I think they understand it all too well. It is just that for 30 years, from 1991 till 2021, there was no country that was strong enough to not get rolled over by the US war machine, or the threat thereof.

In 30 years, an entire generation of state department employees has come and gone. There are VERY few who remember what it was like to have to practice détante. It is a foreign term now (no pun intended).

It is very difficult to get real negotiations going with Russia, China and soon BRICS+ when for the last 30 years the definition of US negotation equaled the US setting terms.

You can see this over and over again in Ukraine, where the US proposes a position that is clearly a non-starter (i.e. "We can negotiate after Russia returns all troops to the 1991 borders").

The world is multipolar. We will continue to live (or not) in a very dangerous world until the US accepts that peacefully. I don't see that day coming anytime soon.