[Gay State Conservative]

...Putin, seeing that he is dealing with a pansy, miscalculated in thinking that since the man is weak, so are the Western institutions.

If we choose to be weak,we *are* weak.Europe has chosen to be weak for decades.*We* have chosen to be weak since November 2008.

[annalex]

Well, not quite. We are since 2008 at the junction where men who try to govern our foreign relations are weak, but there is still institutional inertia at the second and third tier that has strength left. For example, NATO has some adults in charge it seems. That was Putin’s miscalculation: he didn’t expect that.