Think of the timing of all of this. Springtime: Take Crimea. Early summer: Shoot down a passenger plane to distract all the hand wringers. Late summer: Invade eastern Ukraine. Fall: publish some bullshit history of the region you are now occupying.
Mix in some cyber bank hacking and a little support for ISIS to keep everyone busy, just for good measure.
Then a full two years of Obama's term left to make yourself comfortable, perhaps wrangling back a Baltic country or two, or slipping into Poland to have a look around.
And no one to stop you.
There will be people to stop him, NATO. Currently the 600 paratroopers from the 173rd Airborne are in Poland, and they will soon be replaced a combat unit from the 1st Cav.
BRUSSELS — The head of NATO said new bases in Eastern Europe will be built to counter potential conflict with Russia.
Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said the NATO summit next week in Cardiff, Wales, would overcome divisions within the 28-nation mutual security organization and establish opportunities to deploy troops and equipment near the Russian border.
Poland and the three Baltic countries formerly part of the Soviet Union — Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia — have been especially vocal about the anxiety as a potential target for Russian involvement, in light of Russia’s recent annexation of Crimea, and its perceived role in helping militants in Ukraine’s breakaway eastern provinces.
According to Rasmussen:
“We will adopt what we call a readiness action plan with the aim to be able to act swiftly in this completely new security environment in Europe. We have something already called the NATO response force whose purpose is to be able to be deployed rapidly if needed. Now it’s our intention to develop what I would call a spearhead within that response force at very, very, high readiness. In order to be able to provide such rapid reinforcements you also need some reception facilities in host nations. So it will involve the pre-positioning of supplies, of equipment, preparation of infrastructure, bases, headquarters. The bottom line is you will in the future see a more visible NATO presence in the east.”