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Even if Russia and China disliked each other as much as, say, India and China (an immense long shot), Russia isn’t sacrificing millions of men, the entire Eastern third of their country, all their power in Central Asia and unfathomable amounts of treasure on some bullshit crusade against the CCP at America’s behest lmao. Ironically there’s nothing more neocon ‘game theory’ than trying to play CK2 or Civilization in real life and thinking the US can bait Russia into fighting WW3 for us.
Making peace with China is easier, more desirable and more in America’s interests than making peace with Russia.
You're totally right, but it isn't like the US would need them to be at war. They'd just need them to be mildly hostile to each other, to the point that they'd be more willing to work with the US than their immediate, border-sharing neighbour. There isn't even a need to go to war with China in this case - they'd be too economically dependent. If you made sure the US didn't ship their entire manufacturing industry to China in the 90s as well, the differential in capacity would be so massive conflict just wouldn't even need to happen.
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