Posted on 03/04/2014 12:14:33 AM PST by Jim Robinson
(Reuters) - With Russia's incursion into Ukraine reviving Cold War-style tensions, President Barack Obama is at risk of suffering a blow to his credibility at a time when he can least afford it: as he tries to convince voters to stick with his fellow Democrats in congressional elections that will help shape his legacy.
For five years, Obama has practiced a cautious approach to foreign policy crises, prizing sober diplomacy and the search for consensus over brinkmanship, in prolonged conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
But the deliberative style that Obama's team sees as a statesmanlike attitude in tune with Americans' war-weariness, was described as dithering in the crisis over Syria, where the United States long discussed military action without committing.
Facing his toughest test yet in Ukraine, Obama is once again finding himself portrayed as a weak leader, outmaneuvered by a wily, opportunistic Russian President Vladimir Putin intent on reviving the United States' nemesis.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
This assumes voters are rational and will remember this in November. Fat chance.
I have a question that involves cutting our Defense Forces and what is going on in Ukraine. Given our current reaction to what Russia is doing in Crimea, what would we do if simultaneously China started being provocative over the Islands that are in dispute between China and Japan?
Thanks for your correction.
I heard Dr Ben Carson speak last week and he said we must do two things. We must study a half hour each day and learn something new, and we must counter the media by talking among ourselves.
You struck two birds with one stone.
Wow we dodged a bullet in 2004!!! Could you imagine Lurch as POTUS? I know we are cycling the drain at this point but Kerry would have flushed the US 4 years faster!
Thank you JR and FR! If it weren’t for this website we wouldn’t have seen President Bush re-elected.
No problem. Obama would draw a red line and send them a sternly worded letter.
Livius nailed it, IMHO. What we are seeing on the part of 0bama and our soi-disant State Department isn't diplomacy, it's playground posturing for the adoring media. There might be another Nobel Peace Prize in this for 0bama merely doing nothing - that is, after all, what the first one was for. We seek in vain for any sign of consensus or any attempt to reach one with our allies, on a common approach to this problem. Short of that their efforts don't even rise to the status of Kabuki.
I see Putin is now backing the former Ukrainian president, which appears to me to be gasoline on the fire instead of water, but we'll see if he cares to try to pull it off. I suspect it's a negotiating point, but we'll see.
Thank you. :)
This appears to be real negotiations. Hopefully, tonight, both sides can share a local beer/some Russian Vodka and some good Caviar.
Great job.
Another great example of why all us should be monthly donors to Free Republic.
Often we get the real news hours or even days before the rest of America does.
If the troops in the Crimea are without insignia, then nobody should mind if we bomb them with B-52s out of Diego Garcia. Right?
Yo Reuoooters, Obama doesn’t have any legitimate creditability lose. He’s a joke in state capitals around the world.
Call me crazy....
Then someone in the chain of command better have some backbone.
I have no doubt about that. Your descriptions helped fill out the picture very well. They all had to know that anything might happen when they walked out there.
Maybe when whatever they make public in AZ is made public, that will inspire the mil. to do their duty and learn from Egypt.
Thanks..just getting back online....
Once the Ukraine Commander had his request for a “Joint Effort” to control the base..then he got what he went there for, ..and more...
It was tension filled as it was happening....but Putin really had to agree to that joint effort...since his guys had fired over their heads and they were unarmed.....
Not hard to figure Putin would agree, but when and on his terms.
Both the Ukraine Commander and Putin came out appearing the two nations can and will work this out between themselves...and thus the entire country just had a lesson in how it works.
BTW It was pretty exciting to be posting this happening before the news picked it up....we did the same thing with Egypt and had it going long before the news began reporting on it....FR Rocks!
BTTT
Depends on how intense the feeling is. If it's the kind of emotion expressed when one child says to another "I hate you" - no skin off Putin's nose. If Obama really hates Putin, and wants to take him down a peg, he can do so without a single GI ending up in a body bag. If Ukrainians are willing to fight, all Obama has to do is provide them with weaponry and training. The Russians will eventually fold. And Obama can say he did it without putting any GI's in harm's way.
The president of a country with the biggest economy in the world, and close to 50% of the entire planet's military spending, has tons of options at his disposal, well short of putting boots on the ground. It's not of question of will, since there's no real political or economic sacrifice involved (a few billion a year is a rounding error in political terms), but a question of inclination. If he does despise Putin, I bet he's waiting for the Russians to draw first blood before doing anything on the material aid front.
People are gonna be blindsided, but I have a feeling this is Putin's unwitting present to Obama for the 2014 mid-terms. In retrospect, people are gonna say Putin was idiotic to put his head in the noose, knowing that Ukraine can make possession of the Crimea too costly over years without any outside material help, and prohibitively expensive over months with outside material aid.
ping time test
Whomever draws first blood loses the PR war. It’s a phoney war until it isn’t. If Ukraine commits to war, Putin will back off. A bloodless victory is a political boon. A multi-year war where tens of thousands of Russian servicemen die, not so much.
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