naive. It is something people come up with, if they think everyone cares for their own population's best and "western" values. Yet that is an assumption we used to base a lot on and still do.
Did the US force France into it? I thought that it was an idea of the french government (Charles de Gaulle), while the population had much resentment, which only vanished after having successful business together. Germany hadn't much choice though. I don't think it would had lasting impact if it were decreed and not coming from the local population.
You could hope making Russia richer, could in them rather be rich then large, which is basically the deal we have with China, which is still an alien dictatorship.