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The US tried that in the 1990s, when they gave billions in aid to a country that had recently been an enemy, even as Yeltsin was shelling his parliament, supporting Serbia against NATO (as best Russia could at that point), and using the Russian army to occupy parts of sovereign countries next to Russia.
How much more should the West have given Russia in aid? And what fewer conditions should they have given on internal reform?
This might have been an option in 1945. By the 1990s, it was too late for Russia to say "We'll be good, honest."
If the U.S. was not acting as a hegemon against Russia, NATO would not have been helping Albania annex part of Serbia in the first place. (Ironically, in pretty much the same way Russia is now trying to annex parts of Ukraine but with less historical justification.)
Last I checked Kosovo wasn't part of Albania, it was a corrupt semi-independent disputed territory, and it's not semi-independent because of an Albanian invasion, but because the country it had been part of (yugoslavia)dissolved in a brutal civil war.
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That's the problem with partnership when you have different interests.
The 1990s window of opportunity for a US-Russia partnership is a myth. Yeltsin only stepped back from Russia's imperial role insofar as he had to do so to keep the lights on, the bread in stores, and the army from overthrowing him. Insofar as he could, he kept Russia powerful. Clinton and Bush were the same: they mostly supported Yeltsin insofar as either (a) it benefited the US's interests directly or (b) it indirectly helped the US by encouraging Russia to move towards a peaceful capitalist democracy.
That (b) failed was outside of anybody's hands by the 1990s, I think. Russia has ended up without democracy or peace, though there is certainly enough capitalism for Putin and the elite to get very rich.
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