Yeltsin/Putin seemed to have a legitimate desire to join NATO in the 90s/early 00s. Russia joining NATO would almost completely encircle China and allow the EU and US to station troops on the Chinese border. So it would have been a geopolitical masterstroke.
What is the explanation for why Russia didn't join NATO? Is it because China wasn't seen as a threat back then or is it simply cold war brainworms? Anyone have an explanation or readings on this?
The simple answer is that NATO is a tool for imperial hegemony and Russia was on the wrong side of that equation. Even simpler: the US would rather reserve the right to militarily oppose Russia than expand NATO to include it, i.e. it kept up the cold war strategy rather than more or less end the purpose of NATO.
If Russia were admitted to NATO in 1999, what would NATO organize around? Its whole purpose was to isolate and threaten the USSR and then, naturally, Russia. US military bases all over Europe, nukes distributed similarity, intelligence networks, financial tools, economic dependency.
Imagining for a moment that US state department folks were competent, it would've been easy for them to see and imagine where this could go: a draw-down of US influence in Europe because, you know, they won. War's over. Russia in NATO means there's no bad neighbor to point missiles at, that you can't do that anymore. Easy to see the risk of bases closing, nukes getting decommissioned, European countries demanding less spying, more autonomy in their economies, and rich trade with Russia.