Of course that's a ridiculous comparison given current tensions, but you're assuming that Russia and the USA / NATO somehow have to be enemies by definition and the rest of your argument follows from that. Why would a Russia-Mexico alliance need to be scary? Why would a USA-Ukraine alliance need to be scary? Hey, can't we have Entire-Northern-Hemisphere alliance?
Of course this is not currently realistic, and I'm not actually suggesting all our leaders just hug and be friends. But the only reason that I can see that things are like this is because just about everybody, all the policymakers as well as friendly internet commenters like yourselves, just assume it has to be like this. That makes it sort of a self-fulfilling cycle. Russia and America have a cold war because they have a cold war.
There are plenty of countries in NATO that are about as undemocratic as Russia, or less culturally similar to the founding NATO countries than Russia. If Turkey can be in NATO, why can't Russia? Renaming "NATO" should be the blocker, right. Momentum is the only reason that I can see why these two sides need to be sides.
Really, I don't see why we need to be enemies other than ego tripping politicians doing a penis size contest.
But I'm probably missing something.