The Wages Of Weakness
By Charles
Krauthammer, March 6, 2014, Washington Post
Vladimir
Putin is a lucky man. And he’s got three more years of luck to
come.
He
takes Crimea, and President Obama says it’s not in Russia’s
interest, not
even strategically clever.
Indeed, it’s a sign of weakness.
Really?
Crimea belonged to Moscow for 200 years. Russia annexed it 20 years
before Jeffersonacquired Louisiana. Lost it in the humiliation of the
1990s. Putin got it back in about three days without firing a shot.
Now
Russia looms over the rest of eastern and southern Ukraine. Putin can
take that anytime he wants — if he wants. He has already
destabilized the nationalist government in Kiev. Ukraine is now
truncated and on the life support of U.S.
and European money (much
of which — cash for gas — will end up in Putin’s treasury
anyway).
Obama
says Putin is on the wrong
side of history,
and Secretary of State John
Kerry says Putin’s
is “really 19th-century behavior in the 21st century.”
This
must mean that seeking national power, territory, dominion — the
driving impulse of nations since Thucydides — is obsolete. As if a
calendar change caused a revolution in human nature that transformed
the international arena from a Hobbesian struggle for power into a
gentleman’s club where violations of territorial integrity just
don’t happen.
“That
is not 21st-century, G-8, major-nation behavior,”says
Kerry.
Makes invasion sound like a breach of etiquette — like using the
wrong fork at a Beacon Hill dinner party.
How
to figure out Obama’s foreign policy? In his first
U.N. speech,
he says: “No one nation can or should try to dominate another
nation.” On what planet? Followed by the assertion that “alignments
of nations rooted in the cleavages of a long-gone Cold War” —
like NATO? — “make no sense in an interconnected world.”
Putin’s
more cynical advisers might have thought such adolescent universalism
to be a ruse. But Obama coupled these amazing words with even more
amazing actions.
(1)
Upon coming into office, he initiated the
famous “reset”
to undo the “drift” in relations that had occurred during the
George W. Bush years. But that drift was largely due to the freezing
of relations Bush
imposed after Russia’s invasion of Georgia. Obama undid that
pushback and wiped the slate clean — demanding nothing in return.
(2) Canceled
missile-defense agreementswith
Poland and the Czech Republic. Without even consulting them. A huge
concession to Putin’s threats — while again asking nothing in
return. And sending a message that, while Eastern Europe may think it
achieved post-Cold War independence, in reality it remains in play,
subject to Russian influence and interests.
(3)
In 2012, Obama assured Dmitry Medvedevthat he would be even
more flexible with
Putin on missile defense as soon as he got past the election.
(4) The
Syria debacle.
Obama painted himself into a corner on chemical weapons —
threatening to bomb and then backing down — and allowed Putin to
rescue him with a promise to get rid of Syria’s stockpiles. Obama
hailed this as a great win-win, when both knew — or did Obama
really not know? — that he had just conferred priceless legitimacy
on Bashar al-Assad and made Russia the major regional arbiter for the
first time in 40 years.
(5)
Obama keeps cutting defense spending. His latest budget will reduce
it to 3
percent of GDPby
2016 and cut
the army to
pre-Pearl Harbor size — just as Russia is rebuilding, as Iran is
going nuclear and as China announces yet another 12-plus
percent increase in military spending.
Puzzling.
There is no U.S. financial emergency, no budgetary collapse. Obama
declares an end to austerity — for every government department
except the military.
Can
Putin be faulted for believing that if he bites off Crimea and
threatens Kiev, Obama’s response will be minimal and his ability to
lead the Europeans even less so?
Would
Putin have lunged for Ukraine if he didn’t have such a clueless
adversary? No one can say for sure. But it certainly made Putin’s
decision easier.
Russia
will get kicked out of the G-8 — if Obama can get Angela Merkel to
go along. Big deal. Putin does care about financial sanctions,
but the
Europeans are already divided and
squabbling among themselves.
Next
weekend’s Crimean
referendum will
ask if it should be returned to Mother Russia. Can Putin refuse? He
can already see the history textbooks: Catherine the Great took
Crimea, Vlad (the Great?) won it back. Not bad for a 19th-century
man.
My
comments:
Here
we see Russia being aggressive as they will be when they, Iran
And a
federation of Islamic nations invade Israel
As
Ezekiel 38 describes and are DESTROYED.
Understand
the Scripture will be fulfilled exactly as IT IS WRITTEN.
A godless America has rendered itself morally impotent before the Living God.
Without God's Favor, America is Weak, Hopeless and Helpless.
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