Posted on 03/09/2014 1:14:30 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
The Obama administration's Russian reset, designed by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, was premised on the idea of Russia as a partner with the United States. Hand in hand, the former rivals would address the major international crises of the day. This initiative will be remembered as one of the biggest foreign policy follies of the modern era — a staggeringly naïve exercise in appeasement that emboldened Moscow at Washington's expense.
From Damascus to Tehran to Kiev, the Russians have been running rings around a U.S. presidency that believes “leading from behind” is a serious strategy, rather than a policy of surrender.
There can be no doubt that Russian President Vladimir Putin, a man schooled in the Soviet-era KGB, sees Barack Obama as a figure of considerable weakness. With a vacuum of leadership on the world stage, Moscow has gotten its way over Syria, propping up the brutal regime of Bashar al-Assad.
The Kremlin has also successfully enticed the United States to enter into futile, direct negotiations with Tehran over its nuclear program. This buys the mullahs valuable time to advance their nuclear ambitions while building their long-range missile capability.
And now Mr. Putin is massing his forces on the border of Ukraine, threatening the new government in Kiev, convinced that the free world is too weak to stand in his way. Thousands of his soldiers are already on the ground inside the Crimea, a de facto occupying army, hiding under the guise of pro-Russian “self-defense” forces.
In many respects this is a defining moment for the free world in the 21st century and for American leadership in particular. There are those who say this isn't the West's fight, that we have no vital interests at stake. They are wrong. Ukraine is at the heart of Europe, bordering four NATO member states. Its 50 million inhabitants share an aspiration to be part of the West.
Allowing Russian tanks to roll into the Crimea with impunity will set an extremely dangerous precedent. Moscow will feel emboldened to enter into other parts of its “near abroad,” intervening under the pretext of protecting ethnic Russians. The Baltic States, with their large Russian-speaking minorities, could be next.
This is no time for a deer-in-the-headlights response from the White House. The world's superpower must do all it can to warn Russia against an invasion of Ukraine, while bolstering NATO allies in the region.
It is simply not enough to merely talk about expelling Moscow from the G8 — a group that is little more than a glorified talking shop. It would be far more effective to announce the withdrawal of the United States from the New START Treaty. Signed by the Obama administration in 2010, this fundamentally flawed pact hampers Washington's ability to deploy an effective global missile defense system.
Simultaneously, Washington, as it says it will, should implement targeted sanctions against any Russian officials implicated in aggression against Ukraine, including the freezing of financial assets and the imposition of wide-ranging visa bans. Further, it must be prepared to enforce the Magnitsky Act, passed by Congress in 2012, which restricts travel to the United States for Russian officials implicated in human rights violations.
Additionally, the United States must rally key European allies, including Britain and Germany, to implement similar sanctions against Russia. Such sanctions will hit hard among the Russian elites surrounding Vladimir Putin, many of whom conduct business in the major Western capitals.
But sanctions against Moscow must be coupled with robust support for NATO allies in proximity to Russia and Ukraine. Washington must reassure our NATO allies that their security is guaranteed and the United States should deploy additional military assets to the region to warn Moscow against any expansionist ambitions into NATO territory.
Additionally, U.S. restrictions on the export of liquefied natural gas to NATO partners in Eastern Europe should be eased. This would reduce their energy dependence on Russia.
Barack Obama is clearly no Ronald Reagan but he should take a page from the Gipper's playbook on global leadership. To be respected on the world stage and exert real influence, the United States must be prepared to stand up to tyrannical regimes that seek to bully those around them while threatening international peace.
President Reagan, together with Margaret Thatcher, brought down the might of the Soviet Empire through a policy of strength and unwavering support for the principles of liberty. The enemies of freedom must be confronted if the free world is to be secure in the 21st century.
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Nile Gardiner is director of the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom at The Heritage Foundation and a former aide to Lady Thatcher.
Clinto defined this? “......Russia as a partner with the United States. Hand in hand, the former rivals would address the major international crises of the day”.....
“Hand in hand” alright. Russia invades Ukraine and odumbo send troops to “resist”, or is that “assist” them? Not a lot more being said about that by the MSM.
Sorry, but Saddam Hussein was not a benign dictator and you are really wrong to try to use that term in any way to describe him.
Sorry if that bothers you, but that’s the truth. The Middle East is “a wretched hive of scum and villainy,” as Obi-Wan Kenobi once said, and among all of the ruthless villains over there Saddam Hussein was far from the worst.
You have some kind of revisionist history to back up your claim that Saddam Hussein was a benign dictator?
How about the aggressive invasion of Kuwait? How about gasing his own people with chemical weapons? How about the mass-murder of millions of his own people? Saddam Hussein was an evil dictator of the worst kind. He fed his enemies children into plastic shredding machines while the parents watched. He had rape rooms and torture rooms. The guy was just plain evil and a terrible human being. For you to say that he was a ‘benign dictator’ really shows your ignorance.
As for what Putin thinks, this link, I believe hits on it pretty well and explains some of the possibilities to concern ourselves with. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2014/03/02/how-putins-worldview-may-be-shaping-his-response-in-crimea/
I’ve decided that Mr. Alberta’s child is, as you say, a revisionist of the worst type. To fit his weird worldview, he ignores facts and changes them too. As he sees it, Putin’s a victim. As most people see it, Russia is a victim of Putin.
You’re the second person today who thinks the EU and NATO are the same thing. When people do that type of sloppy writing, I find it difficult to continue to read their profundities, especially if they’re a Putinista.
Victoria Nuland did not mention NATO in her recent speech.
She mentioned “European Aspirations”.
$5 billion American taxpayer dollars for European Aspirations.
Thanks for the replies. I can understand not liking Putin. I can also understand the respect he gets from others on FR. Putin is a strong leader something people here crave in our politicians.
It’s the Middle East, and as long as you have tribal governance that kind of thing will never end. Get used to it, or stop listening to the news.
Thus the West collectively made a terrible mistake at the NATO summit in April 2008 by not placing Ukraine (and Georgia) on a clear path to NATO membership. Had we done so, the question of EU economic relations would doubtless have been more easily resolved. Ambiguity over Ukraine, leaving it in a no man’s land between Russia and NATO, obviously didn’t lead to Ukrainian stability, domestically or internationally. And the same vital question for Kiev’s citizens abides: Is their future with the West or Moscow?
--- John Bolton, Los Angeles Times Op-Ed, 12/3/13
This isn't some academic figure writing from an ivory tower on a university campus somewhere. Bolton is a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and was a key foreign policy figure in the Bush administration.
None of this should come as any surprise to anyone who has been following these people over the years. The expansion of NATO has been one of the biggest priorities of the "neo-conservative" movement in the U.S. government for years.
She also said “F... the EU.” Sounds good to me.
Yes, she said that, after the mention that the UN chief Ban Ki-Moon was going to appoint a UN ambassador to enter the mix.
This was said in the sense that EU efforts were not getting enough results quickly enough.
Results, that is, towards getting Ukraine to join the EU.
Nuland and Pyatt also discussed which Ukrainian leaders should be in the new Ukrainian government and which should not.
Clearly the US Department of State is setting up the government that it wants in Ukraine.
The EU was not taking advantage of the situation because they are weak on Russia and dependent on Russian energy. The only reason Ukrainians even want to be in the EU is because they want to be better friends with the USA.
EU membership will help them join NATO. Russia’s imperialist aggression only justifies NATO’s expansion.
So the Ukrainian people want to join NATO ?
Dating a woman his own age? He's a disgrace to former athletes everywhere.
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