My point is that Obama (and the EU) can make Putin's adventures extremely costly without doing much of anything. Obama doesn't want to confront Putin because he's really not interested in foreign policy entanglements. So he's decided to let Putin do whatever he wants. But he has the power to make Putin's life unbearable, the way *any* US president can, simply because of the size of the US economy.
But here's the thing - while we are whaling away at Obama, we also need to recognize that the US is not the only independent actor in this situation. The Ukrainians haven't exactly covered themselves in glory. If they can't work up the motivation to fight for what's theirs, how is that our (or the EU's) problem? We backed the Afghans against the Russians with billions of dollars in weaponry *after* they took fearful losses going up against superior Russian weaponry and training. The Afghans were the plucky underdog. The Ukrainians are certainly the underdog here, but plucky is not how I would describe their response to the annexation of the Crimea. In the long run, Ukraine needs to be responsible for its own territorial integrity. We don't need another military dependent added to the laundry list of former Warsaw Pact dependents tacked on a decade ago, all of which have been as useful in practical military terms as teats on a bull.
You didn’t read the article. This is a history lesson. Obama did not start this feckless foreign policy, he only doubled down on it.