This week's stupid question on Meet the Press. Anyone with an IQ above room temperature knows that the answer is "Neither". Friends are countries like Britain or Canada, or Australia. The Russians aren't in that league and probably never will be. They don't speak our language, they are still "unhappy" about being demoted from world superpower to ordinary country, and they are still working out internal differences with Chechens and Uzbeks and others in ways that we find appalling.
Back in the cold war, they were foes. But the cold war has been over for twenty years, and there is no sign that the Russians want to start it up again. They have some serious policy differences with us over things like which side to back in Syria, NATO expansion, Georgia and some others. Their leader has sized up Obama as a large slow target and has enjoyed some zingers such as the Snowden affair.
But that doesn't make 'em foes. Unfriendly perhaps, but foe means the other side in a real war. I see no signs that the Russians want to have a real war with America.
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