I seem to remember seeing Khrushchev saying something about "We will bury you", in regards to the United States, quite a few years back. This was later proven to be a fear based ideology,(the russians were fearful of a first strike by the United States) and he actually leaned away from the hard line communist stance (see: secret speech, Nikita Khrushchev)
Are you implying that we "appeased" the Soviet Union for four decades, by negotiating directly with its' leadership base? That is tantamount to what you are describing.
Sequence of events has newly-elected Kennedy going to meet Khrushchev in one of those 'no pre-condition scenarios--in June, 1961 at Vienna.
When Kennedy thought he was being accommodating, Khrushchev thought he was being weak. He pocketed rhetorical concessions by Kennedy and demanded more. Afterward, Kennedy called it “the roughest thing in my life.” Kennedy adviser George Ball later said that Khrushchev had perceived Kennedy as “young and weak,” and Kennedy confidant Gen. Maxwell Taylor thought Khrushchev concluded he could “shove this young man around.” Vienna was the backdrop for Soviet assertion in the Cold War flash points to come.
linkWithin months the Berlin wall went up, a year after that, the Soviets put missiles in Cuba, an escalation that should never have happened.
