Most people would be somewhat bemused by the title of this editorial, as it seems to be wholly inaccurate but it really isn't. While Russia is still considered to be somewhat unfriendly to the United States and to the NATO nations in general, it's important to recall that we were allies with Russia during World War II, and in recent times we have joined together with Russia in space programs, in oil, and in automobiles. This certainly indicates at a minimum a begrudging respect between our two respective nations, but not any friendship. For our friendship, we need to turn the clock back to earlier times.
Previous to our revolutionary war, Russia and America traded goods and services, and when the revolutionary war came to America, Russia was a neutral, in which it could easily have aligned itself with Great Britain, but chose not to. When the war between the states occurred, our civil war, outside interests and outside countries took mainly a hands off approach, but behind the scenes, there were plenty of machinations involved which could have made this not just a civil war, but ultimately the first world war with worldwide implications.
For instance, when Great Britain's neutrality was openly challenged by the interception of the British ship the RMS Trent, in which two confederate diplomats were seized, Great Britain was within her rights to declare war against the United States for this violation of international law. Had this occurred, the Northern states would have been fighting a two-front war, to which the end result would have been quite questionable, ranging from its total defeat, to the vanquishing of both Great Britain and the south, to the splitting of America into a Northern and Southern America, or perhaps even the annexation of Canada from Great Britain, in exchange for relinquishing the southern states, to an outright international war with all sorts of different permutations and outcomes.
While there was vacillation from Great Britain in regards to maintaining their neutrality during our civil war, it was also a fact that France at that time was sure to follow Great Britain's lead, while on the other hand Russia was always stalwart in its support of the Northern cause during our civil war, in which Great Britain and France were well aware that Russia was a formidable enemy, capable of wreaking havoc on any nefarious designs that Great Britain might have on the United States in its time of civil war.
Russia, to their credit and to the Northerners delight, in 1863, sent one naval fleet to San Francisco, and another naval fleet to New York City, in which these squadrons remained in American waters for seven months, to which at the point of their departure, the civil war clearly favored a Union victory and a confederate defeat. How important, how critical, was Russia's influence on the outcome of our civil war, is something that is still debated today, but undoubtedly it is well worth thanking the Russians for.
To put the icing on the cake, in 1867, Secretary Seward, from the Lincoln administration, was successful in purchasing Alaska from Russia for $7.2 million its 586,000 square land miles, which later became the state of Alaska, that borders Canada, as well as being within 50 miles of Russia. Additionally, Alaska borders the Arctic Ocean, the Pacific Ocean, the Beaufort Sea, the Bering Sea, and the Gulf of Alaska, and is inundated with massive natural resources.